[CorteX]

This might be a stupid question so soz, I'm a total newb to OCing.

Anyway I had my i5 750 at 4Ghz no problemo what so ever. My buddy accidentally hit my CMOS Reset button at the back of mobo when he was plugging something in for me at an awkward angle, no biggy I just applied the same settings I had saved in an OC profile, except now my OC is really unstable & fails to boot half the time so I had to bring it down to 3.6Ghz to stay stable.

Any ideas? The P55 FTW has 3 BIOS chips, would it help if I tried swapping to one of the others?
I'm pretty much lost here.

Thanks.

 

[sn0man]

Yes, it can degrade.

Unless the original settings were extreme, it shouldn't normally happen very quickly.

If it does happen though, sometimes it'll be something as slight as requiring another bump in Vcore or so.

 

[weidass]

Yes it can happen, however, given that the cmos was wiped, i'd put my money on it being a setting you missed, or changed after the profile was saved.

 

[Nick911]

I'm with weidass on this one, setting you missed. Unless your puting like 5 volts through it then you got an issue.

 

[DaMirrorLink]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CorteX This might be a stupid question so soz, I'm a total newb to OCing. Anyway I had my i5 750 at 4Ghz no problemo what so ever. My buddy accidentally hit my CMOS Reset button at the back of mobo when he was plugging something in for me at an awkward angle, no biggy I just applied the same settings I had saved in an OC profile, except now my OC is really unstable & fails to boot half the time so I had to bring it down to 3.6Ghz to stay stable. Any ideas? The P55 FTW has 3 BIOS chips, would it help if I tried swapping to one of the others? I'm pretty much lost here. Thanks.

sounds like either the chip is failing or your power supply, my OC started to BSOD when my old PSU degraded, on this PSU I'm back to the normal OC

 

[CorteX]

Well I only bought the chip & PSU a month ago so I hope not.

Will give it another try when I'm less tired & see how it goes. Thanks for the swift responses guys.

 

[andynolife]

I had the same problem mate.
It ran perfectly fine @4Ghz and later 3.6 and then 3.2Ghz and alot of memory dumps. Figured it maybe a bad mobo so switched to UD3P from a ECS. Memory is stable but....
Now it won't even go 3.2Ghz. But it was all within a 10 days interval. So, I'm more frustrated than you.

 

[letsgetiton]

Yep, that'll teach ya.

One thing that I think it is absolutely critical to discuss is voltage
and temperature. Many people will easily exceed Intel recommended voltage
for their processor by 20% or more. However, they won't for a second run
their processor over Intel's maximum recommended temperature.
This is rather silly. Over voltage plays a far more significant role in
how long your processor will last than temperature does. However, both
are important. Your computer will die just as fast at 10C as it will at
80C if it has 25-30% or more over-voltage.

How much voltage you put into your processor is up to you. It is really
un-known how long processors will last at certain voltages, so a safety
range is not easily determined. However, be aware, your processor will
likely not die instantly from over voltage. It will be a steady and slight
decline of performance. You will need more and more voltage just to keep
your system running.

The term is electromigration. The actual electrical pathways thin out
over time as electrons move throughout the chip. The more voltage/current,
the more/faster electrons are traveling and thus the faster the pathways
thin. Once they get thin enough, EMI plays a larger role in the stability
of the chip and eventually the pathway will break, killing the chip permanently.
This process normally takes 1 to 2 decades, but when you over volt, you can
drastically accelerate the process.

This is why overclocks which use a lot of voltage can become unstable after
a couple years.

 

[CorteX]

Well I got it booting again at 4Ghz:

Voltages:

Vcore: 1.3
Dram: 1.63
VTT: 1.18
PCH: 1.03

Idle Temps:
System: 28'C
CPU: 30'C
Core Average: 32'C

Havn't had a chance to tweak voltages or stress as been super busy all day.

 

[F1ForFrags]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CorteX Well I got it booting again at 4Ghz: Voltages: Vcore: 1.3 Dram: 1.63 VTT: 1.18 PCH: 1.03 Idle Temps: System: 28'C CPU: 30'C Core Average: 32'C Havn't had a chance to tweak voltages or stress as been super busy all day.

That's a little low for 4Ghz.

Set it to 1.21

 

[CorteX]

It's 2am here, will do it when I wake up, stress & report back.

Ty again.

 

[andynolife]

Well, I have mine at 1.17. It's stable with 10BIT 20LinX and 3Hrs Prime95.
Will that be fine or I will have to increase it sooner or later

 

[sotorious]

you guys are making me want to back down my oc

when you say it degrades in performance, or it just needing more voltage?

 

[CorteX]

Okay well it appears to be stable again at:

Vcore: 1.3-1.32
VTT: 1.2-1.21

Temps are still good. Cores only around 4-5'c above ambient when idling, high 50s under load.

 

[MintMouse]

The main cause of degrading(correct me if I'm wrong) is from electro-migration.

This will occur faster at higher voltages. But at regular overclocks(air cooling) this should still take years.
If your overclock isn't 100% stable(that is, not enough voltage) then that can accelerate the degradation and can cause problems in a shorter period of time. If it happens, you basically just need to add more voltage or lower your clocks. Then prime95 for 8 hours to ensure what you have is stable.