CPU fried by motherboard

[scuzzycard]

Well, to make a long story short, I recently built a new system around an Asus X99-A. From the beginning, it seemed a little flakey. I thought the hardware was sound - 5820K binned at 4.6, Phantek TC-14PE, Crucial Ballistix DDR4, 1000W EVGA PSU, and 2 Zotac reference 980TI's. The first surprise was that CPU which was certified by reputable a 3rd party to run at 4.6/1.32V, was only stable up to 4.3GHz/1.28V. This was also my first time running Windows 10, so I thought that perhaps it was responsible for some wierdness, such as some GUI bits like the Windows calculator buttons and not being displayed correctly, and occasional watchdog errors at stock and near-stock speeds). The USB was kinda glitchy too, as it sometimes is with memory timing too tight, only relaxing the memory timing didn't help. I was also considering returning the binned CPU for another from the same vendor - maybe there was a mix-up on there end, I thought. Finally one morning, after the system froze hard running Prime 95 large FFT at 4.4GHz/1.3V, I rebooted and got the dreaded, CPU overvoltage error. I went into the BIOS and saw the CPU voltage bounce between 1.68V and 1.80V for a couple seconds as I yanked the power cord in panic. Too late. Code "00", bad CPU. I thought I smelt burning electronics during that Prime run, but it was faint and possibly imaginary. Eitherway, I'll never know if the CPU or motherboard was the reason my 4.6-certified CPU, was such a poor overclocker.

So now, I have a new Asus X99-A, and some random 5820K I got off Amazon, and it seems like a completely different animal. I've tested it at 4.5GHz/1.25V in everything but Prime, and it's rock solid, across the board. It could possibly do higher clocks or lower volts, but I haven't gotten that far yet.

The only thing is that I'm scared to run prime 95, or push the voltage past 1.25V. This could be a really golden CPU, but I don't know if this motherboard is built to handle high current draws. I always hear about people overclocking using Asus's higher priced boards, but does anyone recommend serious overclocking on the X99-A? I had been trying voltages in the 1.3-1.35 range the day my CPU and board burned, and I can't afford to go through that again. Thanks in advance

 

[Blaze Blazer]

use intel overclocking utility for CPU and RAM etc search it on google

 

[Karsten75]

Read this for Prime95 Guidance and a lot more: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1800828/intel-temperature-guide.html

As for that mobo - it's not the high end and it doesn't seem aimed at aggressive overclocking. But then, that's not my area of expertise.

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

 

[Spectre694]

Are you using adaptive voltage for the OC or setting it?

 

[scuzzycard]

I appreciate the tips, everyone. I do happen to use Intel XTU as well as Asus RealBench, and I find them useful. I never know which stability test will reveal a weakness, so I try to keep as many as possible in my arsenal. Now I think I will have to start being more selective with respect to the ones that use AVX instructions. Perhaps, I'll omit those from now on, and just assume I should go down an extra 100MHz or so to be on the safe side in terms of stability.
By the way, I'm manually setting the voltage. Also, since I'm leaning towards a more conservative overclock, would it be better to enable c-states and speedstep for longevity's sake, or would the frequent load transients be worse for the VRMs and other components in the long haul?