Hello, I'm new to the forum, but not so new to OCing. I apologize in advance for the long post, I want to provide as much info as possible because this is such a peculiar issue. I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure this out, and it's finally time to ask those who are far more knowledgeable than me. See specs below. No WHEA, IBT very high w/ 30 passes (max 69 C), Prime95 small FFT(max 62 C) for 16 hours. Idle is ~24 C using Corsair Link's "Balanced" cooling profile. For some reason, when I increase the RAM to 2200 or 2400 MHz and 1.65v, I can't post, and after 2 failed boot attempts, the bios resets back to default settings and the PC actually boots up fine, but the idle temps are now around ~51 C *without* any OC. This has happened to me 5 times. Before this, I tried 2400 MHz through XMP, and it seemed to work, but when I shut down my computer for the night, it wouldn't boot the next morning.
1. The first time I thought it was because the backplate for the H110i is a little loose, so I bought plastic washers to make it snug. Reassembled, and temps were back to normal. Note: my idle temps before delid (attempts 1-3) were about ~35 C, and when the 2400 MHz failed to boot, the idle temps spiked to about ~64C
2. Tried 2200 MHz this time, failed, then idle temps went right back up to ~64 C. (turns out the backplate is slightly loose by design, it fits very securely once cooler is screwed in). I figured the washers might have affected how well the block contacts the CPU heat spreader, so I removed them, reassembled, and idle temps were back to ~35 C.
3. 2400 MHz failed again, idle temps went back to ~64 C. Decided that it must be down to the old and allegedly crappy TIM between the die and IHS, and went ahead with a delid. Took my sweet time, and my idle temps went down to ~30 C.
4. 2200 Mhz failed again, idle temps went up to ~60 C. Saw on a comparison of several TIMs that MX-4 performed poorly as TIM for delid, so I used AS5 on the die and on top of the heat spreader as well. Idle temps went down to ~24 C.
5. 2400 MHz failed again, idle temps are currently ~51 C. Haven't even reapplied my 4.3 GHz OC settings, just default 3.4 GHZ with 1333 MHz RAM. Quite frankly, I'm pretty sick of reapplying thermal paste, and each time I removed the block the previous TIM was spread out perfectly, so I don't believe poor application is the issue.
Other things I've tried:
Clear CMOS
Unplug all USB devices aside from keyboard and mouse
Replace CMOS battery
Re-flash same BIOS FW
Flash older BIOS FW
Use only 2 RAM sticks, different combos.
I haven't tried playing with PLL, system agent, or IO voltages, it just seems like this is something I wanna figure out before I go further. The reason I want to get to at least 2200 MHz is because when I was trying to resolve FPS issues in Rise of the Tomb Raider, I tried 2400 MHz RAM with XMP, as stated above, and the FPS in the problem areas went up significantly (20 fps). At this point, I'm considering staying like at 2000 MHz and just try to tighten timings, but this is frustrating because I know a lot of people are running at least 2200 MHz RAM on this CPU, and I get the feeling that 1600/1866 won't be enough as games become more demanding. I'll appreciate any theories you can send my way, I'm at the limits of my knowledge at this point.
MSI Z77A-G45, latest BIOS FW
delid i5-3570k @ 4.3 GHz, 1.20v, no power saving settings, vdroop 100%, internal PLL overvoltage disabled, EIST disabled.
H110i GTX
EVGA GTX 1070 stock (I just let GPU Boost 3.0 do its thing, gets up to 1973 MHz from advertised 1784 MHz boost clock on its own, good enough for me)
16 GB RAM (CMY8GX3M2A2400C11R) 4x4GB @ 1866, 2T 11-13-13-31, 1.5v
Windows 10 Fall Creators
1. The first time I thought it was because the backplate for the H110i is a little loose, so I bought plastic washers to make it snug. Reassembled, and temps were back to normal. Note: my idle temps before delid (attempts 1-3) were about ~35 C, and when the 2400 MHz failed to boot, the idle temps spiked to about ~64C
2. Tried 2200 MHz this time, failed, then idle temps went right back up to ~64 C. (turns out the backplate is slightly loose by design, it fits very securely once cooler is screwed in). I figured the washers might have affected how well the block contacts the CPU heat spreader, so I removed them, reassembled, and idle temps were back to ~35 C.
3. 2400 MHz failed again, idle temps went back to ~64 C. Decided that it must be down to the old and allegedly crappy TIM between the die and IHS, and went ahead with a delid. Took my sweet time, and my idle temps went down to ~30 C.
4. 2200 Mhz failed again, idle temps went up to ~60 C. Saw on a comparison of several TIMs that MX-4 performed poorly as TIM for delid, so I used AS5 on the die and on top of the heat spreader as well. Idle temps went down to ~24 C.
5. 2400 MHz failed again, idle temps are currently ~51 C. Haven't even reapplied my 4.3 GHz OC settings, just default 3.4 GHZ with 1333 MHz RAM. Quite frankly, I'm pretty sick of reapplying thermal paste, and each time I removed the block the previous TIM was spread out perfectly, so I don't believe poor application is the issue.
Other things I've tried:
Clear CMOS
Unplug all USB devices aside from keyboard and mouse
Replace CMOS battery
Re-flash same BIOS FW
Flash older BIOS FW
Use only 2 RAM sticks, different combos.
I haven't tried playing with PLL, system agent, or IO voltages, it just seems like this is something I wanna figure out before I go further. The reason I want to get to at least 2200 MHz is because when I was trying to resolve FPS issues in Rise of the Tomb Raider, I tried 2400 MHz RAM with XMP, as stated above, and the FPS in the problem areas went up significantly (20 fps). At this point, I'm considering staying like at 2000 MHz and just try to tighten timings, but this is frustrating because I know a lot of people are running at least 2200 MHz RAM on this CPU, and I get the feeling that 1600/1866 won't be enough as games become more demanding. I'll appreciate any theories you can send my way, I'm at the limits of my knowledge at this point.
MSI Z77A-G45, latest BIOS FW
delid i5-3570k @ 4.3 GHz, 1.20v, no power saving settings, vdroop 100%, internal PLL overvoltage disabled, EIST disabled.
H110i GTX
EVGA GTX 1070 stock (I just let GPU Boost 3.0 do its thing, gets up to 1973 MHz from advertised 1784 MHz boost clock on its own, good enough for me)
16 GB RAM (CMY8GX3M2A2400C11R) 4x4GB @ 1866, 2T 11-13-13-31, 1.5v
Windows 10 Fall Creators