What causes "Overclocking failure" reboot?

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BrandonCSLC

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Nov 18, 2013
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Fx 8320 @ 4.2GHz
Asus M5A99FX Pro.
Corsair H60 liquid cooler
GSkill 1600MHz DDR3 (16gb)

Followed an overclocking guide found on the internet along with guidance from several threads in TH. Tested in Prime95 for an hour with temps stable at 55C while under heavy load. Normal operating temps range from 25-40C. Everything was running fine for several weeks. Two days ago while playing a game the computer shut down and reset to a screen that said "Overclocking failure. Press F1 to enter setup."

When I pressed F1 it sent me to Bios where it had reset to factory defaults.
I repeated the process to overclock the CPU. This time I have it set at 4.0GHz and everything seems to be fine again. What happened? Is 4.2 mire than my CPU can handle.

Also the temps at the time of the incident where fine. Around 40C while gaming on the CPU and the socket temp was about 50C.
 
Solution
4Ryan6


And here is an observance:

You own an FX CPU, it has an unlocked multiplier, which means if you want 100% stability you do not overclock the Bus Frequency, at the same time you are overclocking the multiplier as the instability you...
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Overclocking failure can come from much more than just temps. The motherboard and ram play a huge factor. If you have poor ram and a poor motherboard then your not going to get a good or stable overclock.

As ImDaBaron said, what's the voltage you have it set at? At around the frequencies you are OCing to, It should be at default. At most 1 or two above.
 
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Voltages fluctuate between 1.3 and 1.32. Voltages determined by motherboard as I have that option in bios set to auto.these voltages are seen when I have the CPU at 4.2Ghz. Makes sense because the 8350's stock voltage is 1.3v at 4.0GHz.
 
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Stable in prime just means your stable in prime, try a range of stress tests, I've had failure in occt and the amd stress test in overdrive but been 'prime stable' if that helps any. I find prime good for thermals though and (maybe out of habit) always try it first.
 
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The voltage itself is fine but that's way too much fluctuation. Try setting it to 1.3 and see if it still changes as much.
 
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Everything I've read the auto voltage always increases it took much. This is why it's better to do it manually.
 
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Testing with prime95 for 1 hour does not mean you are stable, testing for 24hrs does not mean you are stable, and it does not matter which stress testing program you use, just because you can pass a stress test does not mean your overclock is stable enough to handle a full system load, WHY?

Because stress testing programs do not test the graphics or audio load on the system, a stress testing program is your first step to reaching stability, once you can successfully run a stress test without crashing, then use benchmarking tests which brings the graphics load into the testing picture, then use gaming to add the audio to the graphics, to fine tune to stability.



Auto CPU voltage may make sense to you allowing the motherboard to control these voltages but it doesn't seem to be working for you, is it?



That's simply because you need to invest the time to learn how to do it manually, not only will that gain you a successful rock solid overclock, but quite a bit of internal self satisfaction, because you did it!

Then and only then can you have your own personal Rocky moment, "YO ADRIEN, I DID IT!" :)

To sum up, you need to learn how to manually overclock first, and then do it!

Before you screw something up, that a system reboot cannot fix!

 
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At what increments do increase the voltage? In my Asus bios under CPU configuration there is a tab that says "offset". If you click it you can change it to manual or auto allowing you to change the voltage for the cpu. When I do change it to manual my CPU clocks change from an even 4200MHz to some value like 4158MHz. Is that supposed to be like that?
 
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@Prit87 - Thanks for the video. It was very helpful.

I followed the guys instructions and am now stress testing with prime95. I will let it run while I am at work for the next 3 hours. Then I will run a 3DMark graphics test and play some games to see if it runs smoothly.

@4Ryan6 - I just watched the video posted above and gives some good instruction on manual voltage control. At the moment I have the CPU voltage set to 1.3125v.

Multiplier @ 20.0x
Bus Frequency @ 210
NB Frequency @ 2200MHz
HT Frequency @ 2600MHz

Here is the Question:

I have the voltage set in bios to Manual @ 1.3125v.
CPU-Z and HWMonitor say my core voltage is 1.308v idle. While running prime95 the core voltage has dropped to 1.296v or even as low as 1.28xx volts. Is that supposed to happen?

 
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No, the voltage should increase as CPU load increases. It should also drop during Idle. Can you reproduce dropping voltages while gaming or other cpu heavy tasks?
 
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And here is an observance:

You own an FX CPU, it has an unlocked multiplier, which means if you want 100% stability you do not overclock the Bus Frequency, at the same time you are overclocking the multiplier as the instability you could be creating going past the 200mhz bus frequency, increases exponentially as the multiplier increases.

So if you want to run a 4200 CPU clock you do it by dropping the Bus Frequency back to 200mhz and use a 21X multiplier, then everything affected by increasing the bus frequency is no longer adding an unstable element.

If the video is telling you to run a 210mhz Bus Frequency, then don't watch the video as the guy doesn't know what he is doing, he is just stumbling in the dark and playing with instability that can cause serious operating system problems later!

Do not complicate such a simple multiplier overclock that you've been blessed with!

Correct that before worrying about voltage.


 
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Solution


^He's right. I missed that you changed the bus frequency. As you increase the bus frequency you also overclock your ram and motherboard. You only ever change it when you have hit the maximum with the multiplier and only if you want an extreme overclock. For 99% of people, it's good to just stay with what you can get with the multiplier alone.

Thanks 4Ryan6 for pointing that out.
 
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Ok.. Thanks! I will return the bus frequency back to 200 and change the multiplier to 21.0. I Wil let you know if the voltages stable out. It really is the weirdest thing. I manually set voltage to 1.32 and the motherboard reports 1.308v at idle. When I go into windows and run Prime or play a game the voltage drops to 1.98 or 1.82. I will see if this helps.
 
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Any chance you can run a voltage monitoring software? It would be a good idea to observe whats happening in the transition between idle and load. For example, look at the cpu voltage while you start up a game.

If you see a large spike, it could indicate a poor quality PSU.
 
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Found the reason for the voltage drops when running applications and Prime95. LLC was set to high which only increases voltage by 50% when demand is needed Ultra High is 75% and Extreme is 100%. Sett LLC to Ultra High and now the voltage is locked at 1.32v for a 4.2GHz overclock on my FX8320. Things seem to be stable. No stutters while gaming and reasonable temps. More testing will come before I increase to 4.3Ghz. Trying to shoot for 4.4.
 
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