MI7 + I7-4690K Thermal Throtling stuck at 100%

[sunofwisdom]

it's a 4790k not 4690 for the sake of precision , was tired... 🙂

Motherboard: Maximus Impact VII
CPU: Intel I7 4790K
RAM: KINGSTON SAVAGE 2x8
Video Card: ASUS STRIX GTX970
PSU: Seasonic S12G 550w
Cooling: CORSAIR H80i

Hi, getting desperate to fix my problem so...

First i thought my GTX970 was having a problem since i didn't get more FPS than my old GTX 680 setup but then i noticed that my 4790K was never going over 800mhz hence i concluded it was the bottleneck of my system , after further reading i confirmed with the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility that my CPU Thermal Throttling was always at 100% ! therefore it was basically stuck at 800mhz instead of going toward 4GHZ+...

to fix it , i tried (for 3 days , and mind you i'm quite a geek) :
- all 3 bios for the MI7
- disabling all energy saving feature in the bios
- making sure power option in windows for the cpu was on high performance (100% cpu)
- replugged and re-pasted my cpu with thermal paste 2 times (even tho my temp is sitting at 30c max)

now i don't know what to think , i believe my mobo is defective altho everything else seems to work so far , i don't believe the CPU can be defective , the thermal throttling is a motherboard function pushed to the CPU (am i right?) , so i think i'll try to RMA the motherboard but i bought it while i was in holiday in taiwan , i hope Asus can work with that ?...

if anyone else has a clue or tip for my situation i would greatly appreciate it , coz it's pissing me quite hard to have spent about 1400E in a setup that is worse than my previous one , i never had a hardware defect product before.

[sunofwisdom]

the thing is that i consider that either my MB or my CPU has a defect , after all my readings and test i believe the MB is the culprit here , after all the CPU passed the intel test so i just want to make sure (as much as possible) that if i replace my MB i'll be back on the right track , and i do hope that my GTX970 card not performing well comes from that as well , running d2 at 40fps all maxed is very poor unless you realize you have an 800mhz CPU.

[jab383]

Hi sunofwisdom

I'd like to look at a different angle, since cooling and temperature aren't the issue. As a straw to grasp, please clear CMOS - does the Impact use a button on the back panel or a jumper? Whichever, use it to set BIOS to defaults.

Once cleared and booted into BIOS, set manual Core voltage to 1.10 volts. That's a little high, but is sure to let the CPU work. Also enable EIST and turbo, which should be set by default after clearing.

In Windows, Control Panel > System and Security > Power Options, check that the Balanced plan is selected. Power saver will drive CPU clock downward and it will lag at 800MHz. Performance plan will keep the clock at it's highest, which you can do if you like.

See how performance changes in this condition and let us know.

Jeff

[sunofwisdom]

OMG , i disabled the BD PROCHOT bit on my CPU using Throttlestop 6.00 from TechPowerup and my processor is finally unlocked !

Now i must know more about that thing that ****s me up , is it normal , not normal , how come it did this to me and not others , do i still need to RMA the board ? is it the results of a hardware failure ?... any help on the matter is welcome

BD Prochot :
This controls the bidirectional PROCHOT bit within your CPU. The graphic chips (GPU) in some laptops will signal the CPU to slow down and throttle using this method. By disabling this bit, some laptops will continue to run at full speed beyond the normal limits so you should closely monitor the CPU and GPU temperature when adjusting this bit. This feature was added for the Asus G51J laptop series and may or may not be of much use for other computers. Starting with version 4.10, the previous lock in the Options window has been removed so this feature can be adjusted immediately without having to first unlock it.

[Alex_H]

sunofwisdom wrote:
OMG , i disabled the BD PROCHOT bit on my CPU using Throttlestop 6.00 from TechPowerup and my processor is finally unlocked !

Now i must know more about that thing that ****s me up , is it normal , not normal , how come it did this to me and not others , do i still need to RMA the board ? is it the results of a hardware failure ?... any help on the matter is welcome

BD Prochot :
This controls the bidirectional PROCHOT bit within your CPU. The graphic chips (GPU) in some laptops will signal the CPU to slow down and throttle using this method. By disabling this bit, some laptops will continue to run at full speed beyond the normal limits so you should closely monitor the CPU and GPU temperature when adjusting this bit. This feature was added for the Asus G51J laptop series and may or may not be of much use for other computers. Starting with version 4.10, the previous lock in the Options window has been removed so this feature can be adjusted immediately without having to first unlock it.

It shouldn't be auto throttling in the first place though.

[sunofwisdom]

indeed but i have no temp problem whatsoever , i think it's the ASUS GTX970/NVidia drivers that is sending a signal to the CPU to thermal throttle when it's clearly not needed or it may just be a defect in the MB ? i'd like to know anyway

[Alex_H]

VID is the voltage mentioned in the Intel spec (1.3v max for haswell). Idk what vcore is. But a 1.7 to 1.8v value is normal.

If I change voltage in AI Suite VID follows accordingly while vcore is a constant 1.7/1.8.

So I think we should be looking at VID (same voltage set in bios).

I think this is a hwmonitor bug (?)


EDIT: VCore seems to be the value of VCCIN in HWMonitor.
and VID is showing the actual relevant voltage

[Alex_H]

Try taking the card off I guess and see if it's the root cause.

[sunofwisdom]

Alex H wrote:
Try taking the card off I guess and see if it's the root cause.

i think it's just a defective sensor on the board , wish there was a bios option to disable it so i didn't have to use Throttlestop.

[Nate152]

Hello sunofwisdom

What temp is your 970 getting to when playing games? My 680's start throttling at 70c-75c, if gpu usage is below 50% they throttle also.

In the NVidia control panel set power management mode to prefer maximum performance, if you have v-sync enabled try antialiasing at 2x or 4x and see if it still throttles. You can also try it with out v-sync this will let it run wide open and shouldn't throttle if temps are ok.

To the topic: Is your 4790k now boosting to 4.4Ghz?