I7 9700k bsod

[Killtson]

So I built my computer in october of last year. A quick rundown

I7 9700k

Asrock phantom gaming sli z390 motherboard

EVGA 2070 SUPER black oc

4x8 corsair vengeance pro rgb 3200mhz ram

Cooler master 240mm aio with thermal grizzly 

Thermaltake smart 650 psi

Samsung 970 evo plus nvme 500gb boot drive (os only atm)

Intel 660p 2Tb nvme storage 

X2 western digital caviar green 1Tb hdd in raid 0

 

The problem. Getting bsod after gaming for a short amount of time. Also trying to run prime 95 blend test and instantly crashes. This happened all of the sudden with no changes recently made to hardware if software. 

 

I did have a 5.0ghz all core oc on the system for most of its life. Vcore 1 is 1.40 volts (I did no other adjustments outside of the 5.0 all core change and enabled xmp). I have since then returned the bios to default and only turned mce on and xmp. Doesnt crash as bad but still will randomly when gaming. Temps under load, from what I have been able to see never go over 80c under full load and v core never goes above 1.4. What do I need to look at to resolve this problem. Very new to overclocking and not fully versed on all the uefi settings. I'm fine with returning it to defaults but this doesn't even fix my issue. Ask me anything you need to from me and I will provide any info needed to help you help me. Thanks in advance 

 

Edit. I'm having a hunch that my motherboard is throttling down and crashing the pc. I did put a laser thermometer on the mosfets and the are 90 to 95c under load.

 

 

 

[Constantin]

All this good hardware on a mehh motherboard.......

[LOLZR]

Holy shit - I am pretty noob when it comes to OC but 1.4V is way too high. Throttle that back to 1.35V at least.

[Jeppes]

Could go even under 1.3V if youre not oc:ing it.

[LOLZR]

2 minutes ago, Constantin said:

All this good hardware on a mehh motherboard.......

So what? IMO expensive motherboards are extremely overrated if you're not trying for extreme over-clocks where the additioanl cooling becomes important. 

 

Buy the cheapest board that has all the features that you want (M.2 slots, size) IMO.

[Killtson]

1 minute ago, LOLZR said:

Holy shit - I am pretty noob when it comes to OC but 1.4V is way too high. Throttle that back to 1.35V at least.

That's the thing I never messed with the voltage nor do I know what to change. 

 

[Mateyyy]

1.4V is too much for normal continuous use (imo), and unless you just got super unlucky with the silicon lottery I doubt you actually need that much voltage for 5.0GHz. I'd also advise against using MCE as it too just turns up the voltage too high for no reason almost all of the time.

Update the BIOS (if you haven't already) and try increasing the LLC level. Also, try stress testing the CPU at stock first before you jump to any conclusions. It is possible that over time the CPU won't overclock as gracefully as it did when brand new (I've personally had this happen), so maybe it just can't push 5GHz anymore.

[Constantin]

1 minute ago, LOLZR said:

So what? IMO expensive motherboards are extremely overrated if you're not trying for extreme over-clocks where the additioanl cooling becomes important. 

 

Buy the cheapest board that has all the features that you want (M.2 slots, size) IMO.

Keep in mind, you get what you pay....

[LOLZR]

2 minutes ago, Jeppes said:

Could go even under 1.3V if youre not oc:ing it.

He is OC, up to 5.0GHz all core.

 

But yeah, try for 1.3V.  My 8700K is 5.0GHz all core on 1.29 I think?

[Killtson]

1 minute ago, Mateyyy said:

1.4V is too much for normal continuous use (imo), and unless you just got super unlucky with the silicon lottery I doubt you actually need that much voltage for 5.0GHz. I'd also advise against using MCE as it too just turns up the voltage too high for no reason almost all of the time.

Update the BIOS (if you haven't already) and try increasing the LLC level. Also, try stress testing the CPU at stock first before you jump to any conclusions. It is possible that over time the CPU won't overclock as gracefully as it did when brand new (I've personally had this happen), so maybe it just can't push 5GHz anymore.

Thank you. I was thinking about doing a bios update and rechecking. But I have tried running it with default bios settings and only turning xmp on and have the issue after a while. 

 

[LOLZR]

@Killtson How is your airflow around your motherboard? Maybe your VRMs/Memory is getting way too hot?

[Killtson]

3 minutes ago, Constantin said:

Keep in mind, you get what you pay....

It wasn't a cheap board but it also wasn't a high end. I got it for the 2 m.2 slots and I wanted one with vrm heatsinks and wifi. The board still sits in the 150 dollar range. I'm not sure what a mid range z390 with these features should cost any suggestions?

 

[Constantin]

Just now, Killtson said:

It wasn't a cheap board but it also wasn't a high end. I got it for the 2 m.2 slots and I wanted one with vrm heatsinks and wifi. The board still sits in the 150 dollar range. I'm not sure what a mid range z390 with these features should cost any suggestions?

 

 MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC

[Killtson]

1 minute ago, LOLZR said:

@Killtson How is your airflow around your motherboard? Maybe your VRMs/Memory is getting way too hot?

I feel like it should be pretty good. I have the aio in push pull in front pulling air in the case. And additional front intake and 2 exhausts at top and 1 at back. I also have the psu in a way that it acts as exhaust as well. 

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, LOLZR said:

Holy shit - I am pretty noob when it comes to OC but 1.4V is way too high. Throttle that back to 1.35V at least.

Nah. For HEDT chips that's a very spicy voltage, but the mainstream chips since 2009 have swallowed up to 1.4v without issue. 

 

Just now, LOLZR said:

So what? IMO expensive motherboards are extremely over-rated if you're not trying for extreme over-clocks where the additioanl cooling becomes important. 

 

Buy the cheapest board that has all the features that you want (M.2 slots, size) IMO.

VRMs. That's the important thing for overclocking, some boards either don't have good VRMs and don't keep them cool, which will cause instabilities. You don't need a god tier super overkill VRM board but you need to have ones that stay at safe operating temps. This board seems to be fine on the VRM front but uh:

Those heatsinks are probably letting it down, they are tiny. Would recommend pointing a fan at the VRMs to see if that helps (or if you know what sensor the VRMs belong to, look at temps under load in HWiNFO). 

 

4 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

1.4V is too much for normal continuous use (imo), and unless you just got super unlucky with the silicon lottery I doubt you actually need that much voltage for 5.0GHz.

It should be fine so long as it's kept reasonably cool, but yeah that's much too high a voltage for 5.0, I'd expect to see someone pushing that for 5.2-5.3. If this chip can't do 5.0, dropping to 4.9 and upping the cache (uncore) clock will likely give the same/slightly better results. See here:

 

1 minute ago, Killtson said:

Thank you. I was thinking about doing a bios update and rechecking. But I have tried running it with default bios settings and only turning xmp on and have the issue after a while. 

Like Mateyy said, try stress testing with everything stock. If that goes well, I'd up the core clocks but leave RAM at auto (not XMP, let it just sit at auto) and see how that goes. XMP can have issues from board to board (not model to model, just sometimes it has issues with a specific board or CPU with no real reason), if you run that and a CPU OC at the same time, it'll be impossible to tell which is the one messing up. 

[Killtson]

3 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Nah. For HEDT chips that's a very spicy voltage, but the mainstream chips since 2009 have swallowed up to 1.4v without issue. 

 

VRMs. That's the important thing for overclocking, some boards either don't have good VRMs and don't keep them cool, which will cause instabilities. You don't need a god tier super overkill VRM board but you need to have ones that stay at safe operating temps. This board seems to be fine on the VRM front but uh:

Those heatsinks are probably letting it down, they are tiny. Would recommend pointing a fan at the VRMs to see if that helps (or if you know what sensor the VRMs belong to, look at temps under load in HWiNFO). 

 

It should be fine so long as it's kept reasonably cool, but yeah that's much too high a voltage for 5.0, I'd expect to see someone pushing that for 5.2-5.3. If this chip can't do 5.0, dropping to 4.9 and upping the cache (uncore) clock will likely give the same/slightly better results. See here:

 

Like Mateyy said, try stress testing with everything stock. If that goes well, I'd up the core clocks but leave RAM at auto (not XMP, let it just sit at auto) and see how that goes. XMP can have issues from board to board (not model to model, just sometimes it has issues with a specific board or CPU with no real reason), if you run that and a CPU OC at the same time, it'll be impossible to tell which is the one messing up. 

Thanks to all. When I get home I'll do p work and report back.

[Killtson]

5 minutes ago, Constantin said:

 MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC

I'll keep that In mind if my road leads me to changing it. Thanks. 

[Killtson]

Update!

 

So I did some of the things you guys suggested such as resetting the bios to default with no xmp yada yada.  Stress test with prime 95 blend and it started out ok voltages were looking good but the clock speed fluctuated pretty bad. Idk if this is normal but it was. Temps were in the high 70s which honestly seem a bit high to me compared to how it was before at 5.0 ghz all core used to be around the same. Rewind a bit I wiped the entire computer, drives and all aswell (this is just a gaming computer so nothing important to lose or back up). Fresh install of windows just to eliminate any old drivers or app that may have been causing any problems. I also tried different ram configurations to no avail. 

 

So back to those temps. I decided open her up and change the thermal paste. I am happy to report that after changing the thermal paste and running at all factory defaults, like above, temps were down 15 to 20c! So 55 to 60 c as compared to the high 70s with the exact setup. Which still seems a bit odd to me as I wouldn't think around 80c I would get issues and freezes. But anywho. I went ahead an enabled xmp I set my voltages at level 2 (fixed, for those unaware asrock, not sure about others, has preset voltage tables for everything 1 being the highest and 5 being the lowest) which brought my vcore down to 1.37v. Ran prime 95 blend test last night, and still running now, with no crashes and temps staying under 75c at all times under load. Cpuz and core temp are reporting that the cpu voltage under the full load is 1.4 and below.  I'm sorry if this doesnt make sense or if my terminology is poor but I appreciate the help and time will tell if it is actually fixed. For now we are gonna be gaming.