Overclocked CPU crashes in games, but not during stress tests

[nominath6543]

Hi, I'm new to Tom's hardware so sorry if I'm doing this wrong. I have a i5-6600k that I've had overclocked to 4.5 GHz for about 6 months with no issues at all, I recently got a new PC case (phanteks eclipse p400s tempered) and an ssd, I've set up my rig, (I have a Corsair h60i, in pull, an msi z170a gmaing m5 Mobo, a msi GTX 1070 gaming x at stock speeds, a Samsung 850 Evo pro 250gb ssd, 16 gigs of hyperx fury at 2133 MHz, a EVGA 500w 80+bronze psu, a 1tb hhd, and 6 fans in the case total), the airflow is good, my GPU under max load never goes above 65c and my CPU never goes above 50c, I've run my CPU through aida64 extreme for over an hour (I have my core voltages set to auto :/ ) and my PC never crashed, same with furmark and heaven for my gpu, but when I run overwatch or bf1 at low settings to get 144fps, the games crash after about 20mins, I got a bsod once but haven't since... I don't know what's wrong or what to do... Any help is appreciated.

 

[n0ns3ns3]

to get 144FPS, you'd be better with an i7 CPU for many games.
If you check the CPU/GPU utilizatio, you will probably see that the CPU is at 100% while GPU is far from that (on low settings).
Anyway, auto voltages ARE BAD IDEA !
Every application uses different CPU parts. each core has quite a few and then there is a cache, memory controller, I/O etc.
So a game may create a load that this overclock is unstable while stress tests wouldn't have a problem.
It is actually recommended to play games and use system to validate stability. If your BSOD is “WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR" lower the overclock.
Find a CPU value that is stable under 1.3v.
Also, many games will benefit from RAM overclocking.
Pay attention, that memory overclocking is both frequency and latency (timings).

Also, the issue with crashes under game could be related to PSU. probably when doing stress tests, you are running either CPU or GPU load.
Try to run both aida64 and furmark/Heaven simultaneously and see what happens.

 

[nominath6543]

to get 144FPS, you'd be better with an i7 CPU for many games.
If you check the CPU/GPU utilizatio, you will probably see that the CPU is at 100% while GPU is far from that (on low settings).
Anyway, auto voltages ARE BAD IDEA !
Every application uses different CPU parts. each core has quite a few and then there is a cache, memory controller, I/O etc.
So a game may create a load that this overclock is unstable while stress tests wouldn't have a problem.
It is actually recommended to play games and use system to validate stability. If your BSOD is “WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR" lower the overclock.
Find a CPU value that is stable under 1.3v.
Also, many games will benefit from RAM overclocking.
Pay attention, that memory overclocking is both frequency and latency (timings).

Also, the issue with crashes under game could be related to PSU. probably when doing stress tests, you are running either CPU or GPU load.
Try to run both aida64 and furmark/Heaven simultaneously and see what happens.

I have ran both Aida and furmark at the same time, good temps and no crashes, over 140fps on furmark at 1080p high. My CPU usage is about 50 percent while playing overwatch (not very CPU intensive) and 85 ish percent while I'm playing bf1, I'll try and figure out the wattage of the system is and see if my PSU has too big of a load. I just lowered my oc to 4ghz, still on auto and it's perfectly stable, the thing is that it was very stable when I had the rig in my old case, I might try updating my chipset driver's since I moved windows 10 to the SSD. I can't really afford an i7 Atm but my i5 does well on everything I throw at it without a bottleneck to my GPU.

 

[n0ns3ns3]

I didn't say that you HAVE to, it's just a suggestion for a future step. Especially with the new GPU.
If the system does not crash during simultaneous CPU and GPU stress, PSU is not the problem.
Your system should consume about 200-250w under gaming load.
As the 4GHz absence of crashes tells, it's something with overclocking. Components degrade over time, so sometimes the system may become unstable with same overclock settings that were good for years.
Again, try to do a manual voltage. find the highest stable frequency up to 1.3v (preferably 1.2-1.275v) and then just go one step down with a frequency.
that's kinda best practice for 24/7 overclocks.

 

[nominath6543]

I didn't say that you HAVE to, it's just a suggestion for a future step. Especially with the new GPU.
If the system does not crash during simultaneous CPU and GPU stress, PSU is not the problem.
Your system should consume about 200-250w under gaming load.
As the 4GHz absence of crashes tells, it's something with overclocking. Components degrade over time, so sometimes the system may become unstable with same overclock settings that were good for years.
Again, try to do a manual voltage. find the highest stable frequency up to 1.3v (preferably 1.2-1.275v) and then just go one step down with a frequency.
that's kinda best practice for 24/7 overclocks.

I'll try it, thanks

 

[nominath6543]

I didn't say that you HAVE to, it's just a suggestion for a future step. Especially with the new GPU.
If the system does not crash during simultaneous CPU and GPU stress, PSU is not the problem.
Your system should consume about 200-250w under gaming load.
As the 4GHz absence of crashes tells, it's something with overclocking. Components degrade over time, so sometimes the system may become unstable with same overclock settings that were good for years.
Again, try to do a manual voltage. find the highest stable frequency up to 1.3v (preferably 1.2-1.275v) and then just go one step down with a frequency.
that's kinda best practice for 24/7 overclocks.

Oh one last question, will updating my bios give me better potential for a stable oc? Mine is 2 years old

 

[n0ns3ns3]

Probably it would be a good idea to have the latest BIOS.
It may help with stability.
Just don't use AUTO. it is really bad as it pushes way higher voltages than needed.

 

[nominath6543]

Probably it would be a good idea to have the latest BIOS.
It may help with stability.
Just don't use AUTO. it is really bad as it pushes way higher voltages than needed.

Okay, thanks for all your help!

 

[nominath6543]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from nominath6543 : "Overclocked CPU causes crashes in games"

Hi, I have an i5-6600k overclocked to 4.4ghz, formerly 4.5. at 1.31v in override mode, I've had this CPU at 4.5 for ages but I recently switched PC cases and now games are freezing. All stress tests are stable, temps in the mid 60s under load but games (bf1, overwatch) freeze and shut down after about 30 mins of playtime, when they freeze my whole PC starts to slow down to the point where I can't click on close program, causing me to have to manually restart. I don't know why this is happening, it didn't happen in the old case, I've updated all drivers. The crashes don't happen at stock though but if I want to play most games at 144fps I can't play it on stock... Any help? I've moved voltages up and down and moved clock speeds up and down.... Thanks! (Also I think I might have added a bit too much thermal paste to my CPU when putting on heatsink but temps are low...)

 

[introaether]

I had a similar issue when working on my OC.

I had clocked my RAM and NB too high. A result of altering my bus freq. (This was fx 8370 though, maybe its diff for intel?).

Anyway, this higher RAM was fine during bench's. But failed after a gaming session started to heat up.

Good luck.