Do CPUs die gradually or suddenly?

[AssemblerX86]

Hi,

I have the following PC:
- ASUS 970 Pro Gaming/Aura
- AMD FX 6300 /w HyperEvo 212
- 8GB HyperX Kingston DDR3 RAM.

Lately I was tinkering with my CPU and have overclocked it to 4.5GHz and 5GHz using multiplier increase, I have also increased its voltage to 1.437 and set LLC to High. The maximum temp I let it reach at full load (Prime95 Small FFT) was 70C.

I have reset it to stock now (Default BIOS settings) to assure stability until I get a second fan for the cooler so I can increase the voltage more, however a few days ago, I was working on Windows 10, and suddenly the PC froze and the keyboard flashed (It has colored LEDs under the buttons), then I got a BSOD, and I had to hard reset the PC so it would work again. Those effects are much similar to the ones I had when I was trying to stress test the CPU after overclocking it and I wasn't giving it enough voltage (Low VCore).

So is my CPU dying because I tinkered with it so much? Or it might not even be related to overclocking and its just a driver problem?

 

[Lutfij]

Depending on how you overclock the CPU and how well your motherboard regulates the power being fed to the CPU, the CPU will not die but show some stress points. If you're not aware of what you're doing then you can end up with a processor that died overnight or in the middle of a benchmark. You should also know that some thermal protection measures are built into your board, if they are disabled then you will end up with a damaged CPU.

1.437v is pretty high for a processor of that grade.

 

[gasaraki]

Umm... your cpu is getting destroyed by the voltage. And why are you increasing voltage at stock?

 

[AssemblerX86]

Umm... your cpu is getting destroyed by the voltage. And why are you increasing voltage at stock?

I'm not, what I meant was I will overclock it again when I get another fan.

 

[AssemblerX86]

Depending on how you overclock the CPU and how well your motherboard regulates the power being fed to the CPU, the CPU will not die but show some stress points. If you're not aware of what you're doing then you can end up with a processor that died overnight or in the middle of a benchmark. You should also know that some thermal protection measures are built into your board, if they are disabled then you will end up with a damaged CPU.

1.437v is pretty high for a processor of that grade.

How can I test if the CPU is dead then? How can I be sure? Also, at stock settings, the motherboard increases the voltage to 1.4 when AMD Turbo boost strikes (When CPU clock increases from 3.5GHz to 4.1GHz), so how is that voltage high if the stock settings use it? The BIOS shows a warning if the entered voltage is high, but it doesn't when I set it to 1.437, it does however for 1.45.

 

[Smlarkin]

Whenever you clock at 4-5 GHZ the voltage should be kept low as possible. Switching at that frequency at voltages over one volt can generate a lot of heat
in the CPU. Overclocking is really not a good idea unless you have a lot of spending money to replace CPUs and even whole motherboards.