CPU Degraded before my eyes!!!!

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Well it wasn't too long ago that I posted https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=28957729#post28957729

Talking about how I could get 4.9GHZ at 1.32V stable. Well I've definitely jinxed myself!!

Over the past few weeks I've had a lot of system crashes. BF4 crashes constantly. I didnt pay it much attention and thought it was compatibility issue with windows 10 pro. Anyway got tired of the constant crashes so I changed back to Windows 7 ultimate!

Recently got a ASUS ROG GTZ980TI Maxtrix Platinum, so when BF4 carshed in windows 7 I put it down to early drivers. Anyway as the days progressed windows started crashing a lot, decided to return everything back to stock...and bam! 100% stable no crashes gaming for hours on end. To cut a long story short I'm struggling to get 4.8GHZ at 1.35vcore, prime95 loads but then crashes after 1 min. OCCT keeps reporting different core errors. I managed to do a 20 min prime95 at 4.7GHZ at 1.35v but OCT at the same settings reports errors in cores.

In short I think my CPU has degreded so fast! Am actually surprised to say the least; I knew it would eventually degrade but never this quick! Generally do Intel degrade quick? This 4790k is my first intel, I've always ran AMD, from the days of Athlon 1600+.

My last CPU was a AMD 1090T and that was overclocked to 4.5GHZ with insane Voltage (can't exactly remember...i think around 1.46v) and that never degraded during all the time I had it, which was for 3 years. I've sold that setup to a close friend of mine who's still running it with no issues. Also I'd like to add that was air cooled. (Awsome cpu in all honesty).

Back to my 4790K, my temps were all within acceptable limits, only once did it reach thermal throttling and that was me pushing the hell out of it at 1.4V after taking my H110i off and re-fitting it and didnt apply new paste. As soon as i saw it reach 100 i stopped the test, so wasnt at those temp for more than a second. Went out and got the H110iGTX the same day and temps never reached 70 or higher under full stress, I never went up to 1.4V again.

Did the thermal throttling damage it maybe?

I'm pretty naffed off that this cpu had degraded this quickly in all honesty. I have contacted silicon lottery and they said as soon as they get 5GHZ 4790K in stock they will email me so I can snatch one up. However now am thinking will that also degrade as quick? Is it the architecture of the cpu that doesn't hold up overclocking too well? or was I just very unlucky? I mean 1.32v was not high at all!
 
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Mines been running at 1.36v @ 4.9 since i got it over a year ago with no ill effect,. I did also try using 5ghz for a while with mine just for benching but it required well over 1.4v so i didnt bother sticking with that. I guess them high temps you reached didnt do your chip any favours.
 
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First of mate, prime 95 is a sure way to damage / degrade CPUs extremely fast... It's a tools that should never be run on CPUs like yours. Only older CPUs get along with that software, if you want to test stability just use whatever programs you are going to use IE Sony Vegas or just gaming. If you insist on what is frequently called torture testing (it's called that for a reason) use something like Aids 64 that has been designed to be more friendly to modern CPUs... But still you are better off just running games / the hardest software you are going to be using for that PC as any torture test puts a CPU under a unrealistic load and then adds some more unrealistic usages that otherwise your CPU would have never done.

The fact that it was thermal throttling Said it was not cooled sufficiently and you let it get upto 100c? Man alive that is a bit much for a CPU they are not as resilient as gpus, you are putting way to much voltage through such a tiny cooler.if you want to do it again you want to be going custom water / and or phase change (that was a semi serious suggestion ) but impractical to say the least.

Honestly though I'm not surprised at all its degraded you run the CPU hotter than its supposed to be at 1.4 volts. I'm actually impressed it's not broken despite you lowering it to 1.32
 
1.32v seem like a lot of volts for 24/7 use. The tyipcal overclock on those chips is about 4.6 so I would suggest setting everything to stock and see if that fixes the stability issue. If it does try overclo king again but with stock voltage and see how far you get.
 
First of mate, prime 95 is a sure way to damage / degrade CPUs extremely fast... It's a tools that should never be run on CPUs like yours. Only older CPUs get along with that software, if you want to test stability just use whatever programs you are going to use IE Sony Vegas or just gaming. If you insist on what is frequently called torture testing (it's called that for a reason) use something like Aids 64 that has been designed to be more friendly to modern CPUs... But still you are better off just running games / the hardest software you are going to be using for that PC as any torture test puts a CPU under a unrealistic load and then adds some more unrealistic usages that otherwise your CPU would have never done.

The fact that it was thermal throttling Said it was not cooled sufficiently and you let it get upto 100c? Man alive that is a bit much for a CPU they are not as resilient as gpus, you are putting way to much voltage through such a tiny cooler.if you want to do it again you want to be going custom water / and or phase change (that was a semi serious suggestion ) but impractical to say the least.

Honestly though I'm not surprised at all its degraded you run the CPU hotter than its supposed to be at 1.4 volts. I'm actually impressed it's not broken despite you lowering it to 1.32

I never left it at 1.4v for more than 2minutes, as soon as it hit 100 i switched the test off turned computer off and then brought the voltage back down to 1.32v.

The reason it hit 100 was because i didnt apply new thermal paste am sure. Even the H100i at full whack i reckon wouldnt of allowed it to get that hot, maybe high 80's or even 90..still high i know.

I dont run 1.32v constant, I have it running in off-set mode, so actually most of them time it sat south of 4.9GHZ. In gaming it rarly hit 4.9GHZ.
All Ive been doing when overclocking is changing multiplier and increasing vcore and vcache. Memory is set at 2100MHZ XMP. Is there anything else i should i be changing anything else to increase stability as such?
 
First of mate, prime 95 is a sure way to damage / degrade CPUs extremely fast... It's a tools that should never be run on CPUs like yours. Only older CPUs get along with that software, if you want to test stability just use whatever programs you are going to use IE Sony Vegas or just gaming. If you insist on what is frequently called torture testing (it's called that for a reason) use something like Aids 64 that has been designed to be more friendly to modern CPUs... But still you are better off just running games / the hardest software you are going to be using for that PC as any torture test puts a CPU under a unrealistic load and then adds some more unrealistic usages that otherwise your CPU would have never done.

Don't want to get too OT, but I don't buy that for two reasons.

First, not all errors in regular use are severe enough to result in a crash/lockup/bluescreen. Many will be silent, some doing no damage, some causing small errors to accumulate (in the OS and elsewhere). The point of Prime and IBT is they detect very small changes in the results. Games etc. don't do any error checking.

Second, why should Prime or IBT cause damage to the CPU? Sounds like an urban legend to me. What if you use your CPU for Prime full time?
 
Throttling wont damage your CPU, it'll protect it. It sounds like you've damage your CPU by having insufficient cooling on it. The voltages you're quoting are not so high.

Another question immediately jumps to mind - have you adequately cooled you motherboard components throughout this period overclocked?
 
I've always had AIO coolers. Had a H100i, then when temps where hovering around the 70's on full load, i got the H110iGTX brought them down to mid 60's. I never really got the cpu at high temps, or kept it there for too long at all.

Yah motherboard is cooled. Using a corsair 780T so enough space with 3 intake fans, 1 exhaust, and a push/pull configeration on the H110iGTX. I've also got 2 memory cooler fans than blow air on the memory and around that area.

2015_12_16_20_41_33.jpg


Can a power supply cause these issues if it's not powerful enough?
 
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You do all that Prime, OCCT junk this is what you get!! It totures and destroys. Use Real bench or similar for testing or simply use your PC for your own needs. It crashes adjust!!

All this being said it may well be PSU. Faulty RAM and all kinds of other stuff. Run CPU stock and RAm at XMP and test first.
 
You can see from your original thread that you linked to that the first reply was mine. (https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=28957729#post28957729)

In that post I did suggest to you to only use RealBench if you have to stress test, though I also just game, encode or both at the same time.

In short, it is possible that that one spike in very high temps could have degraded the CPU. It's the combination of the high volts and heat (especially the heat)
 
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You do all that Prime, OCCT junk this is what you get!! It totures and destroys. Use Real bench or similar for testing or simply use your PC for your own needs. It crashes adjust!!

Do customers ever complain that 8 pack systems aren't Prime95/IBT/OCCT stable?
 
You can see from your original thread that you linked to that the first reply was mine. (https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=28957729#post28957729)

In that post I did suggest to you to only use RealBench if you have to stress test, though I also just game, encode or both at the same time.

In short, it is possible that that one spike in very high temps could have degraded the CPU. It's the combination of the high volts and heat (especially the heat)

Yeah, i did try using it but had crashes, was more program related than cpu tbh. I'll try it today when i get home from work seen as I did a fresh install of windows.

When I get home I'll take memory out, replace the the graphics card back to my old 970 to rule out power supply issue. I remember doing a test on a website (kingston i think) for getting a rough idea of what power supply I needed with this setup and it sad 550W, so am sure 850W is more than enough, unless this graphics card sucks so much juice due to it's boost clock and coupled with the OC with the cpu just hammering the PSU.
 
You have way more than enough power, with a few hundred watts spare, i think he meant it might be faulty PSU rather than under powered.

If you get things working on stock again take things a bit slower with your overclocking, like 8pack suggests instead of burning your CPU just play some games and use as normal, if it crashes adjust to stablise. I find GTA is great for crashing an unstable system, just dont do heists with an untested system as it tend to annoy the other 3 guys when it fails and they have to start again. :)
 
You probably were not really stable at 4.9. My 4770K is rock solid at 4.7 Ghz. Put it to 4.8, and it looks stable, until certain types of loads hit it and get all four cores loaded, then it falls over. 4.8 looks stable, but it's really borderline, where 4.7 is rock solid under all circumstances.

You thought you'd found the edge of stability at 4.9, but in fact you hadn't stepped the clocks back far enough to make that chip stable under all circumstances.

Torture tests will only give you a certain type of load, and not necessarily reflect your real world usage. I'm sure we've all experienced an overclock that looks stable under benchmarks, but then falls over after 20 minutes of gaming. Tests are the starting point, but only a few days/weeks of actual usage will show you if your system is truly stable.
 
aha, I mean when I was running 4.9ghz i was using the same applications as iam now. Nothing changes, used it for gaming, for video editing, office work, internet usage, films and it was stable doing all of that work. However now, as soon as BF4 loads it crashes i have to alt+ctr+delete, or sometimes windows just freezes.

I have got hold of a new 4790K, I know some may see it as a waste of money but due to good relations was able to get it at £150, if it overclocks better than my current one i'll sell the old and i know it will sell for more than £150.
 
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My guess is also that it was never stable to begin with.

1.32v isn't crazy high, degrade your CPU in a week level of voltage :S Its only just about into the "not 100% sure this is safe to run 24/7 for years and years" kinda range
 
My guess is also that it was never stable to begin with.

1.32v isn't crazy high, degrade your CPU in a week level of voltage :S Its only just about into the "not 100% sure this is safe to run 24/7 for years and years" kinda range


Yeah exactly. Unless it was a "dodgy" cpu to start with.

Whats the best way to test if my new cpu is a very good chip? should i keep it stock and see how far i can lower the vcore? Also what is voltage input? should I be changing that?
 
aha, I mean when I was running 4.9ghz i was using the same applications as iam now. Nothing changes, used it for gaming, for video editing, office work, internet usage, films and it was stable doing all of that work. However now, as soon as BF4 loads it crashes i have to alt+ctr+delete, or sometimes windows just freezes.

Game or app patch, Windows update, or driver update that changes the loading or code used could do that. Even changes in the weather/temp can make a difference if you're borderline. It just means you are not as stable as you thought you were, and backing off the overclock proves that.
 
**Update**

I think my old CPU has given up powers up and nothing. my motherboard post error display just cycles through numbers. took cpu out put it in again, reset bios nothibg. Gonna install the new one and see what happens
 
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