i7-2600k locked at 3.5ghz 100% of the time

[konkiii]

Hello. I am 17 years old and Ive been having an issue with my i7-2600k for quite some time. Ive been putting it off for a while, but my upgraded gpu from a Gtx 1050 ti to a Gtx 1060 6gb has led this to be a larger problem due to bottlenecking.

When I open cpu-z, it says my i7 is running at a constant 3499.97 mhz, and when I run any game, demanding or not, the speed remains. I have reset my bios a few times as an attempt to fix this, ive changed the multiplier ratio to both the lowest and highest values, ive turned on and off Intel EIST, I have tried turning turbo boost off and setting the multiplier to x38, i even took the cmos battery out as a hope of fixing this, but nothing has shown any signs of changing this. Its as if the processor doesnt want to listen to my bios settings, including turbo boost. Even with it on, turbo does nothing and does not activate, and just remains at 3.5ghz all the time. Ive gotten used to it, but 3.5ghz is sometimes too slow for the games i enjoy, and i would really hope somebody can help me figure this out.

My specs are:

-Msi h67a-g43 motherboard
-2x mushkin 4gb ddr3
-2x ripjaws g-skill 2gb ddr3
-Intel i7-2600k (no oc)
-Evga geforce gtx 1060 6gb
-Corsair cx series 650w psu
-3x seagate 500 gb hdd
-Cooler master hyper 212 evo heatsink

As for temps, cpu has never been above 57C during load, idles around 38-42C.

Thank you for your help.

Edit: I am new to this site, used it before but never made a thread. I will respond to all answers as soon as I find out how.

 

[Barty1884]

Do you have the "high performance" power plan enabled inside Windows?

3.5GHz is a very strange number to be locked to. 3.4GHz is the base clock, that would make sense. 3.8GHz is the boost, that would make sense too..... but 3.5GHz hmm.....

 

[apower101]

Sorry mate, but an H67 motherboard won't support overclocking. Also, sometimes having different ram types in the slots can screw with seemingly irrelevant settings in funny ways, including CPU clocks.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

3.4Ghz base clock however with Turbo Boost on ( and it is by default ) that changes to 3.5Ghz with 4 cores loaded, 3.6Ghz with 3 cores loaded, 3.7Ghz with 2 cores and 3.8Ghz with only a single core loaded.

As said above you can't overclock on H67 so you're limited to default Turbo clocks. Leave Turbo and Speedstep on and it should function correctly.

Very few things only load a single core so you'll almost never see 3.8Ghz. 3.5Ghz is all you're going to see with a load.

Edit: Turbo was linear back with Sandy. It's more advanced and much more dynamic in newer processors.

Edit 2: If it shows a constant 3.5Ghz it's likely Speedstep is off. Speedstep is fine to enable and will downclock the processor when it doesn't need full speed.

 

[Finstar]

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-Desktop-2600K-Processor.88771.0.html
Has the boost states listed clearly.
And as stated above, it'll only boost to 3.5GHz when all 4 cores are loaded.

 

[konkiii]

No intentions of overclocking, however speedstep and turbo are both already on. C-state however wasnt. Could this drop my clock speed when im not using it under heavy load? I will also deeply consider buying the same Ram cards for 2 and 4, that are currently in 1 and 3 to eliminate the possibility of the ram messing up the processor.

Edit: High performance mode is on.

Edit 2: idling at desktop after the changes, cpu-z now reads a constant 3391.91 mhz, with zero change in game. (Other monitor has cpu-z open)

 

[Deleted member 217926]

RAM does not 'mess up the processor' nor have I ever seen it affect CPU clocks. Memory errors are just that.

Yes C states disabled is most likely why your CPU isn't dynamically downclocking. No this doesn't cause the CPU to throttle under load and there's no reason to disable them except when going for very high overclocks and even then it's not really necessary anymore and hasn't been since before Sandy Bridge.

 

[konkiii]

I turned c-state on and the processor remains at 3391.91 mhz, idling and during heavy load. Speedstep and turbo are both on, however more of a personal issue, i wish to set my multiplier back to 'auto' but it only lets me type numbers, i feel like since i have it at x34 hoping it sees default, now my cpu is forcing itself at 3.4ghz.

 

[bmockeg]

Probably should reset your settings

 

[konkiii]

After resetting the bios, the idle cpu fluctuates between 3.5 and 3.8ghz, sometimes dipping between 2.8 and 3.3. All settings are default and i made sure that the recommended settings were on the correct one.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Should be all good then.

 

[bmockeg]

All CPU fluctuate unless you change the power setting to 100%