PBO settings - Help

[j4j_0]

Recently I've been having issues where my PC will back screen when gaming. Temps are all low and in another post thanks to the help of some people I have a new MB on the way which will hopefully fix this permanently. However for now I read on reddit that someone was having similar issues and manually put their PBO limits to PPT 275, TDC 150, EDC 150. I also did this and I can now run Cinebench (which used to black screen instantly) without the black screen coming to ruin my day. However I still cant even run a GTA benchmark without it coming back. So my question is this, could I change the values to something different to get it so I can at least play some of the games that I know crash? I'd rather not overclock and for now would be happy to underclock till I have the new MB but tbh I've never looked in to overclocking 

 

CPU is a R9 5950X

[Alvin853]

8 minutes ago, j4j_0 said:

Recently I've been having issues where my PC will back screen when gaming. Temps are all low and in another post thanks to the help of some people I have a new MB on the way which will hopefully fix this permanently. However for now I read on reddit that someone was having similar issues and manually put their PBO limits to PPT 275, TDC 150, EDC 150. I also did this and I can now run Cinebench (which used to black screen instantly) without the black screen coming to ruin my day. However I still cant even run a GTA benchmark without it coming back. So my question is this, could I change the values to something different to get it so I can at least play some of the games that I know crash? I'd rather not overclock and for now would be happy to underclock till I have the new MB but tbh I've never looked in to overclocking 

 

CPU is a R9 5950X

Sounds like your voltages may be unstable, possibly the VRM can't keep up when the load increases suddenly. You can lower the EDC value further, that will decrease the maximum short-term load, but also decrease your performance. Or you could try setting a small positive voltage offset (different BIOS tab, not related to PBO), try +0.05V for example, see if that changes anything, but don't go over +0.1V.

Some mainboards also allow changing the switching frequency of the VRM, a higher frequency would allow the VRM to react faster, but it also will put more load on the VRM, so only do that if your VRM temps are under control. 

[j4j_0]

1 minute ago, Alvin853 said:

Sounds like your voltages may be unstable, possibly the VRM can't keep up when the load increases suddenly. You can lower the EDC value further, that will decrease the maximum short-term load, but also decrease your performance. Or you could try setting a small positive voltage offset (different BIOS tab, not related to PBO), try +0.05V for example, see if that changes anything, but don't go over +0.1V.

Some mainboards also allow changing the switching frequency of the VRM, a higher frequency would allow the VRM to react faster, but it also will put more load on the VRM, so only do that if your VRM temps are under control. 

If it means I can play games for the next few days I'm happy to sacrifice some performance. The CPU has never been overclocked in the past and I'd like to leave it that way for warranty reasons. What would you recommend setting the EDC value to? VRM temps have never gone past 60 as far as I've seen but idk what their limit is. Thanks for the help in advance

 

 

[Alvin853]

3 minutes ago, j4j_0 said:

What would you recommend setting the EDC value to?

I think the default EDC limit is 140A for your CPU, so by limiting it to 150 you're already allowing it to take more than it would stock. Now the question is: why does increasing the limits stop your CPU from crashing? I think just enabling PBO also increases the voltage slightly, so the system is doing the 2nd part of my recommendation on its own. So it's not the limits that help your CPU, it's the voltage boost. 

If you want to try different EDC values, I'd recommend decreasing in steps of 10, until you get to 100, any lower is not going to help for sure, if it doesn't work at 100 then this is not the problem. Bumping the voltage seems more likely to help, or you can try finding a setting called "LLC" or Loadline Calibration, and change it to a very low level, i.e. 1 or 2. This should help stabilize the voltages when there is load.

[j4j_0]

16 minutes ago, Alvin853 said:

I think the default EDC limit is 140A for your CPU, so by limiting it to 150 you're already allowing it to take more than it would stock. Now the question is: why does increasing the limits stop your CPU from crashing? I think just enabling PBO also increases the voltage slightly, so the system is doing the 2nd part of my recommendation on its own. So it's not the limits that help your CPU, it's the voltage boost. 

If you want to try different EDC values, I'd recommend decreasing in steps of 10, until you get to 100, any lower is not going to help for sure, if it doesn't work at 100 then this is not the problem. Bumping the voltage seems more likely to help, or you can try finding a setting called "LLC" or Loadline Calibration, and change it to a very low level, i.e. 1 or 2. This should help stabilize the voltages when there is load.

Having the EDC at 140 allowed me to do part of the benchmark, at 130 I managed to run the whole thing at max settings so it seems fixed... for now. I can't thank you enough as this has been doing my head in for a few days and cost me quite a bit, you're a legend!

[Alvin853]

6 minutes ago, j4j_0 said:

Having the EDC at 140 allowed me to do part of the benchmark, at 130 I managed to run the whole thing at max settings so it seems fixed... for now. I can't thank you enough as this has been doing my head in for a few days and cost me quite a bit, you're a legend!

No problem, glad you got it figured out, and hopefully the new mainboard will allow you to run your CPU at full speed again.