Z790 Hero on 1801 finally stable with W11 Pro and 4080 546.65 Nvidia Driver. Try AI Overclock Now?

[Melina]

So as it says above: I've FINALLY gotten this combo (with 14900KF Intel Core9 CPU) stable, after much effort and all sorts of regsvr (registry server) and DISM and sfc /scannow and App Store re-registry fixing. Things are clean, pretty quiet, even my CoolerMaster MP240 PL AIO is mostly not generating severe harmonic resonances frequently (sounds like an angry bee mixed with a buzzsaw).

DARE I turn on AI Overclocking again??? Or is it really worth it, for the few (300) MHz additional performance? I'm inclined to just leave it alone, as ingenious as it might be. Had my run with attempting overclocking, wasted money buying overclockable parts in the process, oh well.

Would appreciate anyone's counsel on this. Most of the YouTube videos and other info have been destructive rather than helpful in their attempts to aid, mostly because they're addressing different problems on different systems from this one, not out of any ill-will, I know.

I'm just experiencing such peace now after a long struggle that I'm hesitant to muck with anything further, but curiosity killed the cat, you know, all that.

EDIT: BTW, this link is VERY useful if you're running into any of the kinds of issues I was running into - the title of the link is from the issue I was running into, but following all the suggestions on this page fixed a LOAD of problems on my system -- lots of stuff must have gotten corrupted by crashes due to a combo of the EA Games App Launcher and the GEForce Experience "optimized" "AI":

msclock class not registered - Search (bing.com)

Posting it here for usefulness.

[JohnAb · Accepted solution]

I'm no overclocker, mainly for the reason that I can't be bothered with all the hassle for a small improvement. In any case, my specs don't justify an overclock really, I wouldn't gain a lot. I have tried TVB for the CPU cores and I also increased the RAM speed in the past. It all worked very well. AI overclocking also worked well, but I went back to stock after realising that I was just using more power for no gain doing simple stuff like using Word and browsing the web 99% of the time.

I'm not against overclocking though. If people enjoy doing it and/or place high demands on their system then it makes perfect sense and why not, but I'm a simple bloke that just likes a stable system that I can turn on, enjoy and have fun. Only one blue screen in 18 months (following a Windows update), so think I've made the right choice personally. I can use my PC for 16-17 hours at a stretch, day in, day out and it never (extremely rarely) misses a beat. 

Up to you obviously, but I'd simply say forget it and just enjoy the system reliably doing whatever it is you like doing most 😄 

[Melina]

Wise words. I’m looking to get a little performance out of the hardware I bought, but there should be plenty there for a long time without the need to overclock. I value stability in my pretty complex setup.

[JohnAb]

Same here. My specs are getting a little dated now (after only 21 months, lol) , but on stock settings everything just works great. I still find it fast and reliable for everything that I do.  

You don't need to be in the top 1% of all systems, just enjoy what you have. I'm planning to upgrade to Panther Lake (Z990) in late 2025 if it happens, but I bet this build will still be perfectly adequate. 

[Melina]

My brother and I used to joke, “ship it straight to the trash bin!” And things are faster moving now than ever.

I will sit back and enjoy it from afar, though. The tech is already quite incredible as is.

[Silent_Scone]

You could always try TVB Boost Profile +1 and 2. These will scale within the thermal parameters outlined on the Thermal Velocity Boost page. You can also scale a positive temperature offset so that the boost profile stays active at heavier loads.

Pretty basic OC to test out.

Set Loadline Calibration to Level 4

Set SVID Behaviour to Typical

Set TVB Boost Profile 1+ or +2 and test stability.

[Melina]

Perhaps once I’ve studied it all a bit more to make sure I know what I’m doing, thanks.

I _have_ confirmed some of my issues were due to joining the W11 Insider program and going to Beta level builds. Excited to see a lot of interesting progress building towards W12, but of course with some risk involved. I leveled up to same in one of my Windows handhelds, and boom! same issues. Actually a confidence booster, as it suggests along with other tests the hardware is fine.

Another source of trouble seems to be that GEForce Experience (current version) is “optimizing” any game it touches in my system to impossibly high settings. With resulting severe lockups if I try to launch (EA Games are especially sensitive here). I’ve learned to go in, revert, then set to pure Performance settings at 1080p rather than the 2160p Nvidia thinks I can run at. Then when I launch a game — as long as I’ve done the proper exclusions of antivirus scanning and firewall blocking —games will at least start up and I can tweak from there within the game’s settings.

Really dependent on title. MSFS2020 is a lot easier to get into and setup than, say, Star Wars Jedi Survivor or Immortals of Aveum. I can even run MSFS2020 at 1440p, since I’m very familiar with what its graphics options do. Good test case for me.

Made the mistake of trying Cinebench r24 on my system, it initially clocked right to the top of the list, then crashed things so hard I got into multiple W11 Automatic Repair loops I almost couldn’t get out of without having to totally reinstall W11 from scratch. Not doing that again. 🙂

All just narrative in case it helps others here.

[JohnAb]

Just a thought (as I've never had a crash in a game, stress test or benchmark - well, only in Call of Duty after a short period of bad game updates), but it might be worth checking that your RAM is 100% stable if you haven't done so. Mind you, any issues could have been down to unstable Win 11 developer updates as you say.  

You can run MemTest from the BIOS which is easy, but other RAM testing software is available as I'm sure you know. Even slightly unstable RAM can be a real menace and throw up all sorts of problems.  

[Melina]

Tried the stress tests in AIDA64Extreme, the utility that comes with the ASUS motherboard; no issues there. Then also tried the built-in memory diagnostic in Windows Tools, also fine, though in the latter case, had one blue screen Exception upon reboot afterwards, which I attribute to something left in memory by the memory test. Have Memority Integrity turned on in Windows Defender. A minor chin scratcher.

[JohnAb]

If you're getting better stability now, might be an idea to install Windows again after backing up your data. It's a bit of a pain to do, but you'd have the best chance of knowing that everything is as good as it can be. Also make sure that all drivers are up to date and that you are using a recent BIOS. Just general advice obviously... good luck