CPU Dropping MHz and voltage... WHYYYYY

[ExplodingTaters]

I have a 120 mm intake fan on the front blowing on 2 Hard drives, and an 120 mm intake serving my radiator on the back.

I have an 140 mm exhaust at the top, running at higher speeds, the front running at only about 1500 RPM, and my corsair radiator fan running nearly 4400 RPM.

 

I can install a spare 120 mm on the side blowing right on the VRM if you guys say so, but I'm not sure if i should just get a new mobo... I have the money.

@ionbasa @Skander1345 @GzeroD

 

P.S. Also Ionbasa, no BSODs since that last post a while ago!

[GzeroD]

I would try the fan and updating the bios first. 

Personally I would not invest further into the AM3 platform.

[ionbasa]

I have a 120 mm intake fan on the front blowing on 2 Hard drives, and an 120 mm intake serving my radiator on the back.

I have an 140 mm exhaust at the top, running at higher speeds, the front running at only about 1500 RPM, and my corsair radiator fan running nearly 4400 RPM.

 

I can install a spare 120 mm on the side blowing right on the VRM if you guys say so, but I'm not sure if i should just get a new mobo... I have the money.

@ionbasa @Skander1345 @GzeroD

 

P.S. Also Ionbasa, no BSODs since that last post a while ago!

 

I would try the fan and updating the bios first. 

Personally I would not invest further into the AM3 platform.

Trying the fan is worth a shot, but will probably be futile. I agree with @GzeroD in that it probably isn't worth an investment in the AM3 platform too much. Can you RMA the board or return it by chance? You'd be able to at least recoup some money, maybe buy an AM3+ board from a friend, or find a decent one one sale.

[ExplodingTaters]

Trying the fan is worth a shot, but will probably be futile. I agree with @GzeroD in that it probably isn't worth an investment in the AM3 platform too much. Can you RMA the board or return it by chance? You'd be able to at least recoup some money, maybe buy an AM3+ board from a friend, or find a decent one one sale.

 

I'm not sure if I could return the board at all I've had it for years and years by now, but I'll install the fan later today and see if it does much

[ExplodingTaters]

I understand where your coming from by not investing further, but maybe just getting a $100 mobo with 8 Pin CPU Connector instead of the 4 Pins on my current?

 

http://goo.gl/CtSuth

[Skander1345]

It claims support up to 220W CPU's so it should be an improvement.

Get it if you're not willing to upgrade.

[Benji_w]

So I have an AMD FX 8350, and whilst playing Battlefield 4, Planetside 2, and sometimes in CS:GO, (Any Semi-Intensive or Intense game) I will drop frames, and having hardware monitor up on my second monitor, I see that I drop "CPU VCORE" Voltage from 1.325V to 0.888V and my clocks go down from 4.0 GHz to about 1.4 GHz, and sometimes even 233 MHz or higher for brief miliseconds, 233 just being hardware monitor's recorded lowest value ever. 90% of the time it stays at 4.0 GHz.

 

Anyways, I am not sure if this is some dumb power saving option, or if I need a new PSU or Motherboard. I am no BIOS genius, but I've tried to turn off every possible "Power Saving" option in UEFI BIOS, and set all "auto" clocks to manual standards instead of automatic.

 

Thanks in advance!

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My Specs

 

CPU- AMD FX-8350, 8 Cores, 4.0GHz

Cooler - Corsair H60

MotherBoard- ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 AM3+ Socket

RAM - 16GB (4x4GB) G-Skill Sniper Series 1600Mhz DDR3

GPU- MSI GTX 760

Storage- 2 WD Blue HDDs WD10EZEX 1TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache

PSU- Corsair CX600 600W Power Supply Semi-Modular

OS- Windows 10 Home Edition (64-Bit)

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@ionbasa

 

Turn on HPC mode if you can but that motherboard might not have that, dropping to 1.4ghz is part of the power saving features of the FX chip, you can also turn off APM and Offset voltage which will stop the volts dropping but I can't remember which feature enables the drop to the multiplier 7

[Benji_w]

I would try the fan and updating the bios first. 

Personally I would not invest further into the AM3 platform.

 

No issues here while using a high tier board over an entry tier board, then again you get what you pay for when buying motherboards...

[Benji_w]

What are your VRM temps like... (The heatsink under the CPU socket usually is the part I'm talking about)

Don't know what the sensor may be called...

 

Is the VRM heatsink bleeding hot? (dont outright touch it, but does the air around it feel hot)

Even with COLD CPU temps, hot VRM temps can induce throttling under load (4.0Ghz>1.4Ghz!!!)

If hotter than you'd like, aim a fan directly at the heatsink and watch your CPU clocks under load.

 

/Could be something else, but this is not unheard of before, even on similar boards (ie: friend has the same, its fine), some boards can be just weird.

Fan over the VRM won't fix this issue as the downclock to 1.4 is a powersaving feature and has nothing to do with heat problems.

[Skander1345]

Fan over the VRM won't fix this issue as the downclock to 1.4 is a powersaving feature and has nothing to do with heat problems.

It's downclocking during gameplay and stress, is that how "powersaving" works with the AMD platform? I'm super confused.

[GzeroD]

Fan over the VRM won't fix this issue as the downclock to 1.4 is a powersaving feature and has nothing to do with heat problems.

This is not true. If your vrm's are overheating some boards will aggressively throttle your cpu others will just shut down.

[Skander1345]

This is not true. If your vrm's are overheating some boards will aggressively throttle your cpu others will just shut down.

That's exactly what I thought, doesn't seem proper that a powersaving feature will throttle a cpu during use

[Benji_w]

This is not true. If your vrm's are overheating some boards will aggressively throttle your cpu others will just shut down.

 

That's exactly what I thought, doesn't seem proper that a powersaving feature will throttle a cpu during use

 

 

If his CPU isn't under constant load it will downclock, this can happen during gaming, if his VRM is overheating at stock speeds then he needs to pull the VRM-heatsinks off and check the thermal pads. My asus board was only half covered with thermal pad before I changed to liquid cooling them and can tell you now, the only time my VRM temps caused an issue was when HPC mode was disabled and it only clocked down a few 100mhz.

 

The 8350 can overclock to roughly 4.3mhz without additional volts, I have a UD5 in the other room with a stock 8350 air cooled that never hits over 40c on the chip and I'll bet the VRM get to 50-60c.

 

Have you both ahd FX cpu's and overclocked them etc or are we just pissing in the wind here?

[GzeroD]

If his CPU isn't under constant load it will downclock, this can happen during gaming, if his VRM is overheating at stock speeds then he needs to pull the VRM-heatsinks off and check the thermal pads. My asus board was only half covered with thermal pad before I changed to liquid cooling them and can tell you now, the only time my VRM temps caused an issue was when HPC mode was disabled and it only clocked down a few 100mhz.

 

The 8350 can overclock to roughly 4.3mhz without additional volts, I have a UD5 in the other room with a stock 8350 air cooled that never hits over 40c on the chip and I'll bet the VRM get to 50-60c.

 

Have you both ahd FX cpu's and overclocked them etc or are we just pissing in the wind here?

I have an 8350 @ 4.5 as a secondary system its on a Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3. I have been overclocking am3 chips for a while as well as helping others overclock theirs, I have seen lower end 4+1 boards with cheaper VMRs and cooling cause the issues that I have brought up ... hence why I brought them up.

 

 

Also there was a while just after the 9590 was released that the 8350's that where being sold seemed too be pretty poorly binned, lots of those chips used more power than ones from earlier batches to hit similar clocks. 

[Benji_w]

I have an 8350 @ 4.5 as a secondary system its on a Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3. I have been overclocking am3 chips for a while as well as helping others overclock theirs, I have seen lower end 4+1 boards with cheaper VMRs and cooling cause the issues that I have brought up ... hence why I brought them up.

 

 

Also there was a while just after the 9590 was released that the 8350's that where being sold seemed too be pretty poorly binned, lots of those chips used more power than ones from earlier batches to hit similar clocks. 

 

Even so, why would his VRM be overheating to the point where in games at 4ghz it's knocking it down? Doesn't make sense, the VRM can't possibly be getting that hot unless his board is faulty/bent near the socket.

[GzeroD]

Even so, why would his VRM be overheating to the point where in games at 4ghz it's knocking it down? Doesn't make sense, the VRM can't possibly be getting that hot unless his board is faulty/bent near the socket.

I seen the issue pop up with a Biostar 970 board. when my cousin switched from the stock cooler to an AIO. He had no case fans so incidental air flow was non existent. Cheaper boards can just have these kinds of issues especially if they where tested with the stock cooler which provides quite a bit of airflow around the socket.

 

Usually the issue here is caused by bios configuration issues concerning powers savings but op already said he disabled all of the extra power states as well as APM.  so if it continues after he updates his bios to the latest one I think he should at least try a fan before replacing it. it couldn't hurt and may save him some money.

[Benji_w]

I seen the issue pop up with a Biostar 970 board. when my cousin switched from the stock cooler to an AIO. He had no case fans so incidental air flow was non existent. Cheaper boards can just have these kinds of issues especially if they where tested with the stock cooler which provides quite a bit of airflow around the socket.

 

Usually the issue here is caused by bios configuration issues concerning powers savings but op already said he disabled all of the extra power states as well as APM.  so if it continues after he updates his bios to the latest one I think he should at least try a fan before replacing it. it couldn't hurt and may save him some money.

 

True! He could of missed something however, I remember someone saying a power saver was in a weird place for the board, so it still could be there, but the question still remains, if all his power saving features where on, why is the VRM still hitting over 110c? You can't possibly tell me his exhaust isn't pulling enough air to chill his VRM with all those power saving features enabled? even when gaming? when his CPU and socket can't be hitting anywhere close to 40c+

[GzeroD]

True! He could of missed something however, I remember someone saying a power saver was in a weird place for the board, so it still could be there, but the question still remains, if all his power saving features where on, why is the VRM still hitting over 110c? You can't possibly tell me his exhaust isn't pulling enough air to chill his VRM with all those power saving features enabled? even when gaming? when his CPU and socket can't be hitting anywhere close to 40c+

Could be a faulty Temp sensor, and that can happen on a board of any quality.

Edit: also after you update the bios remember too reset it to factory defaults and then re-disable all of the power saving settings.

[Benji_w]

Could be a faulty Temp sensor, and that can happen on a board of any quality.

 

True indeed, that could certainly make shit hit the fan, we should get the OP to turn on EC sensors for HWinfo 64 or similar as using AI suite is pretty pointless.

[ExplodingTaters]

First off, I greatly appreciate all the help but I'm not looking for an argument, I am leaning towards just buying a new motherboard, But I understand where you guys are coming from, but I think I got all of the power saving options turned off (at least that I know of) and I'm pretty sure it's just the motherboard struggling to supply the Watts I need whilst under stress. I only got 4 pins on my motherboard for my CPU and I feel like that's not enough to supply the 8350...

[ExplodingTaters]

Alright everyone, I have installed a Powerful fan over my NB Heat sink, AND I HAVE NOT EXPERIENCED ANY FRAME/VOLTAGE DROPS ON BF4  For now, I'd say this is solved, but I'll post back if I get frame drops.

 

THANK YOU ALL!

[Skander1345]

Alright everyone, I have installed a Powerful fan over my NB Heat sink, AND I HAVE NOT EXPERIENCED ANY FRAME/VOLTAGE DROPS ON BF4  For now, I'd say this is solved, but I'll post back if I get frame drops.

 

THANK YOU ALL!

There you go, VRM overheating.

This does mean something is wrong with the board since it's within the wattage margin, so upgrading to that board you linked is a good permanent fix.

 

 

the reason im bringing this up again is that vrm overheating is 125C. That's not a good temp for any reason when within spec