Reduce CPU voltage on 4790K. Harmful?

[Victor Avilla]

Hello!

I have just finished my gaming build and I was experiencing high CPU temperatures when playing BF4 and WatchDogs (~100C).

I read on the internet that reducing CPU voltage could fix that.
So I did it.

I started with the default voltage (Vcore 1.4V) and then I progressively kept reducing it until I could have perceived instability.

However, after setting the voltage about 1.2V the system won't boot anymore.

I tried to set BIOS to the optimal settings, reset the CMOS, even flashed the BIOS to an updated version, but anything has fixed the boot issue.

My specs are:

i7 4790K 4.4GHz
Noctua NH-U9B SE2 Cooler
GA Z97X Gaming 7
Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB 2x8GB DDR3 2400MHz
EVGA GeForce GTX770 SuperClocked with EVGA ACX Cooler, 2GB GDDR5 256bit
Samsung Electronics 840 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III
Western Digital 750 GB WD Black SATA III 7200 RPM 16 MB Cache
EVGA SuperNOVA NEX750G 80PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V/EPS12V 750W

Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Alpha3031]

:wince: Alright, first, the default vcore should be 1.215 or so. Did you stress test? How does it not boot? bsod?

 

[barto]

If you didn't overclock from the start, meaning you didn't change the voltage to overclock your pc, you shouldn't have to lower the voltage. Did you apply thermal paste on your CPU? I would first set the system back to default vcore. If you don't know what you are doing, don't mess with the vcore.

 

[Victor Avilla]

:wince: Alright, first, the default vcore should be 1.215 or so. Did you stress test? How does it not boot? bsod?

I didn't. Like I said, only played those games for some minutes and collected the temperatures.

The Windows 8.1 logo appears, those little dots start to run in circles and..... system crashes, after some second the blue screen of death comes up.

 

[Victor Avilla]

If you didn't overclock from the start, meaning you didn't change the voltage to overclock your pc, you shouldn't have to lower the voltage. Did you apply thermal paste on your CPU? I would first set the system back to default vcore. If you don't know what you are doing, don't mess with the vcore.

I haven't over-clocked. I was not even considering to do so.
I did apply a pea size of thermal paste before installing the cpu. I have also cleaned both surfaces (cooler and cpu) with rubbing alcohol.
I set the whole BIOS settings to the optimal default configuration.
Im sorry, I thought I knew what I was doing.

 

[Alpha3031]

What STOP code?

 

[Victor Avilla]

What STOP code?

It varies.
Sometimes is WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR
Sometimes is MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION

 

[Alpha3031]

If you have alt cpu, try.if not,see if you can return

 

[Victor Avilla]

If you have alt cpu, try.if not,see if you can return

Thanks buddy... I have sent an email to Intel Support. I will wait for their response.