Maximus VI Impact - Help needed, strange OC problem

[Joni]

Posted this allready to Impact sticky thread, but thought would be good idea to post it here too that more people could see it.

So the problem im having now is that when i apply overclock the cpu dont retain the multiplier i set at uefi. Example if set multi to 42 its not staying constantly at 4200mhz when loaded but fluctuating beetween 41-42 lighter loads, with P95 blend it jumping all the time beetween 41-42 but at smallfft test its staying on 42 without dropping it. Also tried BF4 and similar thing is happening on that one aswell, when there is lot of stuff happening on the screen multi is 42, but if i pause the game or there is less stuff going on at the game multi drops to 41. Its definately nto thermal issue as it starts to happen immideatly when temps are still really low. Also it dont happen at uefi defaults which actually has higher voltage on AVX programs so i dont think its any power related issue.

Whole rig contains:

Maximus VI Impact (bios 0404)
i5 4670K
Corsair H100i
8Gb G.Skill TridentX 2400MHz
GB GTX 780 OC 3GB
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB + 1Tb WD blue HDD
Corsair AX850
Windows 7 64bit Ultimate

Here is video took yesterday where P95 blend is running and you can see the multi is going up/down all the time.




Settings i have changed at uefi are currently:


Fully manual mode -> enabled
By all cores -> 42
CPU cache eventual multiplier -> 40 ( also tried at auto)
ram frequency -> 1600Mhz ( also tried at auto )
Manual cpu voltage -> 1.200v
Manual CPU Cache voltage -> 1.150
Ram voltage -> 1.5v

At digi+ & cpu power options initially had all at auto, but later on tried to set cpu current capacity -> 140% + Short & Long duration package limits to 300w but that didnt help.


Really would need some help as im totally lost with this now.

[Joni]

HiVizMan wrote:
But the bounce only happens when you are running Prime as I understand it.

When you have CPUz open what kind of 'bounce' do you have when using the system normally?

It does happen at games aswell, example on BF4 when there is lot of stuff going on it stays at max multi, but when i get to some areas where the cpu load is even slightly lower it drops the multi just like it does at P95 blend. At dekstop use with balanced power plan it uses the power savings and dowclocks it to around 800mhz with 0.7 volts with adaptive voltage in use, or with fully manual voltage it still drops to 800mhz but uses the setted voltage

[HiVizMan]

That is correct and how the CPU is designed to work. I am now confused, what do you wish to have happen?

[Joni]

Well definately didint happen with my M6H + 4770K comp, when cpu load was over 50% it always stayed at full multiplier at all time. So basicly at any game/benchmark load it stayed on full clocks 100% of the time. It only dropped the multi/clocks and go to "power saving mode" when the cpu load was under 15-20%. Also was using adaptive voltage and all power savings on with that comp aswell & balanced Win 7 power plan.

So no, its definately not normal that multi sails like that when cpu load is like 95-99%. P95 blend cpu usage is 99.5-99.7% and its jumping up/down, but on IBT/P95 smallfft cpu usage is full 100% and it stays on full clocks.

[Classic_GOD]

Joni wrote:
Well definately dont happen with my M6H + 4770K comp, when cpu load is over 50% it always stays at full multiplier at all times, so basicly at any game/benchmark load it stays on full clocks 100% of the time. It only drops the multi/clocks and go to "power saving mode" when the cpu load is like under 20%. Also using adaptive voltage and all power savings on with that comp aswell & balanced Win 7 power plan.

So no, its definately not normal that multi sails like that when cpu load is like 95-99%. P95 blend cpu usage is 99.5-99.7% and its jumping up/down, but on IBT/P95 smallfft cpu usage is full 100% and it stays on full clocks.

Try swapping CPU's between two builds to determine if the CPU is at fault.

While BF4 is a demanding game for the CPU it doesn't load it to the point that It would need full frequency 100% of the time so some fluctuation in games even in BF4 is normal especially on Win 7 where BF4 suffers from CPU spikes that cause thread desynchronization (one of the game's threads takes longer to process so others have to wait lowering CPU usage on other cores therefore lowering the frequency).

[Joni]

Sorry meant to say it didnt happen.

Sold the comp like week ago, so obviously cant swap cpu. But did a lot stress testing including 12h run with same P95 blend version and never saw behaviour like this with it.

I think im going to instal WIn 8.1 tomorrow to my secondary drive to see if it makes any difference.

[Classic_GOD]

Joni wrote:
Sorry meant to say it didnt happen.

Sold the comp like week ago, so obviously cant swap cpu. But did a lot stress testing including 12h run with same P95 blend version and never saw behaviour like this with it.

I think im going to instal WIn 8.1 tomorrow to my secondary drive to see if it makes any difference.

I hope it'll help. It is possible that this is an software issue - if possible clear CMOS, do all of the OC in the UEFI, don't install AI Suite and use only 1 hardware monitoring application during testing.
I recommend Win 8.1 over Win 7 for gaming, with StartIsBack+ (a $3 app) it's as easy to use as Win 7 and runs modern games better (especially BF4) and when installed in full UEFI mode boots in 10s. If you miss transparent windows from Win 7 the Aero Glass for Windows 8 (another $3 app) version for Windows 8.1 is on it's way (in beta right now) 🙂 with those two apps and fixes MS did to Win 8 since it's premiere I see no reason to stick with Win 7 on modern gaming PC.

[Joni]

Allready cleared cmos several times and even updated uefi to latest which actually made it worse. With original bios fluctuation wasnt happening at uefi defaults but now it is.

Also have used win 8 at past but reverted back to 7, just didnt feel it to be as usable for me as 7 . Imo It feels more like some smartphone OS than desktops pc OS. I doubt it will help anything but as im out of ideas got to try something.

[Joni]

Installed Win8.1 and its same with this. Im pretty close to just give up on this.

[Joni]

I start to think there is some bugged sensor in my mobo or something. Now with Win 8.1 it still does drops the multi like it did with Win7, but new thing now is that at higher loads cpu-z actually randomly shows 45x (4.5GHz) even tho the multiplier is set to 44 by all cores.

[Classic_GOD]

Joni wrote:
I start to think there is some bugged sensor in my mobo or something. Now with Win 8.1 it still does drops the multi like it did with Win7, but new thing now is that at higher loads cpu-z actually randomly shows 45x (4.5GHz) even tho the multiplier is set to 44 by all cores.

There is no 'multiplier sensor' - the multiplier is reported back to the mobo by the CPU, it looks like your CPU may be damaged (ether that or the PCH on the mobo, both Intel parts, both highly unlikely to be broken but everything can happen). No other Impact users encountered this issue so it's not a design or a UEFI problem. Do you have access to different mobo or CPU or any friends or family that could test this CPU for you?

[EDIT]
New BIOS just came out, you can try it but unfortunately I don't think It'll help.