Did this OC burn my CPU?

Associate
Joined
21 Oct 2013
Posts
276
Prologue: running my 4670K @ 4.5 with 1.33 vCore and 1.25 vCore. I knew I got a bad chip, but I was determined on achieving a 4.5 knowing the risk it may die quickly, didn't imagine this quickly (1 month). Temps max out mid 70s with my Hyper 212 evo, and some stress testing indicated system stable.

Lately I have been getting lots of red screens and random restarts after I started playing Crysis 3 and NFS MW. I lowered multiplayer to 44 and reduced voltages but it still kept happening. I even reverted back to 1.33 and 1.25 and the system was still not stable on gaming. While I'm testing this, the PC shut down and it never started again.

ga-z87-d3h
4670K
Hyper 212 evo
Sapphire 290 Tri X
Corsair Builder Series CXM 750W Modular 80 PLUS Bronze

Should I buy a new CPU or could it be something else?
 
Does the PC not boot at all? Can you get to BIOS?

If you can, reset everything back to the default settings. Then move on to seeing if you can replicate the fault.

Obviously if the PC doesn't boot at all then it would be a problem. Potential PSU issue maybe? Have you got any spares to slot in to check?

(Beaten to it ^^)
 
I had these suggestions in mind. Truth is this happened last weekend and after I was outta country just returned yesterday so planning on trying another PSU and removing GPU this weekend. Just was kinda wondering (hoping) if it could be a CPU issue so I'd have a good excuse to replace that piece of rubbish :D.

Can't get to BIOS unfortunately as the PC does not boot at all (the power button illuminates for a split second and nothing happens afterwards).
 
To be fair it could be. It would be funny though as this is actually a replacement PSU as the first one had an issue as well (different one). Luckily I still did not send back the old one so I could test tomorrow.
 
Don't know if you fixed this problem, but you say you were getting red screen of death whilst gaming, red screens for me in the past have always pointed to the GFX card.
 
Prologue: running my 4670K @ 4.5 with 1.33 vCore and 1.25 vCore. I knew I got a bad chip, but I was determined on achieving a 4.5 knowing the risk it may die quickly, didn't imagine this quickly (1 month). Temps max out mid 70s with my Hyper 212 evo, and some stress testing indicated system stable.

Lately I have been getting lots of red screens and random restarts after I started playing Crysis 3 and NFS MW. I lowered multiplayer to 44 and reduced voltages but it still kept happening. I even reverted back to 1.33 and 1.25 and the system was still not stable on gaming. While I'm testing this, the PC shut down and it never started again.

ga-z87-d3h
4670K
Hyper 212 evo
Sapphire 290 Tri X
Corsair Builder Series CXM 750W Modular 80 PLUS Bronze

Should I buy a new CPU or could it be something else?

Red screen normally means bump dram voltage, or the timings on the memory are incorrect. Can also mean you need more vcore/vccio but most likely memory.
 
Good thing I started with resetting CMOS as per wazza's suggestion - never crossed my mind as I was thinking the CPU must have died.

It could indeed be a memory problem. I only used to choose XMP memory profile and I used to leave DRAM voltage on auto so surely it can't be voltage shortage, can it? I also used to put those 3 other voltages at 0.15+. Now I'm running without memory XMP profile and the system is stable on gaming/stress testing.

So my question is, if my RAM indeed hates OCing, I reckon the performance gain to XMP is marginal, isn't it?

8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black Low Profile, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-
 
The Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO is a budget cooler, I would not use it for any overclocking especially if you have a bad chip and have to up the vcore, as other people have said clear the cmos and see if you still get the red screens, if you still do then your overclock is most likely stable and its another hardware problem, check your motherboard debug LEDs if it has any and see if you're getting any error codes when it red screens, have a look in the motherboard manual for more information on a particular error code, also try taking out some memory moduals and see if any are faulty if thats not it you could try taking out the GPU and using the motherboards display see if it still red screens, hope this helps
 
Last edited:
The 212 is a good cooler for overclocking

As long as the temps are below 70odd you're fine.

He said his processor is hitting mid 70s I would say that's to high and having it like that for a month would take its toll, I know the 212 is a good cooler but its still a good budget cooler, by the sounds of it he's running a 24/7 overclock with the extra vcore and not using the offset mode, in my opinion I just don't think this cooler is up to the task on the overclock he's trying to accomplish especially with having a bad processor.
 
The problem is solved. It obviously the RAM because I've been running an OC without changing the memory profile to XMP and it is flawless. Wondering if the performance gained by going 1600 XMP is noticeable?

Yeah the cooler isn't the best out there but I also believe such temps especially on stress testing is OK. I know the risk of course but at the same time really not too bothered if it actually fries so I'd have a good excuse to get into the silicon lottery again :D
 
Intel CPUs are usually relatively hard to kill from too much VCORE until you hit extremes - but be careful with the additional voltages like VTT, IMC/VCSSA, etc. as these have been known to kill CPUs far more easily.

As above red screen issues are usually CPU and/or DRAM related but I have seen them with someones 290 recently also, its fairly rare to be a GPU problem however.

RAM performance on current Intel platforms is generally fairly small margins - its likely you need to adjust timings or voltages a bit to get XMP settings with a fairly decent CPU overclock.
 
Back
Top Bottom