Question endless reboot cycle at 5GHz

[Mephis39]

Specs:

• CPU: 9700k
• mobo: Z390 AORUS PRO
• bios version: F12d
• cooler: Kraken x62
• stress test used: Prime95 (Small FFTs)

I have never been able to reach a stable clock of 5GHz.

I received the board yesterday and spent an hour or so on the F11 bios trying to reach a stable 5GHz with any voltage up to 1.4V.

At lower clocks (1.35-1.36) it would BSOD after boot up at the login screen. At clocks above 1.37 it would blue-screen as soon as I began a stress test. With auto voltages it would stabilise at 5Ghz, but I thermal throttled at 100c when stress testing.

Today I saw that there was an F12d bios update which "Fixes CPU Vcore and power behavior". I was hopeful, but things have not changed for the better.

I have tried upping the voltage to 1.37V, but keeping the clocks at stock. It's stable. Then I set the clocks to 5GHz, and instead of blue-screening I repeatedly reboot at the login screen.

I'm at a loss.

Unfortunately, when I was using auto voltages and at a stable 5GHz, I wasn't aware that VOUT is a preferred voltage reading over VID, so I don't have any good info on what kind of voltages I was pulling then.

 

[cdrkf]

HI - not all 9700K cpu's can hit 5ghz all core - sounds like your chip is just not quite up to that. Usually with overclocking you start lower and work up - the official all core max boost frequency for a 9700K is 4.6 ghz, so I would start there (as locking all cores at 4.6 is still an overclock, turbo is usually only hit for short periods when temps are low).

Once you have found the lowest voltage that the chip is stable at 4.6, you can try raising it from there, it sounds like you are fairly close to getting it stable at 5ghz, so hopefully the chip should be ok at 4.8 or 4.9. The performance difference between 4.8ghz and 5ghz all core is pretty small.

 

[Mephis39]

HI - not all 9700K cpu's can hit 5ghz all core - sounds like your chip is just not quite up to that. Usually with overclocking you start lower and work up - the official all core max boost frequency for a 9700K is 4.6 ghz, so I would start there (as locking all cores at 4.6 is still an overclock, turbo is usually only hit for short periods when temps are low).

Once you have found the lowest voltage that the chip is stable at 4.6, you can try raising it from there, it sounds like you are fairly close to getting it stable at 5ghz, so hopefully the chip should be ok at 4.8 or 4.9. The performance difference between 4.8ghz and 5ghz all core is pretty small.

Hey, thanks for the response.

I've pushed mine to 4.7GHz now with a voltage 1.37v.

I don't know if you have any knowledge of vdroop - I don't - but I'm beginning to wonder if that might be my issue. The Vdroop graph in the bios highlights the steepest vdroop load-line. Also, as I was running a stress test at 4.7GHz, I saw my voltages drop surprisingly low.

This screenshot could've been taken at a better time, I regularly saw my voltages drop into 1.1xx territory.

 

[cdrkf]

Hey, thanks for the response.

I've pushed mine to 4.7GHz now with a voltage 1.37v.

I don't know if you have any knowledge of vdroop - I don't - but I'm beginning to wonder if that might be my issue. The Vdroop graph in the bios highlights the steepest vdroop load-line. Also, as I was running a stress test at 4.7GHz, I saw my voltages drop surprisingly low.

This screenshot could've been taken at a better time, I regularly saw my voltages drop into 1.1xx territory.

I can't say I'm an expert, that does bring up a question, what PSU are you using to power this?

 

[Mephis39]

I can't say I'm an expert, that does bring up a question, what PSU are you using to power this?

A Corsair TX650M.

Also my motherboard has 8 pin + 4 pin cpu power, but I’m only using the 8-pin. I assumed it was enough because I wasn’t going to be doing serious overclocking, and I don’t have the necessary cables anyway.