CPU degradation

Vertigo

Vertigo

Vertigo

Soldato
Joined
28 Dec 2003
Posts
16,589
Ok this is nuts.

My E8400 has been running at 4Ghz without any problems at all for over a year now. Solid as a rock, never had a lockup and survives eight hours of Orthos.

Noticed today when the machine booted that it was back at 3Ghz stock speed. I know the BIOS will revert to stock settings if it fails to POST so I presume that's what happened the last time I booted it.

So back into the BIOS and change the speed back to 4Ghz (445x9) and it won't even POST before rebooting again (with stock settings once more).

I've heard that processors can degrade over time but from a 33% overclock that's solid as a rock to not even posting!?
 
It's not the memory. Have left the CPU at stock and clocked the mem up to max rated speed and timings and it's fine. Have also tried clocking the CPU to 4Ghz and leaving memory well under the rated max speed and timings and it still won't POST!

Haven't missed any settings as it's only the CPU and memory speed that resets in the BIOS - the CPU and memory voltages are still at their original overclocked settings.

This is seriously bizarre.
 
Just double-checked all the settings and I've not missed anything. Tried upping the core voltage (has always run at 4Ghz at a fairly low 1.296v) to around 1.34 but still failed to POST.

Now I've clocked it at 3.6Ghz (400x9) back at 1.296v and a quick half-hour on Orthos suggests it's stable at this speed.

I'm forced to conclude that a year at 4Ghz has actually degraded the CPU and it won't run at this speed anymore.
 
I had the same moments when the settings in my p35-ds3l would reset, but was able to put it back again and be completely stable.

Not to mention i had ram at 2.0 and not 2.1v, but since at 2.1v it has been fine, well yea till i found out gigabyte boards default the ram at 1.8v.
 
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Yeah the Gigabytes will revert to stock CPU and memory settings if they fail to fully POST - had it a few times before and every time I've just put the settings back and been fine. This time no joy.
 
My Q9300 degraded slightly overtime, certainly never clocked aswell as it did when I first got it, but it wasn't much maybee lost a max of 100mhz over the 18 odd mth I had it.
I also think it could be the boards aswell as my P5E wont clock like it used to.
 
FSb Term is sometimes called VTT voltage. If that has been set too high for too long, it can degrade a cpu over time.
 
Well I've not messed with any voltages other than vcore, mch & ram so I doubt it's the VTT.

Perhaps it's the mobo that's at fault, capacitors degrading or wearing out?
 
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