AMD A8-3870K - Motherboard Settings / CPU Not Tweaked Right?

[jSterling]

So I'm not new to overclocking, but I'm not a pro either. Just so that's stated.

I bought a AMD A8-3870K About 5 Months ago. Before I continue though here are my computer specs.

AMD A8 3870K @ 3.4Ghz
NVidia GeForce 440 GT 1GB GDDR5
Biostar A55MH Motherboard (Dated late 2011 Model)
G.Skill Ripjaws X 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 Memory
500GB HDD @ 7200RPM
Unknown Air Cooling System (Looks Generic)
Custom Case (Unknown Brand/Model, isn't stated on the case)
1xOptical Drive
400W Rosewell PSU

So here is the issue I'm having.
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I'm not really looking for an insane overclock, because I know I am going to need better cooling. Right now my APU will overclock to 3.4 and everything is fine and dandy.

When I first bought the APU and I overclocked it, I remember running Cinebench and obtaining a score of 4.98 Pts, now from what I've read online compared to other A8's this is a GREAT score. Especially sense I remember never going over 3.5Ghz. I think the score was obtained at 3.3/3.4ghz though.

Right now with my current overclock I am getting a score of 4.00 Even, and I can't seem to break over 4. Maybe by .01 or .02, but nothing major. I'm just trying to get back to that 5 pt score I was at before.

My motherboard has a few options that to be honest I am not sure exactly what they do. After this post I am going to use my phone to post screenshots, but until then my motherboards manual is located HERE.

Right now with my current setup, to get it stable at 3.4 without a blue screen or cinebench crashing I upped the voltage on my APU-Core Voltage setting and BN Voltage by +0.50 (Smallest increment available in my mobo).

This stopped bluescreens and what not, but I just can't get that score back. I want to think this is a voltage problem, but I'm not sure. Below is a screenshot of hardware monitor which may shed some light on this to a more experience user.

Also, I move my CPU voltage up from 1.4000 to 1.4250 (which helped with crashes in cinebench as well).

If someone could look over my motherboards manual and maybe point a novice power user in the right direction I would be much appreciated!

 

[Alain123]

It could be your cpu lost power overtime so it isn't what it used to be.
Here is how I would overclock it.
Voltage : 1.2 - 1.3
Speed : 3.5 - 4.0

Don't go to 1.4 V it may get unstable and damaga your cpu in the long run.

 

[jSterling]

The thing is, I never had it set to be overclocked until about a month ago. I didn't think 1.4xxxV would be damaging, I've been reading that hitting 1.5 and above is what starts the clock.

I don't know if it would run at even 3.4 at 1.3v or under, but then again I never tried.

(My motherboard actually has the "optimized defaults" set for 1.4125v for the cpu)

 

[Alain123]

Wow thats pretty high for default, it could be that in the long time that it has been on 1.4125 it could have damaged your CPU a bit.