i5 4690k maxing out at 4.3

Joined
Feb 3, 2014
Messages
645
I recently upgraded from my i5 760 to a shiny new i5 4690k (being cooled by a Corsair H100i) with an Asus Maximus VII Hero motherboard. I have 2x 4GB sticks of Crucial Ballistix Sport ( BLS4G3D1609DS1S00 ). I also have 2x r9 280x, 2x 10k RPM drives and an SSD. This is all being powered by a Corsair CX750. I know this PSU is anemic for what I'm trying to do and intend to upgrade as soon as funds are available. I just want to see what to expect out of this setup.
Immediately after a firmware update to the latest, I was able to bump up to 4.3Ghz with the following: enable XMP, disable Spread Spectrum, disable SpeedStep, set Load Line Calibration to Level 8, set core volts to 1.1, set ratio to 43. Zero issues with this config.
As soon as I try to set my ratio to 44, BSOD. I incremented my voltage by 0.025 with a ratio of 44 all the way up to 1.3 and still BSOD.
To test that it wasn't the underwhelming PSU, I removed both R9 280x and installed a little GeForce 210 I had laying around and repeated my voltage increment tests; still BSOD.
I also tried combinations of lowering bus speed while increasing ratio as well as lowering ratio while increasing bus speed. Every time I get BSOD if I go over 4.3Ghz. I even tried the Asus EZ Tuning wizard, BSOD. Asus CPU Level Up, BSOD.
After all this, I decided to reset everything to default (while leaving the GeForce 210 in the system) and attempt EZ Tuning and CPU Level Up again, BSOD.

While all these tests were being conducted, core temps sat between 28c and 32c.

This Maximus VII Hero is really my first foray into a full featured UEFI and holy hell to the options! I feel like I should be able to manipulate the hardware to achieve alot more than 4.3.
I've read quite a few reviews with significantly higher clocks than mine.
Did I lose the silicon lottery, or am I missing something?
 
Unfortunately some Haswell chips just don't overclock very well. My 4770k is stuck at 4.2GHz 1.29V.

There are a couple of things you can try:
Manually set VCCIN (might be called something like input voltage on ASUS boards) to 1.8V and use the highest LLC setting.

Manually set the Ring Bus multiplier to 34x or 36x (some boards may auto overclock ring bus when set to stock 35x, may just be Gigabyte boards).
There is barely any performance improvement from increasing the ring bus multiplier.

If 4.3GHz at 1.1V was stable then I think there could be a lot more headroom in this CPU yet.
What are you using as a stress test?

Do you know what the BSOD codes were? Normally they are 101 or 124 for CPU overclocking.
 
I tried setting the VCCIN to 1.8 on this board (it's referred to as a pseudo VCCIN) with no change in stability.
I'll try the Ring Bus Multi tomorrow and see how I make out.

4.3 at 1.1 was tested in game with BF4, TitanFall, and WatchDogs (I know they aren't the proper tests, but I haven't had any issues yet).
Anything above 4.3 either gives a BSOD before I'm brought to the Window Manager or immediately after launching CPU-Z.

Not sure of the BSOD codes. I need to disable automatic restart. I'll post them tomorrow.
 
set LLC auto, set voltage auto, enable speedstep(its not necessary remove power saving features) and then proceed to increase the CPU multiplier. run Prime95, check voltages and temperatures with core temp or real temp then report back..
 
I made the changes Araxie suggested and was able to increase my CPU multi up to 43 stable. At 44 I was able to get to my login screen before it would crash.

With those settings I bumped the voltage to 1.275 and I'm now able to login.
I have a little script I run now before I commit to doing a prime95 run since it gives results in about 30 seconds.
It launches about 50 instances of chrome with 10 tabs each. If it doesn't crash, I run prime. If it does, I start over.
Unfortunately with the multi at 44, it crashes pretty quickly. Temps were idle around 26 and right at 35 before it locks.

I disabled autorestart in an attempt to get the BSOD codes, but there aren't any. It starts to draw the bluescreen progressively from top to bottom, gets about halfway and just stops. Then I'm left with a screen where the bottom half is whatever was on the screen last and the top is the blue from a BSOD. Curiouser and curiouser...

Maybe I should just try getting a replacement i5 from MicroCenter?

p.s. I now realize this post would have been better suited in Overclocking. Could someone move this for me please?
 
Last edited:
So, I exchanged my CPU at our local Microcenter and all my issues are gone :)
I can now happily push my i5 4690k upwards of 4.7 with just the multi.
Looks like it was just a bad overclocker.
Thank you guys for the help!
 
:D Thanks!
I decided to drop back to 4.5Ghz to keep the temps a little lower. It sits at a comfortable 30 Idle and around 65 at load.
 
Back
Top