Please point out which one is the 4+1? Because all 5 pictures of all 5 models show an 8 pin connector is required, not a 4+1.
Motherboard VRMs are electrical components ensuring reliable power for your CPU. But what is a VRM, and how does it work?
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VRM - Voltage Regulation Module. It is a part of the motherboard that helps to regulate and provide proper voltage to the CPU itself. Typically the more VRMs the better a CPU will perform at stock but also for an overclock.
Cheaper boards tend to have lower VRM Phase, may go without cooling or may just use inferior components which will affect system performance. This is especially prevalent in the FX series as those CPUs had a very high power draw. When they first launched plenty of people bought cheap AM3+ boards and the top end CPU (The FX 8150) and had issues with the CPU maintaining its stock speeds, let alone overclocking at all, and overall system stability.
This is why most overclocking boards of a good grade use high quality VRM components and cool them as well. My motherboard, an Asus Maximus Formula VI, has an 8 phase VRM system with high quality components and has a heatsink that can be setup for water cooling if I wanted for even better performance.
TL;DR? Knowing which board he has will help us understand if it is possibly his board causing issues. As I said before, the FX series had a lot of issues with the VRMs on the lower end boards. For example you could only run the FX 9590 properly on a 990FX board of very high quality.