CPU and BIOS Troubleshooting

samwaw_lee · May 20, 2020

Hi guys, I'm new here and quite a novice at PC building and overclocking. I've recently run into trouble with my BIOS and CPU. The specs of my PC are below (it's an old PC i bought 2nd hand)

Intel Core i7 3820 @3.60GHz

Corsair CWCH80 AIO Cooler
32GB DDR3 G.Skill RAM
Asus P9X79 Mobo
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB
500GB Samsung SSD

I tried overclocking my CPU just once (I followed a tutorial that was specific to my CPU) and that didn't work out so I reset my BIOS back to default settings. Now this is where it gets complicated. Unfortunately, I did not check what my original BIOS settings were before i started tinkering with all the stuff (i assumed that if I reset my BIOS to default... it would reset my BIOS to default). Now, my computer occasionally freezes which is followed by the BSOD. So in order to COMPLETELY reset my BIOS I tried removing the CMOS battery, waiting 5 mins, and then putting back in, which seemed to work just fine! When i booted into Windows I went into Piriform Speccy to find my all my core counts at a constant 3599Mhz (and constant x31 multiplier i think). My RAM timings and speed were also different but I do not recall what they were, sorry. In this state, my PC was stable and I could perform all my tasks (video editing, gaming, etc.) with no freezing, and no BSOD. All this goes away when I either shut down the PC, or restarted the PC. When I boot into the BIOS after shutting down or restarting the PC, the CPU speed reads at 4550MHz (according to the BIOS) and all the RAM timings are different (673MHz [10-10-10-30]). In this state, according to Piriform Speccy, the speed of my CPU fluctuates between 1500MHz and 4550MHz (with the highest core multiplier at x36) between all cores and my rated bus speed is much much higher. At first I thought it was a CMOS battery issue so I replaced that but to no avail. I tried resetting the BIOS multiple times within the BIOS (i just clicked on the "revert back to default setting") but that is often followed by either a BSOD, or a black American Megatrends screen saying "overclocking failed, hit F1 to change settings" even though I did not overclock my BIOS that time. WHAT IS GOING ON? Please, does anybody have any clue as to what is happening? All answers and suggestions will be welcome. I have a slight fear that I cooked a piece of hardware but yeah... Any help will be welcomed! Thanks guys....