i7 3770k with Coolermaster 212x - worrying temperatures...

[hcpe85]

Hi all, hoping someone will be able to give some advice re my overclocking temperature issues.

I have an i7 3770k on an Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 mobo and have recently installed a Coolermaster 212x.

I have the CPU overclocked to 4.3 GHz and ran a stress test with Prime95 for 45 minutes and when I cam back maximum recorded temps on Core Temp were around 102 C! I took off the cooler, cleaned everything again with isopropyl alcohol, reapplied thermal paste (the stuff that came with the 212x) and the same thing happened again. In fact I have done that twice, both with the same results.
All the Prime95 tests have had no errors and I have had no crashes or instabilities, so I don't know if that means anything. Idle temps are around 33 C.

Is it possible that the temps are being misreported?

I have double and triple checked that I am installing and seating the cooler properly and to the best of my knowledge (admitted limited) it all looks OK...

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Makentox]

What vcore voltage does it show while stress testing? 212 should handle 4.3 just fine.

 

[hcpe85]

Tops out at about 1.356

 

[Makentox]

Tops out at about 1.356

Did you set it manually? its way too high, this why you have such temperatures.

 

[hcpe85]

No, I am using offset mode with step of 0.005v. Should I be using a fixed value? Sorry, I am quite new to this, as you can probably tell!

 

[Makentox]

No, I am using offset mode with step of 0.005v. Should I be using a fixed value? Sorry, I am quite new to this, as you can probably tell!

Find out stable overclock first using manual voltage, then u can use adaptive or offset. Put 1.250v manually and set 4.5GHZ, stress test and based on fail or success adjust voltage or frequency, it will take long time write all more accurate but there are hundreds of guides all over the Internet just on how to overclock your cpu.
Try to stay under 80 or at least low 80s when stress test, adjust your voltage accordingly

 

[hcpe85]

No, I am using offset mode with step of 0.005v. Should I be using a fixed value? Sorry, I am quite new to this, as you can probably tell!

Find out stable overclock first using manual voltage, then u can use adaptive or offset. Put 1.250v manually and set 4.5GHZ, stress test and based on fail or success adjust voltage or frequency, it will take long time write all more accurate but there are hundreds of guides all over the Internet just on how to overclock your cpu.
Try to stay under 80 or at least low 80s when stress test, adjust your voltage accordingly

Thanks a lot for your advice, I appreciate it. I was actually following a guide but I may have mis interpreted it, or it may be a dodgy guide!

I'll try to find another. Thanks again

 

[hcpe85]

OK so I have gone back to square one using this guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=668ATnnBOZU
At the moment I have 4.3 GHz with max core voltage around 1.27 and max temps in Prime95 of around 88 C.
This is using offset mode and voltage offset of -0.005. I have tried using larger negative offsets to reduce the voltage and hence temps but it always creates instabilities.
Is there something else that I might be doing wrong?

 

[Makentox]

OK so I have gone back to square one using this guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=668ATnnBOZU
At the moment I have 4.3 GHz with max core voltage around 1.27 and max temps in Prime95 of around 88 C.
This is using offset mode and voltage offset of -0.005. I have tried using larger negative offsets to reduce the voltage and hence temps but it always creates instabilities.
Is there something else that I might be doing wrong?

But did u try to use manual first to find stable GHZ/voltage ratio? Your offset is only 0.005v lower from voltage that your mobo would set automatically, so its same like auto, pointless, 1.27 is too high for 4.3.
Make sure you restore default settings before overclocking, to be sure you clear all settings u might have put before.
Btw dont u have adaptive option instead of offset? From my own experience it seems to work better.

 

[hcpe85]

OK so I have gone back to square one using this guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=668ATnnBOZU
At the moment I have 4.3 GHz with max core voltage around 1.27 and max temps in Prime95 of around 88 C.
This is using offset mode and voltage offset of -0.005. I have tried using larger negative offsets to reduce the voltage and hence temps but it always creates instabilities.
Is there something else that I might be doing wrong?

But did u try to use manual first to find stable GHZ/voltage ratio? Your offset is only 0.005v lower from voltage that your mobo would set automatically, so its same like auto, pointless, 1.27 is too high for 4.3.
Make sure you restore default settings before overclocking, to be sure you clear all settings u might have put before.
Btw dont u have adaptive option instead of offset? From my own experience it seems to work better.

Sorry about late reply.

Yep, for 4.3 GHz I could run stable with a fixed voltage of 1.220 in the bios, reported as 1.218 in CPU-Z. Everything else was on default setting. I tried for 4.5 GHz and increased the voltage to 1.275 in the bios but this was very unstable still and didn't feel comfortable increasing the voltage further...
I don't see an option for adaptive voltage, only auto, offset and fixed, unless it would be somewhere else in the bios?