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Trouble overclocking 4790k

G

Gammas

n00b
Joined
Aug 11, 2015
Messages
9
Hey,

I have a new 4790k processor, ram, and all that fun, but I can't seem to get even a minor (5-10%) overclock to be stable. I've tried the auto xmp settings and the system runs prime95 for ~5 minutes, or a game for ~15 minutes before crashing hard. Once it crashes, it takes a minute or two to post.

Cooling wise no temperatures get above 70c, base temperatures are ~30c. At stock settings it raises to ~50c after running prime95 for 10 minutes and seems to hold steady from there (to be specific: 47-50c CPU, 47c vcore, 44c dram).

Components wise: I'm using 4x8gb gskill ripjaw pc2400, Prolimatech Megahalems cooler, 2x cougar 120mm fans on it, AS5, 750w seasonic snowsilent psu, asus z97 sabertooth mark s, I have a sound card and gfx card as well, but I can't imagine they have much to do with prime95 crashing.

Any suggestions for what I should do / other things to check? Should I try testing each ram stick individually to see if there's a bad one? (tho if that's the case I'd expect it to fail in prime95 stock...) Should I disable all the auto stuff that asus has and try manually setting voltages? There are a lot of options there, and I'm not sure I know the right numbers for them all...

(As an update, I went to 4.6ghz stable with the "intel extreme tuning utility", so I'm pretty sure the problem is somehow related to my ram, so I'll try relaxing the timings and maybe overvolting it a bit above the 1.65 listed and RMA it if it's not stable at the listed ratings)
 
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I just want to point out that sometimes you wont be able to get your RAM to run at its listed rating. This is especially so when your CPU is overclocked, the higher your CPU overclock the less likely your RAM will reach its rated OC speed.

If you plan to RMA them until you get the rated speed you may be in for a lot of frustration.
See if you can get the RAM stable with different timings or a lower clock.

Good luck
 
zaniix said:
I just want to point out that sometimes you wont be able to get your RAM to run at its listed rating. This is especially so when your CPU is overclocked, the higher your CPU overclock the less likely your RAM will reach its rated OC speed.

If you plan to RMA them until you get the rated speed you may be in for a lot of frustration.
See if you can get the RAM stable with different timings or a lower clock.

Good luck
Click to expand...

True, there are a lot of hidden subtimings that could have an effect as well. Perhaps the reason why it works in Windows with the ETU is because the BIOS has relaxed the subtimings at boot. This is why I rarely use Windows based OC utilities...

I would record all of those subtimings like TRRD, TREFI, TRFC, etc... and relax those manually. Also make sure command rate is 2T for stability. You can try for 1T later. See if you can spot the timing that is causing the instability. There really isn't a rule of thumb for these but a good starting point is ramping up TRFC and lowering TREFI. I have to run TRFC at 240-260 for my 2x8GB to be stable at 2133MHz.
 
Hmm...

I'll give some things a try when I get home tonight. If I turn all overclocking off in the bios the ram runs at pc1300, 1.5v, 9's across the board for timings. Not exactly what I bought, but it is stable. I'd expect to be able to run it at its listed timings with a non/minimally(5-10%)-overclocked CPU, however. Am I wrong there?
 
This is what I would do. First off don't use any auto settings for voltages or xmp profiles, find a good haswell overclocking guide. Manually set your ram to a slow speed, like 1333 or 1600mhz. Using the overclocking guide, manually enter all the settings and voltages to achieve your desired oc on your cpu. Stress test the cpu of to insure stability, I recommend Asus's realbench or adia64. Prime95 is not recommended on haswell cpu's. Once you got the cpu stable then turn to increasing your ram speed. Manually enter its rated speed and timings. Stress test again, and drop the speed as needed for stability.
 
I put a small overclock (to 4.4ghz) in the bios, and upped the ram to pc1600 with 11/13/13/35/2t timings and things seem relatively stable. The ram is listed as pc2400 11/13/13/31/2t, I'll continue upping the clock speed until it dies and see how fast it can actually run.

I can hear some crackling with sound when realbench is running, but it's pretty rare and small. Core Temps today are topping out around 80c (ambient in the case is ~25-30c), while CPU temp is listed at ~60-65c (not sure what that's measuring compared to the CPU cores)
 
prime95 is not suggested much anymore. Try Aida64 Extreme stability test. What vcore on your cpu?
 
VCore is "adaptive"

Open Hardware Monitor puts it at ~0.888v under load and 0.872v idle, with a 10% overlock (stable 4.4ghz).
 
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4.4 ghz seemed like plenty enough for me for zero hassle. What's an extra 200-300mhz gonna get you real world? other than a headache from trying to get it stable. I'd rather spend my time gaming.
 
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