i9-9900k does not boost to 5GHz anymore

[Arucad]

Hi everyone.
So in short: I have a 9900k, running on a Z390 Aorus Ultra (latest bios), cooled by a Dark Rock 4 pro, inside a FD Meshify C.

I've had it for a month already and everything has been splendid.
All bios settings are default, with Corsair 3000MHz XMP profile.
I opened HWinfo the other day to check what's up with temps, since summer is coming in and noticed that for the entire day the CPU never boosted any of the cores more than 4.7GHz, while when the system was still new it used to boost some cores up to 5GHz. I tried playing with power settings in windows and switched between High performance and balanced, but hothing changed. In High performance, all cores are pretty much constantly staying @ 4,7, while in balanced, it downclocks to 800MHz and boosts up to 4.7.
Any ideas why it would not hit 5 GHz on any core anymore?
Attaching a SS from HWinfo with about 20 min of GTA5 played + some browsing.
 

[Overl0rd]

It could be that the VRMs on your moterhboard are getting too hot and therefore not allowing max power draw. You could try to point a fan directly at the VRM to see if that is the problem.

[Arucad]

2 minutes ago, Overl0rd said:

It could be that the VRMs on your moterhboard are getting too hot and therefore not allowing max power draw. You could try to point a fan directly at the VRM to see if that is the problem.

This is supposed to be the VRM temps recorded from the motherboard sensors. Also the heatsink on the VRMs is massive. I really doubt that would be the problem.

[alatron978]

Its most likely an issue in os. Try closing EVERYTHING that is not hwinfo and the benchmark then see if it boosts to 5ghz.

[alatron978]

27 minutes ago, Overl0rd said:

It could be that the VRMs on your moterhboard are getting too hot and therefore not allowing max power draw. You could try to point a fan directly at the VRM to see if that is the problem.

That could not be the case, if it was unable to get 5ghz on 1 core due to vrm throttling, it would not be able to hit 4.7ghz on 8 cores.

[Arucad]

15 minutes ago, alatron978 said:

Its most likely an issue in os. Try closing EVERYTHING that is not hwinfo and the benchmark then see if it boosts to 5ghz.

It's the same even after just restarting. I checked multipliers in the BIOS and it says it some cores should be boosting up to 50x. Unfortunately HWinfo tells it only ever goes up to 47x.
I have no idea what could be causing it. Cooling is allright and as you said in another reply, if it can stay all cores 4,7 all the time, it should be able to do 2-3 cores up to 5.

[alatron978]

4 minutes ago, Arucad said:

It's the same even after just restarting. I checked multipliers in the BIOS and it says it some cores should be boosting up to 50x. Unfortunately HWinfo tells it only ever goes up to 47x.
I have no idea what could be causing it. Cooling is allright and as you said in another reply, if it can stay all cores 4,7 all the time, it should be able to do 2-3 cores up to 5.

Is everything closed in the os? Even something like rgb software can stop it from boosting.

[Falkentyne]

7 minutes ago, Arucad said:

It's the same even after just restarting. I checked multipliers in the BIOS and it says it some cores should be boosting up to 50x. Unfortunately HWinfo tells it only ever goes up to 47x.
I have no idea what could be causing it. Cooling is allright and as you said in another reply, if it can stay all cores 4,7 all the time, it should be able to do 2-3 cores up to 5.

Is multicore enhancement enabled or disabled?

Did you at any time set a manual multiplier?

I believe setting a manual multiplier in one of the options forces the multiplier for all cores to be that multiplier if a second option is also changed.

I also 'think' one of the power options if disabled stops the cores from boosting higher than the multiplier.

I don't know what, because I always, instantly disable MCE, EIST, Speedstep, and all C-states and Ring Down Bin, then I set a fixed multiplier and cache ratio (like 50/47 or 47/44), and my chip runs at that multiplier and cache-300 mhz at all times without downclocking.

With the above, when I set x47 for the core and x44 for the cache, the CPU runs at x47 and never clocks higher with a lower core thread load.

Keep in mind forcing all cores to x50 requires higher voltage and may require CPU Vcore Loadline Calibration set to turbo.

Also the VR VOUT section of your HWinfo64 shows true CPU voltages and VRM and amps monitoring (if there are two sections, one is for the iGPU and you can hide that section if it shows 0.004v for VR VOUT).

[Arucad]

6 hours ago, Falkentyne said:

Is multicore enhancement enabled or disabled?

Did you at any time set a manual multiplier?

I believe setting a manual multiplier in one of the options forces the multiplier for all cores to be that multiplier if a second option is also changed.

I also 'think' one of the power options if disabled stops the cores from boosting higher than the multiplier.

I don't know what, because I always, instantly disable MCE, EIST, Speedstep, and all C-states and Ring Down Bin, then I set a fixed multiplier and cache ratio (like 50/47 or 47/44), and my chip runs at that multiplier and cache-300 mhz at all times without downclocking.

With the above, when I set x47 for the core and x44 for the cache, the CPU runs at x47 and never clocks higher with a lower core thread load.

Keep in mind forcing all cores to x50 requires higher voltage and may require CPU Vcore Loadline Calibration set to turbo.

Also the VR VOUT section of your HWinfo64 shows true CPU voltages and VRM and amps monitoring (if there are two sections, one is for the iGPU and you can hide that section if it shows 0.004v for VR VOUT).

Multicore enhancement is enable as per default.
BIOS is with default settings and I haven't set different manual multipliers.
Do you suggest that I straight up OC the CPU to 4,7+ GHz?(dont know if I understood correctly)

[Arucad]

6 hours ago, alatron978 said:

Is everything closed in the os? Even something like rgb software can stop it from boosting.

I have a buttload of things similar to the rgb software. Is there a way that I can track down which one might be causing the issue?

[xg32]

7 minutes ago, Arucad said:

.

The older bios may have auto oc that boosted the clocks high, the stock clock of a 9900k is 4.7. If you updated the bios at all that could be what's happening (since you stated it's the latest bios).

 

With a newer bios, there could be a micro-code update that happened expecially with all the negative around HT. 

[Arucad]

13 minutes ago, xg32 said:

The older bios may have auto oc that boosted the clocks high, the stock clock of a 9900k is 4.7. If you updated the bios at all that could be what's happening (since you stated it's the latest bios).

 

With a newer bios, there could be a micro-code update that happened expecially with all the negative around HT. 

That's a good idea, but it was the same with the previous bios(which the board came with). I only updated it today and it was still the same.
I'd be really unhappy if Intel sold me a processor that boosts to 5GHz and then to 4,7 after an update.

[xg32]

4 minutes ago, Arucad said:

That's a good idea, but it was the same with the previous bios(which the board came with). I only updated it today and it was still the same.
I'd be really unhappy if Intel sold me a processor that boosts to 5GHz and then to 4,7 after an update.

If you only updated it after the clocks fell, then it could just be the auto oc randomly not working (it happens, i have a friend whose auto oc changes everyday), that's on the motherboard, not the cpu btw, but if i have to guess you got very lucky on the silicon lottery on ur current cpu, you can always choose to manual oc. (difference btwn 4.7 and 5.0 really is negligible in most usage)

[Arucad]

8 minutes ago, xg32 said:

If you only updated it after the clocks fell, then it could just be the auto oc randomly not working (it happens, i have a friend whose auto oc changes everyday), that's on the motherboard, not the cpu btw, but if i have to guess you got very lucky on the silicon lottery on ur current cpu, you can always choose to manual oc (difference btwn 4.7 and 5.0 really is negligible in most usage.)

What makes you think I got lucky on the silicon lottery?

[xg32]

6 minutes ago, Arucad said:

What makes you think I got lucky on the silicon lottery?

just the voltages and the clock speeds you showed above, stock settings are not precise, 1.29v 4.7 is already decent, assuming it runs 4.7 on 1.26v and you have a verygood chip.

[Arucad]

I think I have an idea why this is happening.

So I downloaded the intel extreme tuning utility and inside the per core boosts are explained as per example:
1 active core - max multiplier - x50

2 active cores - x50

3 active cores - x49

.....

6+ active cores - x47
Now I have to figure out why maybe 6+ cores are always active....

Am I drifting in a wrong direction?

EDIT: Intel extreme tuning utility says I have 1 active core when I run Cinebench R20 on single core mode, but it still only clocks to 4.7
I am getting more confused.

[unclewebb]

To access the 50 multiplier, you need to enable at least one of the core C States (C3 - C6 - C7) in the bios.  

[Lefteh]

AVX instruction set offset? That could do it.

[Arucad]

7 hours ago, unclewebb said:

To access the 50 multiplier, you need to enable at least one of the core C States (C3 - C6 - C7) in the bios.  

I tried but nothing changed.Tried just one or combination of the C. I've returned them to Auto(which I believe is also "Enabled"), and I sometimes see x49 multiplier, but never under load.

Any load comes in and they all go x47.

[Falkentyne]

2 hours ago, Arucad said:

I tried but nothing changed.Tried just one or combination of the C. I've returned them to Auto(which I believe is also "Enabled"), and I sometimes see x49 multiplier, but never under load.

Any load comes in and they all go x47.

Working as expected.

In windows you are never going to see the x50 multiplier with turbo boost and rarely the x49 multiplier when at load.  Windows task scheduler constantly shifts tasks between different threads and there are background processes also running on more than one thread.  This interferes with turbo boost.

If you use Throttlestop 8.70+ to monitor clock speeds (instead of HWinfo64) and set it to "More data", you may see your x49 or x50 more often.  I don't think HWinfo64 will update faster than 250ms per poll.

 

If you really want to see the higher ratios active at lower loads, you need to run something like Linux.

[Arucad]

10 minutes ago, Falkentyne said:

Working as expected.

In windows you are never going to see the x50 multiplier with turbo boost and rarely the x49 multiplier when at load.  Windows task scheduler constantly shifts tasks between different threads and there are background processes also running on more than one thread.  This interferes with turbo boost.

If you use Throttlestop 8.70+ to monitor clock speeds (instead of HWinfo64) and set it to "More data", you may see your x49 or x50 more often.  I don't think HWinfo64 will update faster than 250ms per poll.

 

If you really want to see the higher ratios active at lower loads, you need to run something like Linux.

Thank you. I'll try it

[enterprise24]

On 6/16/2019 at 9:46 AM, unclewebb said:

To access the 50 multiplier, you need to enable at least one of the core C States (C3 - C6 - C7) in the bios.  

Wow never know about this before. Just sign in to say thanks !!

I try negative offset voltage on my stock 9900K + Z370 Taichi and got freezing when idle. I read somewhere on OCN that disable C3 C6 C7 solve the issue so I try that and never get idle freeze anymore. Then I somehow forget to monitoring clock speed for 2 days and today I just wonder why my 9900K will not boost beyond 4.7Ghz anymore. Then I found this post but I still wonder how to deal with idle freeze if I need to turn on C3. I just try C3 auto rather than enable or disable and still waiting for result.

[enterprise24]

On 2/15/2020 at 11:40 PM, enterprise24 said:

Wow never know about this before. Just sign in to say thanks !!

I try negative offset voltage on my stock 9900K + Z370 Taichi and got freezing when idle. I read somewhere on OCN that disable C3 C6 C7 solve the issue so I try that and never get idle freeze anymore. Then I somehow forget to monitoring clock speed for 2 days and today I just wonder why my 9900K will not boost beyond 4.7Ghz anymore. Then I found this post but I still wonder how to deal with idle freeze if I need to turn on C3. I just try C3 auto rather than enable or disable and still waiting for result.

Update. C3 auto seem good so far (C6 and C7 still disable).

 

I have this CPU for half year and before this I overclock it to 5Ghz with 1.29V fixed voltage (1.22 VR VOUT under heavy load , 1.26-1.27V VR VOUT gaming / idle).

Since my ASRock doesn't have adaptive voltage. Only fixed / offset / auto and I want to save some power in idle so I try stock setting with negative offset instead.

So here are my final settings for 9900K and Z370 Taichi.

CPU Ratio = auto

MCE = on

Voltage = -70mv offset

LLC auto (level 4) (weakest LLC for ASrock is level 5 and level 1 is strongest)

C3 = auto , C6 / C7 = disable , the rest of power saving features = on.

Windows power plan = power saving. I notice that this mode will enable 0.6 ish volt VR VOUT when idle more often than balance or performance mode.