OK. Have now finished my testing for today with the reproducible fail case. My system had Prior to testing (and with this instability issue) the following settings were being overclocked:
* CPU CORE FREQ
* RING BUS / 'UN-CORE' FREQ (includes IMC)
* DDR4 RAM FREQ
My findings were that (for my specific system):
* System stability was NOT improved by lowering the:
* RING BUS / 'UN-CORE' FREQ
* DDR4 RAM FREQ
* System stability WAS improved by lowering the:
* CPU CORE FREQ
So my best advice for others is to lower their Core CPU Freq.
HOW MUCH?
By approximately 1 BIN (100 Mhz) is the best figure I can come up with ATM. (well for me it was 88 Mhz actually).
Because when I did that my test case went from fail every time --> run successfully 5 times in a row. Which was the maximum length of my testing. Meaning 0 failures detected.
Therefore system's measurable stability increased by at least 5 times. So the rate of failures occuring again should be now be at most 1/5th of the prior value (20%). But we would hope it to be even less than that.
I will have to conduct further test runs in order to gain a higher degree of confidence in this result. And also leave it like this for at least 1 week (like other guy here ^^ earlier in the thread).
[EDIT]
System specs were:
* Intel i5-6600K
* 2x8 GB Corsair Vengance LPX Black DDR4 rated @ 2400Mhz C14-15-15-31 timings
* Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 3 Rev 1.0, with Latest Beta Firmware F5j
* Silverstone Strider SST-SX500-LG PSU
* Windows 10 Pro v1151, Build 10586.36
* Killer NIC disabled in windows / networking adapters
* Moderate air cooling
* Memtest x86 - All OK
* Prime95 2nd Stress test (moderate FFT) - All OK
Test case:
Install Adobe AfterEffects CC 2015
Test results:
# default OC settings 101.96 * 45 ---> 4.588 Ghz
# uncore - 43 --> 4.38 GHz
# ram 2448 mhz
# 1st time - FAIL
# cpu bclk 101.96, multiplier 45 --> 44 ---> 4.484 Ghz
# uncore - 43 --> 4.38 GHz
# ram 2448 mhz
# 1,2nd time - NO_FAIL <----- SUCCESS CASE #1
# bclk 101.96 --> 101.54 ---> 4.57 Ghz
# uncore - 43 --> 4.36 GHz
# ram 2437 mhz
# 1st time OK, 2nd time - FAIL
# bclk 101.96 --> 101.33 ---> 4.56 Ghz
# uncore - 43 --> 4.36 GHz
# ram 2431 mhz
# 1st time OK, 2nd time - FAIL
# bclk 101.96 --> 101.12 ---> 4.55 Ghz
# uncore - 43 --> 4.35 GHz
# ram 2426 mhz
# 1,2nd time - OK, 3rd time - FAIL
# bclk 101.96 --> 100.00 * 45 ---> 4.50 Ghz
# uncore - 43 --> 4.30 GHz
# ram 2393 mhz
# 1,2,3,4,5th time - NO_FAIL <----- SUCCESS CASE #2
# cpu 46 * 99.74 ---> 4.588 Ghz
# uncore - 43 --> 4.28 GHz
# ram 2393 mhz
# 1st time - FAIL
