Professionally OC'd CPU reset to stock

[Gallarian]

Hey guys,

On the 26/12/11 I bought a ready built CPU+Mobo+RAM bundle from Scan.co.uk, with the CPU having been professionally OC'd to 4.6ghz. (spec list of said order below)

CPU: intel i5-2500k @ 4.6 ghz
Cooler: Be Quiet Dark Rock pro
Mobo: ASRock Extreme 3 Gen 4 Z68
RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance

(other specs are featured in my sig)

Working fine up utill today when I booted my system and was met with an info screen, which at the bottom told me my BIOS settings were set to default and to press F1 to continue. I have never seen this screen before (or if I have, it has quickly moved onto the Windows loading screen and did not require any input from me to do so like this one did).

I pressed F1 to continue and my desktop loaded fine - but in the notification area, up popped a message balloon telling me that drivers were being installed. Upon opening the balloon I was told that many pieces of my hardware's drivers were now installed and ready for use, but required a restart.

I restarted the system and it booted fine (though I briefly saw an ASRock loading screen that offered me to option of going into BIOS etc, which has never happened before).

Thinking this all very strange I checked key areas of my system, and noticed my CPU clock speed was very low (using CPU-Z), even when selecting the 'Performance' power setting in the CP. After running a game and monitoring my clock speeds while doing so, I noticed it never went above 3.3-3.4 ghz and framerate in game had been reduced.

So what has gone on here guys? Seems to me like I have some sort of mobo firmware update that has reset me to default but Im not sure.

Has anyone any suggestions on how to reinstate my OC settings? (I dont know the details of the clock speed, multiplier, voltage etc, so Id rather not do this manually as I have little to no OC knowledge - hence why I bought an already OC'd CPU bundle and I paid extra to have it done properly, so I dont really see why I should have to).



Thanks in advance for any info you can provide!

Gallarian

 

[Gallarian]

Edit: Thinking of additional information and forgot to put in this:

1) 2 nights ago my PC shut down suddenly for no apparent reason and would not turn back on. It being laste at the time, I left it till the next day and tried to turn it on again to no avial. I moved it to my kitchen table so I could attempt to work it out but when I set it up it boot first time. (Bare in mind though, the PC has been rebooted and used several times between this event and the one I am talking about in my original post)

2) My PC was not plugged into the internet at the time

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

When you are running CPU-Z are you seeing a speed of 1.6GHz? This is called SpeedStep that when you are doing nothing else your system will drop down to a preset speed to save on power. Now if you are in CPU-Z and running something like Prime95 and are seeing a low speed like 3.3GHz then I would have to say that you are facing some kind of heating issue since the Turbo Boost should have a higher speed all the time until you are overheating.

 

[Fire Lancer]

I recall on one of my computers if the motherboard decided the OC was unstable and couldn't boot it would automatically load the bios defaults

 

[Gallarian]

@ IntelEnthusiast

Yes when idle Im running at 1.6 Ghz, but underload Im only running at max 3.3, though prior to today Id be running at 4.6.

Only starting happening today and was on first boot, so temps would have been very low. And would temps be the case even though all the other stuff I described in my OP happened? e.g. reset drivers and installed them again..


@Fire Lancer - yes it could be the case, but as I said it my Edit post, between my PC shutting off suddenly and my issue now there have been many boots - so if it was related it surely would have reset the OC sooner.

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

I would just try to contact Scan about the situation and see what they can do (assuming they're the ones that OC'd it).

 

[Gallarian]

@DJDeCiBeL - I have done, Ill update this thread when I get a reply

 

[Fire Lancer]

Well you can take a look in the BIOS to see what its trying to do. Took a look at the user manual for your board, don't know if theres been any revisions etc, but should be more or less right.

You can press F2 or DEL during the POST stage

Select "OC Tweaker" from the menu bar (mouse should work, or left and right keys with enter to select).

The CPU clock is the "CPU Ratio Setting" * "Host Clock Override (BCLK)".
So 4.6GHz could be 46*100MHz (although scan likely did other things as well).

At the bottom in mentions about saving/loading. Scan might have saved whatever they came up with so it could be restored later if needed.

User Default
In this option, you are allowed to load and save three user defaults
according to your own requirements.

 

[Gallarian]

Non reply from Scan at the minute, which is probably due to the Jubilee + bank holiday situation, and as such I decided to delve into the BIOS to see what I could dig up.

Turns out that Scan had saved a profile called OC, so I have just reinstated that profile as default and Im back to normal again.

Thanks for your help guys.