i7 3770k OC - HORRIBLE User Error..please advise

[Enigmatic Squid]

I'm having a terrible time getting a stable OC on my new system I just sunk 2500$ into. I've resorted to trying a 4.5GHz OC and after reading about a few other successful attempts, I started this off around 1.175v. Well, I thought I set it to 1.18 the next go, but keyed in 1.8 by accident...... Long story short, I'm running Prime95 and seeing Stability!! I walk away for a few minutes to grab a water and when I come back I notice my max cpu temps are 119C and then I realize it was running at about 1.862v. I immediately shut it down and unplugged it for a while. I've since defaulted the bios and I'm running a Prime95 stress test on stock values to see if it's still operating OK...

I know I F#$%#d up big time, but can any of you CPU experts let me know if I did any long term damage to my new chip or any advice on this matter?

I face palmed for a good 5 minutes after this and cursed myself for OC testing on a lack of sleep.... 🙁

 

[Enigmatic Squid]

Right now, I'm running stable at stock - 100% utilization, 3.9GHz @ 1.164v - Max Temps: 65-69C across the 4 cores... going to let it run all night.

 

[funguseater]

Unless you disabled it in the bios your CPU should have throttled itself to below the burnout threshold, these chips are pretty forgiving. they say 105 celcius is max but it sounds like you got it in time. CPU breakdown from OCing is more of a gradual thing in my experience, and I have been overclocking since my IBM PC/XT was shiny and new.

Have fun, but be careful 😉
Fungi

 

[Enigmatic Squid]

Thank you. Anyone else have any incite into my screw up?

 

[ihog]

If everything is running fine, you didn't cause any harm.

 

[Emilvl2]

I had a stable OC @ 4.5 Ghz on 3770K and i just set the voltage to auto (gigabyte Z77x-UD3H) it ran at max 70 on liquid cooling ,.. which some say its fine, but after gaming with it with farcry3, battlefield, COD BOPS2 and Hitman,.. i dont see these games use more tahn 30% of my cores and sometimes it goes to 79% but only for a sec lolz every mission load.. so i think 4.5 Ghz is nothing but token OC cause 70 deg. freaks me out lolz dropped it to 4.3 with again voltage on auto and only the multiplier to change .. it now runs max 60-63 Deg iddle at 26-32 and run average on gaming at 40 deg. sooo basically a few . points is not worth having if your going to mess your CPU espesially if you have no need for those extra points anyway LOLZ

 

[Enigmatic Squid]

I had a stable OC @ 4.5 Ghz on 3770K and i just set the voltage to auto (gigabyte Z77x-UD3H) it ran at max 70 on liquid cooling ,.. which some say its fine, but after gaming with it with farcry3, battlefield, COD BOPS2 and Hitman,.. i dont see these games use more tahn 30% of my cores and sometimes it goes to 79% but only for a sec lolz every mission load.. so i think 4.5 Ghz is nothing but token OC cause 70 deg. freaks me out lolz dropped it to 4.3 with again voltage on auto and only the multiplier to change .. it now runs max 60-63 Deg iddle at 26-32 and run average on gaming at 40 deg. sooo basically a few . points is not worth having if your going to mess your CPU espesially if you have no need for those extra points anyway LOLZ

did you set any other settings in your BIOS? I have a Gigabyte UP7 mobo and I've followed the ivybridge overclocking guide over at overclock.net, without any luck so far. I was going to try and dial in a 4.5GHz tonight. I'm really trying to stay away from any of the windows based tuners and just stay in the BIOS.

 

[Enigmatic Squid]

I have windows up and running nicely at the moment with a 4.5GHz OC @ 1.27v - LLC on Turbo, though CPU-z is showing 1.248v with 100% CPU / 90% of RAM in FTT Prime95 test. Temps are at about 65-70C. Going to run this for 12-24 hours (I really hope it lasts)

 

[Emilvl2]

I had a stable OC @ 4.5 Ghz on 3770K and i just set the voltage to auto (gigabyte Z77x-UD3H) it ran at max 70 on liquid cooling ,.. which some say its fine, but after gaming with it with farcry3, battlefield, COD BOPS2 and Hitman,.. i dont see these games use more tahn 30% of my cores and sometimes it goes to 79% but only for a sec lolz every mission load.. so i think 4.5 Ghz is nothing but token OC cause 70 deg. freaks me out lolz dropped it to 4.3 with again voltage on auto and only the multiplier to change .. it now runs max 60-63 Deg iddle at 26-32 and run average on gaming at 40 deg. sooo basically a few . points is not worth having if your going to mess your CPU espesially if you have no need for those extra points anyway LOLZ

did you set any other settings in your BIOS? I have a Gigabyte UP7 mobo and I've followed the ivybridge overclocking guide over at overclock.net, without any luck so far. I was going to try and dial in a 4.5GHz tonight. I'm really trying to stay away from any of the windows based tuners and just stay in the BIOS.

I have windows up and running nicely at the moment with a 4.5GHz OC @ 1.27v - LLC on Turbo, though CPU-z is showing 1.248v with 100% CPU / 90% of RAM in FTT Prime95 test. Temps are at about 65-70C. Going to run this for 12-24 hours (I really hope it lasts)

Nice did you stick to auto voltage ? thats all i did , jacked the multiplier till i get 4.5 and kept everything on auto, its i think safer that way if the power is not enough it will just refuse to load

lolz your temp are great for that clock considering your on fan cooling and not liquid , im on liquid i get 70c on the 1st few hours and climed to 82Max but settleed on 75 average after 7 hours thats the reason i dropped my over clock to 4.3 Ghz my processor is happy on 60-65c and if you dont mind me asking ... is there a specific need for a 4.5Ghz on your work load ? becasue you know you can run all current games on max settings and your system wont even breach 3.5 load its the video card that REALLY matters on gaming... LOlz well i pushed mine on 4.3 just to have a nice 4GHz on my system specs LOLZ and i think same goes for everyone lolz cause i still havent seen a game that pushes my CPU more than 40% on all cores constant lolz but yes there are some games that whips my GTX 680 to 99% Lolz

 

[JeffJB88]

It is possible you could have caused some damage but only time will tell. Higher voltage and temps will cause the silicon in the transistors to degrade faster. too much voltage/current/heat can destroy it altogether. I can't tell you what to do and I'm not familiar with the thermal/voltage limits of Intel's cpus, but I would be very careful from now on since you more than likely affected the longterm lifespan of your cpu. If I were you I would keep a close eye on that Intel Warranty and if your cpu starts to become unstable at stock settings within that warranty period get it replaced and say nothing of what happened lol.

 

[Enigmatic Squid]

I'm hoping the thermal protection kicked in and throttled it back before anything bad happened. On a positive note, the 4.5 GHz OC @ 1.27v - 1.248v in windows/cpu-z is running very nicely. I've been running the Prime95 FTT custom test with 90% of my memory for over 16 hours now without any issue. I'm going to let it go the full 24, but I think I found a nice stable setup for this CPU and I'm more than content with 4.5 GHz. In response to Emilvl2, I probably don't need the OC, but I will be running things like Crysis 3 on max settings (which does utilize all the capabilities of an i7 ivybridge). I'm also going to be running several VM's, which is why I got 32 GB of 2033mhz ram. I'm deciding now if I should run any further stability tests after this 24 hours Prime95 one is up. Perhaps that Intel burn in one?

 

[Enigmatic Squid]

Not bad for a CPU I shoved 1.8v into for several minutes. I think I'm done with my OCing on this processor for now.

 

[funguseater]

Thanks, and nice OC, I only "overclock" my i5 now to show off or play farcry3 or TombRaider as I think it helps my SLI performance, the rest of the time it stays at 4.5 nice and cool with no lid. Nice system you built there been looking at one of those PSU's myself.

 

[Emilvl2]

I'm hoping the thermal protection kicked in and throttled it back before anything bad happened. On a positive note, the 4.5 GHz OC @ 1.27v - 1.248v in windows/cpu-z is running very nicely. I've been running the Prime95 FTT custom test with 90% of my memory for over 16 hours now without any issue. I'm going to let it go the full 24, but I think I found a nice stable setup for this CPU and I'm more than content with 4.5 GHz. In response to Emilvl2, I probably don't need the OC, but I will be running things like Crysis 3 on max settings (which does utilize all the capabilities of an i7 ivybridge). I'm also going to be running several VM's, which is why I got 32 GB of 2033mhz ram. I'm deciding now if I should run any further stability tests after this 24 hours Prime95 one is up. Perhaps that Intel burn in one?

nice i recently purchased Crysis 3 and yes it is kinda demanding on the CPU side the first time ive seen my Ivy go past 50% average usage and past 85% peak lolz but to run @ max i think whats going to hold your fps is your GPU ... I have a 4.3 ghz + gtx 680 Direct CU II OC'ed @ 1200 Mhz and i get only 50 - 60 fps compared to the 70 fps i get on far cry and 120 fps on COD BOPS 2 lolz so ur GTX 670 might push crysis 3 on below 50 Fps on max settings ... but you can always drop anti aliasing to FXAA instead of SMAA and Anistrophic filtering from 15x to 8x and maybe motion blur a step down but overall thats a solid rig you have there i saw your pic where your processor actually peaked @ 84c personal note, thats a bit too high for me though .. specially that you have potentially damaged your processor already ... i would highly suggest to get the MAX TEMP where it says "maximum in small letters in REal temp down to just below 70c because CRysis 3 WILL Push your Processor to that Temp Lolz for sure Another suggestion would be a liquid cooling system if you really need the .2 anyway good job on the build bro

 

[Enigmatic Squid]

Thank you for your suggestion Emilvl2. It only hit the 80 range every so often in that Prime95 test. I was reading that Ivybridge OC guide and it said 80-85 is OK, but I definitely don't want it in that range all the time. When I do fire up Crysis 3, I'm going to run the Realtemp to see what kind of peaks I hit. Worse case, I can play with the voltage or drop it to 4.4 perhaps.

Thank you all again for your comments and suggestions. I do take advantage of all the input.