e1usive

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Dec 22, 2011
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I bought a i3 bundled overclocked to 4.2ghz several months ago.

I've never BSOD or never had problems with stability, never altered anything removed touched or done anything to the CPU. I turned on my PC as usual today and I checked CPU-Z and it's running at a s[eed pf 1200 Mhz. No clue why when every day before this it said it's running at 4200mhz. I've tried restarting, choosing the Ocuk profile in the CMOS and it's already on the profile. The systems now running sluggish and I have no clue what to do.

2i20ow7.jpg


So that's far from the 4.2ghz. I've tried to do everything from load the ocuk profile to restarting but nothings working. It's moving from 12000mhz to 29000mhz.
10wmv5u.png

 

ulillillia

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Jul 10, 2011
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CPUs will downclock themselves to save power when not under load. Try opening up a video or run some program like a WAV to MP3 converter and you'll see that the clock returns to normal, going back down when done. If that's not the case, check your temps. If your temps get too high, the CPU will downclock itself to protect itself. If the temps are high (above 70C is when you should start getting concerned), then try reseating the heatsink/fan as it may have been slightly loosened. Check the fan too to see if it's spinning. I've overclocked my i7-2600K to 4 GHz and I regularly see it at 1.6 GHz when nothing is going on (typing is not demanding enough).
 

Thats what i originally thought, but his problem seems different.
 

OllieUK

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Oct 23, 2009
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The bus speed (bClock) looks stock for an i3. The chip should run up to a multiplier of 23x at stock so worth looking at what the maximum you can get to by loading the systems is. Don't suppose you know what your overclock settings were do you? I suppose it's possible that the factory overclock had raised the bClock significantly and reduced the multiplier from 23 and now it's lost the bClock overclock but kept the reduced maximum multiplier. Not familiar enough with the i3 to help any more I'm afraid..

If you look at the overclockers website ( http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18099548 ) it looks like they were pushing the i3 bClock up at around 200 so I think it's been reset to 133 somehow.