Question 8700K working at 4300 MHz at all times

miha2

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Hi people. So... I may have a lot of problems, but I tend to think all are interconnected.

Let me start with the fact that a couple of days ago I cleaned my computer. And for some reason my motherboard doesn't want to keep the settings. That is, on each restart, or even better, shut down, and even better, if I unplug the power cord, I cannot be sure that my motherboard will keep the settings I specified. So it may be related to motherboard.

Next, after cleaning, I started to hear some weird noise. Like, the fan is hitting something, but I looked at all fans and didn't find anything suspicious. And I don't think it's fans related. At least, nothing prevents them from spinning just fine. Which leads me to mention the 3rd fact.

My CPU is working at 4300 MHz all the time. Whatever I do - leave it idle, watch a movie, open Word document, whatever (well, I mean, not all the time - if I load it with a game, for example, it may go higher, but never lower) it doesn't go below 4300 MHz. Which is suspicious.

I found somewhere on the Web to check for C states and EIST, and I checked my motherboard and learned that EIST is enabled, and C-states - well, I needed to turn my computer on, so I didn't look at it carefully enough, but I think they are enabled. (Any way to check for it within Windows?)

My specs: i7 8700K
MSI Z370 SLI Plus
16GB of RAM
MSI RTX 2080

Anything else I need to add?
 
Is the Motherboard battery ok? Unless you have a faulty CMOS (memory chip of the BIOS), the battery is the only thing that would mess with the settings being saved. Does the BIOS clock reset from time to time as well?

Also, some BIOS'es instead of just failing catastrophically from a bad OC (or even bad RAM timings), they usually go back to default settings instead. I'd suggest you take a look at all the CPU and RAM settings to make sure they're correctly set.

Particularly for the RAM, make sure you're using the XMP profiles from the BIOS; the correct ones!

Cheers!
 

miha2

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I replaced the motherboard battery, like, about 1 month ago. Hoped it would help. I forgot to mention that I can't update/flash my BIOS. I tried both from within Windows (MSI Live Update would download it and ask for restart. I hit "Restart" and nothing) and M-Flash (MSI way to flash BIOS from... BIOS)

I checked XMP settings, and they were the right ones. I enabled it in BIOS.

And... I have Balanced power plan. Minimum CPU power state is 5%, max 100%. But it still works at 4300 MHz. Tried to change to other plans and back to Balanced, didn't help.

CPU temps are mostly OK: on idle, 1 core may go higher, but all others are within 30-35 degrees C. GPU temps are fine.
 
Ooooooooh... I have an idea of what is going on, but it will be a pain in your behind to fix it if true...

For some stupid reason, when you upgrade Intel BIOS'es you also have a very specific component called the "IME" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine) that needs to be upgraded as part of the process. If you changed the battery, you may have triggered a security """"feature"""" of the IME that is locking your BIOS. I had this happen to me, RANDOMLY, with my P77Z board from Asus and it took me a good week or so to find this information around the web. I do not have the link with me, but you could try looking around for it. I do remember I put a post here in Toms about it as well when I managed to fix it, so you may be able to find it here as well.

So, look for this and check if it's your problem as well. Your Motherboard may have a slightly different recovery procedure than mine did, but it is a documented problem with Intel Motherboards.

Cheers!
 

miha2

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Sounds interesting, I'll give it a try when I have a time. Thanks a lot on this.

Update on this: MSI Live Update reported there is an update for Intel ME. I will update it and see. Looks like it may help me; maybe partially, but it's a progress, after all. Thanks!
 

Karadjgne

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To update the bios on my msi z77, I did it manually, m-flash was useless and wouldn't work. There's instructions on msi website, somewhere.

It could also be a set profile. You can change bios settings half a hundred times, but if you have the bios set to load a profile, it will do so first on reboot. I removed the battery, counted to 30, replaced it (which reset factory settings) then loaded optimized defaults, set xmp and other settings I wanted, then saved that to profile #1.

Then messed around with OC, and saved that to profile #2. There's a setting there to load profile on boot, currently it's set to load profile #2 as default.

Found it. Look down the page, you'll see a gray tag for how to flash bios. The first section describes how you use m-flash to do so. The section after that explains flashing by DOS prompt. I think I forgot to extract the file to usb, instead just stuck the zip there. Same procedure for any mobo.
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/Z77_MPOWER
 
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There's really no need for playing with any BIOS OC profiles whatsoever...

Reset back to defaults (multipier settings to 'auto'/, then select desired XMP RAM profile, select Balanced within WIndows power plan...

CPU should then ramp up to as high as 4.7 GHz for desktop usage, then just as quckly ramp back down to 800-1000 MHz when reading forums, surfing Youtube, then allow instantaneous ramp up to 4.3-4.4 GHz for gaming/heavy tasking, etc; MCE-capable mainboards and/or Intel's XTU tweaking might get you to all core 4.7 GHz or higher relatively easily...
 

Karadjgne

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Hah. True, there's no real need. But there's also no real need to wash the outside of your car either, it rains every now and then, but ppl still do it because they want to. Saving a profile will force the bios to load that profile, even if something ever changes the bios settings. Since ppl rarely ever go into bios, having a default profile just means whatever you specify gets loaded, not what bios wants to load.

Loading factory defaults doesn't always work as intended, there are some settings that don't get included, so get skipped. Just as pulling the battery doesn't always reset bios, if it's not removed for long enough. A saved profile, at your specific default choices is just cheap insurance for reset if you do go messing around in there. Load profile #1 and all settings back as normal, no matter what you think you might have messed up.
 

miha2

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OK, I hope to try it today. It's a little complicated: it's really hard to get my gpu out, and the CMOS Reset jumper is right under the PCIE slot, so I have to get the gpu out first. I'll try it when I have a chance and let you know. Thanks so far.

Update: I could finally update BIOS! I used diskpart to format the flash drive, set it active, and copied just this one file. As soon as it updated, the "scratching" sound was gone! But we're not done yet, hold on. The CPU still working at 4300 most of the time. At rare times it goes to 800 mhz, but only at rare times. Now, I should note I didn't reset the BIOS just yet, only updated it. I think I will reset it tomorrow; I think there is a way to reset it in BIOS itself. As mentioned above, it's a nightmare to get to the jumper, and will take a lot of time. Also, I updated the Intel ME via MSI Live Update, but it still keeps saying I have an older version. I downloaded the drivers directly from the MSI Support web site, but as soon as I run it, it offers me to repair or uninstall it. So I'm assuming I have the latest driver here.
 
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Hah. True, there's no real need. But there's also no real need to wash the outside of your car either, it rains every now and then, but ppl still do it because they want to. Saving a profile will force the bios to load that profile, even if something ever changes the bios settings. Since ppl rarely ever go into bios, having a default profile just means whatever you specify gets loaded, not what bios wants to load.

Loading factory defaults doesn't always work as intended, there are some settings that don't get included, so get skipped. Just as pulling the battery doesn't always reset bios, if it's not removed for long enough. A saved profile, at your specific default choices is just cheap insurance for reset if you do go messing around in there. Load profile #1 and all settings back as normal, no matter what you think you might have messed up.

VERY few advocate overclocking via the BIOS preset OC profiles...if your intent is to override some other setting that might have been done in error, then it's tad more understandable, but, it would seem easier to simply reset to defaults, IMO...

I see no zero relevance to 'washing a car' analogies with saving/defaulting a BIOS settings...

What settings are not set reset correctly in your experience when resetting to defaults and saving?
 
In fact, it's quite possible tinkering with OC profiles and straying off of Auto/default on multiplier settings, etc., might have been the results and cause of him being stuck at 4.3 GHz to start with... :)

As for the OP's updated status: the CPU going down to 800-1000 MHz is normal in Balanced power mode, it will ramp up to as high as 4.7 GHz under load....(you can more readily see the core speeds bouncing up and down several times per second with HWMonitor...) It would appear you are no longer stuck at 4.3 GHz.
 

Karadjgne

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The profiles are user set. Not bios presets. I have profile #1 as factory optimized plus any changes I wanted as normal base operation, like xmp etc. Profile #2 is my OC I setup for 4.3GHz, profile #3 is my OC setup for 4.6GHz and profile #4 is my OC setup for 4.9GHz. Those are OC profiles I created and saved, not any OC presets from bios.