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Started by BrandonCSLC | | 14 answers
What causes "Overclocking failure" reboot?
Fx 8320 @ 4.2GHz
Asus M5A99FX Pro.
Corsair H60 liquid cooler
GSkill 1600MHz DDR3 (16gb)

Followed an overclocking guide found on the internet along with guidance from several threads in TH. Tested in Prime95 for an hour with temps stable at 55C while under heavy load. Normal operating temps range from 25-40C. Everything was running fine for several weeks. Two days ago while playing a game the computer shut down and reset to a screen that said "Overclocking failure. Press F1 to enter setup."

When I pressed F1 it sent me to Bios where it had reset to factory defaults.
I repeated the process to overclock the CPU. This time I have it set at 4.0GHz and everything seems to be fine again. What happened? Is 4.2 mire than my CPU can handle.

Also the temps at the time of the incident where fine. Around 40C while gaming on the CPU and the socket temp was about 50C.
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October 18, 2014 11:54:20 AM

@Prit87 - Thanks for the video. It was very helpful.

I followed the guys instructions and am now stress testing with prime95. I will let it run while I am at work for the next 3 hours. Then I will run a 3DMark graphics test and play some games to see if it runs smoothly.

@4Ryan6 - I just watched the video posted above and gives some good instruction on manual voltage control. At the moment I have the CPU voltage set to 1.3125v.

Multiplier @ 20.0x
Bus Frequency @ 210
NB Frequency @ 2200MHz
HT Frequency @ 2600MHz

Here is the Question:

I have the voltage set in bios to Manual @ 1.3125v.
CPU-Z and HWMonitor say my core voltage is 1.308v idle. While running prime95 the core voltage has dropped to 1.296v or even as low as 1.28xx volts. Is that supposed to happen?

October 18, 2014 9:06:25 AM

I was playing games when the crash happened. Mechwarrior Online to be specific.
October 18, 2014 9:04:08 AM

At what increments do increase the voltage? In my Asus bios under CPU configuration there is a tab that says "offset". If you click it you can change it to manual or auto allowing you to change the voltage for the cpu. When I do change it to manual my CPU clocks change from an even 4200MHz to some value like 4158MHz. Is that supposed to be like that?
a c 249 K Overclocking
a c 110 à CPUs
October 18, 2014 3:56:52 AM

BrandonCSLC said:
Fx 8320 @ 4.2GHz
Asus M5A99FX Pro.
Corsair H60 liquid cooler
GSkill 1600MHz DDR3 (16gb)

Followed an overclocking guide found on the internet along with guidance from several threads in TH. Tested in Prime95 for an hour with temps stable at 55C while under heavy load. Normal operating temps range from 25-40C. Everything was running fine for several weeks. Two days ago while playing a game the computer shut down and reset to a screen that said "Overclocking failure. Press F1 to enter setup."

When I pressed F1 it sent me to Bios where it had reset to factory defaults.
I repeated the process to overclock the CPU. This time I have it set at 4.0GHz and everything seems to be fine again. What happened? Is 4.2 mire than my CPU can handle.

Also the temps at the time of the incident where fine. Around 40C while gaming on the CPU and the socket temp was about 50C.


Testing with prime95 for 1 hour does not mean you are stable, testing for 24hrs does not mean you are stable, and it does not matter which stress testing program you use, just because you can pass a stress test does not mean your overclock is stable enough to handle a full system load, WHY?

Because stress testing programs do not test the graphics or audio load on the system, a stress testing program is your first step to reaching stability, once you can successfully run a stress test without crashing, then use benchmarking tests which brings the graphics load into the testing picture, then use gaming to add the audio to the graphics, to fine tune to stability.

BrandonCSLC said:
Voltages fluctuate between 1.3 and 1.32. Voltages determined by motherboard as I have that option in bios set to auto.these voltages are seen when I have the CPU at 4.2Ghz. Makes sense because the 8350's stock voltage is 1.3v at 4.0GHz.


Auto CPU voltage may make sense to you allowing the motherboard to control these voltages but it doesn't seem to be working for you, is it?

BrandonCSLC said:
My thoughts about "auto voltage" is that the motherboard controls the CPU voltage according to demand. That and every time I try to do it manually I screw things up.


That's simply because you need to invest the time to learn how to do it manually, not only will that gain you a successful rock solid overclock, but quite a bit of internal self satisfaction, because you did it!

Then and only then can you have your own personal Rocky moment, "YO ADRIEN, I DID IT!" :) 

To sum up, you need to learn how to manually overclock first, and then do it!

Before you screw something up, that a system reboot cannot fix!

a b K Overclocking
a b à CPUs
October 18, 2014 2:44:05 AM

BrandonCSLC said:
My thoughts about "auto voltage" is that the motherboard controls the CPU voltage according to demand. That and every time I try to do it manually I screw things up.


watch this video it will be useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MckeAmnDeTk
a b à CPUs
October 17, 2014 3:41:49 PM

BrandonCSLC said:
My thoughts about "auto voltage" is that the motherboard controls the CPU voltage according to demand. That and every time I try to do it manually I screw things up.


Everything I've read the auto voltage always increases it took much. This is why it's better to do it manually.
October 17, 2014 3:26:44 PM

My thoughts about "auto voltage" is that the motherboard controls the CPU voltage according to demand. That and every time I try to do it manually I screw things up.
a b K Overclocking
a b à CPUs
October 17, 2014 3:11:39 PM

BrandonCSLC said:
Voltages fluctuate between 1.3 and 1.32. Voltages determined by motherboard as I have that option in bios set to auto.these voltages are seen when I have the CPU at 4.2Ghz. Makes sense because the 8350's stock voltage is 1.3v at 4.0GHz.


The voltage itself is fine but that's way too much fluctuation. Try setting it to 1.3 and see if it still changes as much.
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October 17, 2014 2:06:02 PM

Stable in prime just means your stable in prime, try a range of stress tests, I've had failure in occt and the amd stress test in overdrive but been 'prime stable' if that helps any. I find prime good for thermals though and (maybe out of habit) always try it first.
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October 17, 2014 2:00:14 PM

Why do you have the voltage set to auto?

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