I can't get to 5GHz....Stuck at 4.9 on my 9900K

[tincanalley]

Okay, I thought I could live with 4.9, but I want 5 and I am at a wall.  I can stress test and benchmark all day and night at 4.9 with a voltage of 1.25.  If I push it to 5, not matter what voltage I give it, it will bluescreen in Realbench (various codes), rack up thousands of errors in OCCT small, medium and small sets and Cinebench 20 will bluescreen.  Not that under all these tests, voltages are within set range and CPU and core temps never get above 93c (spike) and 83c (sustained).

I thought it might have been my ram (G Skill Ripjaws 2400 CL15) so I upgraded to G Skill Trident Z 3200 CL14.  It is setup and working on XMP, but it didn't help my overclocking issue.  I really am not sure where the problem lies.  I have the AVX with 0 offset, but it still has issues with up to an offset of 3.  I have followed all I could find about overclocking the 9900K and I have all the power settings and Intel XTU shows no thermal or current issues.

Does anyone know how to check the errors that OCCT are claiming?  I find no way to view them.

Anyway, I am not sure what info you might need to assist, so ask away.

 

Thanks

[tincanalley]

8 minutes ago, PacketMan said:

Motherboard and PSU?

I went with the ASUS ROG Maximus XI Extreme based on it's ability to overclock, so unless I got a lemon....  As for the PSU, I am well below its ability, but that doesn't mean it isn't up to the task.  Is there a sure way of testing the PSU, or is it replace and hope you didn't waste your money?  

[SenKa]

4 minutes ago, PacketMan said:

But which model of PSU? It's not the same 400 than 500 than 800W, and the better a PSU is, the more stable overclock you'll get

His PSU is pretty bad AFAIK... OCZ ZT 750W. This is the OEM PSU for Toshiba prebuilt desktops according to google.

 

I blame weak PSU. Not all PSU's of a certain wattage are created equal.

[SenKa]

To add:

 

Your RAM was fine, but XMP is pretty bad. You will get more out of your RAM by overclocking it manually.

 

XTU can only tell you if the VRM's are throttling AFAIK. I'm not sure how it would know if you're bottlenecking your VRM's with a weak 12v and 5v line on your PSU.

 

 

[tincanalley]

32 minutes ago, PacketMan said:

But which model of PSU? It's not the same 400 than 500 than 800W, and the better a PSU is, the more stable overclock you'll get

It's an OCZ ZT 750.  It is their retail version and is a subsidiary of Toshiba.  Although, I don't think they are actively building and designing anymore.  Seems they are selling all the same models from years ago trying to clear their stock.
 

[tincanalley]

25 minutes ago, SenpaiKaplan said:

To add:

 

Your RAM was fine, but XMP is pretty bad. You will get more out of your RAM by overclocking it manually.

 

XTU can only tell you if the VRM's are throttling AFAIK. I'm not sure how it would know if you're bottlenecking your VRM's with a weak 12v and 5v line on your PSU.

 

 

Overclocking RAM and cache are on my list only after getting the CPU up there and stabilized.  

I have been eyeing the Seasonic Focus Plus 850 Gold, so it might be time to pull the trigger.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

If you really want to hit 5GHz you can always go on Ebay and buy an i5-2500K. 

 

Joking aside, the PSU may indeed be unable to deliver clean enough power to keep the CPU stable at those speeds. 

The Focus Plus 850 gold is a good PSU indeed.  If that doesn't solve it, you simply may not have won the silicon lottery.

[SenKa]

EDIT: Im dumb, ignore me.

[LukeSavenije]

9 minutes ago, SenpaiKaplan said:

EDIT: Im dumb, ignore me.

you've summoned me for no reason?

Spoiler

/jk

 

[Falkentyne]

58 minutes ago, tincanalley said:

It's an OCZ ZT 750.  It is their retail version and is a subsidiary of Toshiba.  Although, I don't think they are actively building and designing anymore.  Seems they are selling all the same models from years ago trying to clear their stock.
 

That PSU is a "Great Wall" PSU and was mediocre quality in *2011*.  OCZ used to make decent products and PC Power and Cooling used to be a Seasonic OEM, but when OCZ bought PCP&C, all of their products went downhill in quality *FAST*.  Even their RAM went downhill and their QA started slipping.  They were even making SSDs of questionable quality.  Needless to say that company went bankrupt not long after and good riddance.

 

God only knows how much power that Great Wall PSU can deliver to the 12v CPU rail (plugging in both 8 pin power connectors helps minimize resistance and voltage drop on the 12v rail also).  Also you didn't tell any of us what Loadline Calibration level you tried to use.  Try level 6 on the Asus.

[tincanalley]

17 minutes ago, Falkentyne said:

That PSU is a "Great Wall" PSU and was mediocre quality in *2011*.  OCZ used to make decent products and PC Power and Cooling used to be a Seasonic OEM, but when OCZ bought PCP&C, all of their products went downhill in quality *FAST*.  Even their RAM went downhill and their QA started slipping.  They were even making SSDs of questionable quality.  Needless to say that company went bankrupt not long after and good riddance.

 

God only knows how much power that Great Wall PSU can deliver to the 12v CPU rail (plugging in both 8 pin power connectors helps minimize resistance and voltage drop on the 12v rail also).  Also you didn't tell any of us what Loadline Calibration level you tried to use.  Try level 6 on the Asus.

I have both 8 pin CPU power connectors in play and the LLC is 6 and have tried 7 as well.  I think I'm going to pick up a Corsair RM1000i tomorrow.  If I go the Seasonic route, it won't be here til Mon or Tue.  The RMi series seems good enough for my setup.  I will be getting and RTX2080 or 2080i soon.  I'm waiting for the introduction of the RTX "super" line to push the pricing down on the current models.  So I know 1000 is a bit overkill for my needs, but it is in stock locally, where the 850 isn't.

 

[hello_there_123]

1 hour ago, Captain Chaos said:

Joking aside, the PSU may indeed be unable to deliver clean enough power to keep the CPU stable at those speeds. 

The Focus Plus 850 gold is a good PSU indeed.  If that doesn't solve it, you simply may not have won the silicon lottery.

Still, quite overpriced for what it offers... especially when considering for the same price there is far superior choices like the RMx and whisper m, straight power 11 in some EU country

[SenKa]

27 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

you've summoned me for no reason?

  Reveal hidden contents

/jk

 

I wrote up a really wrong post of incorrect comparisons between the HXi and RXi PSU's, because I got them mixed up 

[tincanalley]

Okay, will be installing a Corsair RM1000i tomorrow and will push for 5GHz, again.  I do hope it is the PSU.

[tincanalley]

Okay, wasted money on a new PSU.  Wasn't the issue.  At least I have a PSU that communicates along with my AIO via Corsair Link.

Anyway, I've tried everything I can think of and I've narrowed it down to an issue I cannot solve and one I can.  The first issue is AVX offset.  Seems I can do most testing at 4.9 with AVX, but not 5.0 as heat becomes the issue (this is one I can solve if I delid and direct die cool).  If I set the AVX offset to anything other than 0, apps like Cinebench R15 lock up immediately upon start of test, Realbench makes it about 30 to 60 seconds before BSOD, Prime95 26.6 does okay on all but small, etc.  If I set the offset to zero while at 5GHz, Cinebench completes, Realbench overheats the CPU and so does AIDA64.

I have reset CMOS a number of times and tried a number of different settings, all with the same results if I mess with AVX.  I even let the bios do the overclocking based on auto settings and AI and nothing was perfectly stable and voltages were out of control and heat just kept throttling and or caused testing program to abort.

 

So I think it might be time to contact ASUS to see if this is an issue with their BIOS, which is the latest version.

As it stands now, I am at 4.9 with no AVX offset and a voltage of 1.26.  Heat isn't an issue in all but the most demanding of tests, so I'm comfortable it will be stable and cool for daily use.  5 would be nice, but it's not a must.  I mean I went from a 5820K at 4.6 to this and the difference is night an day.  Life is good.

I attached a screenshot of my Cinebench R20 results.  Not too shabby, but too bad I had to drop back to 4.9 after the test.

[ImAyaanKhan]

50 minutes ago, tincanalley said:

Okay, wasted money on a new PSU.  Wasn't the issue.  At least I have a PSU that communicates along with my AIO via Corsair Link.

Anyway, I've tried everything I can think of and I've narrowed it down to an issue I cannot solve and one I can.  The first issue is AVX offset.  Seems I can do most testing at 4.9 with AVX, but not 5.0 as heat becomes the issue (this is one I can solve if I delid and direct die cool).  If I set the AVX offset to anything other than 0, apps like Cinebench R15 lock up immediately upon start of test, Realbench makes it about 30 to 60 seconds before BSOD, Prime95 26.6 does okay on all but small, etc.  If I set the offset to zero while at 5GHz, Cinebench completes, Realbench overheats the CPU and so does AIDA64.

I have reset CMOS a number of times and tried a number of different settings, all with the same results if I mess with AVX.  I even let the bios do the overclocking based on auto settings and AI and nothing was perfectly stable and voltages were out of control and heat just kept throttling and or caused testing program to abort.

 

So I think it might be time to contact ASUS to see if this is an issue with their BIOS, which is the latest version.

As it stands now, I am at 4.9 with no AVX offset and a voltage of 1.26.  Heat isn't an issue in all but the most demanding of tests, so I'm comfortable it will be stable and cool for daily use.  5 would be nice, but it's not a must.  I mean I went from a 5820K at 4.6 to this and the difference is night an day.  Life is good.

I attached a screenshot of my Cinebench R20 results.  Not too shabby, but too bad I had to drop back to 4.9 after the test.

I saw your title, and instantly thought: "You lost the silicon lottery".  That's probably what it is, so maybe return the chip and get another, if you can?

[tincanalley]

3 hours ago, ImAyaanKhan said:

I saw your title, and instantly thought: "You lost the silicon lottery".  That's probably what it is, so maybe return the chip and get another, if you can?

Okay, I hope this works.  I got it from Amazon and they are letting me return it for an exchange of a new unit.  It should be here Wednesday.  Of course the replacement is not guaranteed to be a silicone lottery winner, but it is worth a try.

[xg32]

1.3v 4.9 is top 5-7% (prolly less now since intel is saving the top chips), lower ur expectations.

https://siliconlottery.com/collections/coffeelake-r/products/9900k51g?variant=15392436093014

[Noah0302]

Silicon lottery, I can write a book about it.

 

My 8700k was kind of similar before delidding. 4.9GHz any day with 1.35 Volts, but 5 just was not possible no matter what I did.

the CPU is now delidded and only 100% stable at 5GHz with 1.36+ Volts, 5.1Ghz with an instane 1.425 Volts and I really dont think its a good idea trying for 5.2, lol.

 

In the end I only got a 100MHz improvement, kind of hoped for more. But at least its now cooler with 5GHz than previously with 4.9

[Falkentyne]

9 hours ago, tincanalley said:

Okay, I hope this works.  I got it from Amazon and they are letting me return it for an exchange of a new unit.  It should be here Wednesday.  Of course the replacement is not guaranteed to be a silicone lottery winner, but it is worth a try.

The PSU was still a good purchase.  I wish I had known you were using an AVX offset however.  Crashing in non AVX apps with an offset is NOT an Asus bios bug but a known issue that happens regardless of ODM.  In order NOT to crash, you have to basically be fully AVX stable (like prime95 29.8 build 3 small FFT stable).

This is a guardband tolerance issue.  Sometimes reducing cache ratio can help.

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?106375-MCE-explanations-and-others&highlight=explanations

 

 

[Guest]

delete

 

[tincanalley]

21 hours ago, xg32 said:

1.3v 4.9 is top 5-7% (prolly less now since intel is saving the top chips), lower ur expectations.

https://siliconlottery.com/collections/coffeelake-r/products/9900k51g?variant=15392436093014

Yeah, I'll gladly stay at 4.9 and put the money into an upgraded GPU or AIO.   

 

[tincanalley]

12 hours ago, Falkentyne said:

The PSU was still a good purchase.  I wish I had known you were using an AVX offset however.  Crashing in non AVX apps with an offset is NOT an Asus bios bug but a known issue that happens regardless of ODM.  In order NOT to crash, you have to basically be fully AVX stable (like prime95 29.8 build 3 small FFT stable).

This is a guardband tolerance issue.  Sometimes reducing cache ratio can help.

https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?106375-MCE-explanations-and-others&highlight=explanations

 

 

Didn't really notice I had the offset.  I had it set to 0, but in some adjustment I made along the line, it was still at 0, but in AUTO mode, so it was adjusting it as it saw fit.  When I set it to 0 again, it ran without offset.  Still, seems the best I can get with full AVX is 4.9 all around.  5 is doable in all but the harshest of tests and any real AVX load pushes it to thermal throttling.

[tincanalley]

17 hours ago, Noah0302 said:

Silicon lottery, I can write a book about it.

 

My 8700k was kind of similar before delidding. 4.9GHz any day with 1.35 Volts, but 5 just was not possible no matter what I did.

the CPU is now delidded and only 100% stable at 5GHz with 1.36+ Volts, 5.1Ghz with an instane 1.425 Volts and I really dont think its a good idea trying for 5.2, lol.

 

In the end I only got a 100MHz improvement, kind of hoped for more. But at least its now cooler with 5GHz than previously with 4.9

If I use the system for minor tasks, I can run it at 5.1 with just over 1.32 volts.  However, any attempt at running a real stress test and it either throttles from heat and blue screens (with the occasional hard lockup).

If the new CPU doesn't do any better, I will stick with 4.9 for a little while and then order the delider and direct die mount and have at it.  It seems pretty straight forward, but I'd like to get a few months out of the CPU before I run the risk of damaging it.

[tincanalley]

12 hours ago, Mr. horse said:

its not that bad of a PSU. but not anywhere near the best ether.

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/ocz-zt-750w/

 

I can't complain.  I didn't realize how long I actually had the PSU.  I got it 7 years ago when I put together a 2600K system and reused it when I upgraded to a 5820K and then with this 9900K.  So I'm assuming it would have continued for years to come and now it is sitting in a box as my emergency spare.