High voltage spikes for a second

2034d9

Honorable
Aug 16, 2013
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10,530
So overclocked my 4770k to 4.2GHz at adaptive 1.280 volts. HWinfo shows voltage locked to 1.280V at full turbo,

however it also shows that very randomly- once every 15-20 mins or so during use like gaming the voltage will spike up to about 1.35volts and back down for a second

I've tried higher frequencies and higher volts and highest I've seen is 1.396V

Is this normal for CPU to do this even though I set the voltage manually and is it even safe? I'm scared to go over 4.2GHz as the voltage needed causes the spikes to 1.396- or are these spikes lasting a second at these voltages still safe for the CPU? (temps are always under control)
 
Once the clock speed is reduced according to load, the voltage will momentarily spike, and then adjust back down for lower clock speeds...

Such is life with loads adjusting from 135-150 watts back down to 30 watts in a split second....

the voltage might actually be lower than indicated far quicker than indicated in a graph, most monitoring programs are not updating things like voltage levels at 20 times/second...
 
Magic word here is Load Line Callibration (LLC) that is supposed to adjust VCore to stabilize the CPU when needed. Having made my experiences with LLC I always suggest to put it to LOW (or even of) for smaller OC ambitions like in your case. Above 4,5Ghz there is unfortunately often no way without LLC.
Please adjust LLC in Bios and report back on the effect. Should not boost up to almost 1,4V for 'only' 4,2Ghz.
 


I have disabled LLC in the bios. For 4.2GHz it runs at 1.280 Volts easily stable and even mostly stable on 4.4GHz without LLC enabled. It's just if I keep HWinfo on in the background monitoring my voltages, it just shows a constant 1.280V and then a jump up to 1.35 volts for a second randomly and back down to 1.280
 


I mean that I had LLC disabled from the start and what i've said is whats currently happening. If i increase the volts then the spikes reach higher voltage