I have an AMD FX-8350 overclocked to 4.4 GHz an while i'm stress testing my frequency randomly drops to 1.4 GHz. I disabled all power saving features in the Bios and windows. I've done everything I can find and it still hasn't stopped. My motherboard is an MSI 970A SLI Krait edition. thermals aren't an issue. The temps never get over 135 F. Any help?
What are the temps on the motherboard like? The Sli Krait does not have a very well done Vrm, so it will thermal throttle the cpu as to let itself cool off some.
It's the Motherboard it can't handle the power draw of the 8350. basically all you can do is stick a floor fan facing into the computer, take of the side panel and sticking it facing towards the guts of the pc and press 3 or whatever is the max on the fan to see if it helps.
I guess it is your mobo not being able to deliver the juice needed. The FX-8350 is supported but overclocking on said board seems to hit it too hard.
If the VRMs arent so great for OC then I wouldn't adjust your voltage much outside of stock. Try to just get whatever clock speed increase you can out of stock voltage. You've gotta figure you're already increasing by 400mhz across 8 cores in total. That's a substantial increase in power draw.
As far as voltage stability goes, like you said make sure you disable all the power saving features of the BIOS, and maybe try increasing the level of Load Line Calibration.
Turn the LLC up a bit, boot up, run some tests and monitor your voltage levels.
before this motherboard I had a gigabyte and it did the exact same thing. I don't remember what setting I changed to fix it but that was all I had to do.
It might help if you go through and manually set all the settings related to voltages and frequencies that are set to auto to their default, or desired speeds. Sometimes the auto settings on a motherboard can act pretty strange and it's best practice to manually set at default before you start actually overclocking your system.
That being said, let me pop into my BIOS. I'm currently running a Gigabyte board and have managed to get stable clocks speeds, and a pretty stable voltage even under load.
Currently running FX-6300 on a Gigabyte-970A-DS3P <--- Not the greatest board for overclocking by any means.
CPU is 4.1GHz @ ~1.32V - I used to have problems with keeping stable clock speeds, because under load I'd experience vdroop, which would cut my clock speeds down. I set my Vcore offset to +0.050V and then turned up my Load Line Calibration to Extreme.
As a result, my voltage stays within healthy tolerance, and my clock speeds stay up where they should be.
The overall settings I have applied are:
Cool & Quiet - Disabled
C1E - Disabled
C6 - Disabled
APM - Disabled
Load Line Calibration - Extreme
Vcore - +0.050
All other timings and speeds manually set at defaults(NOT 'auto'), with XMP profile active.
Everything that is related to voltage and frequency is no longer on auto. But I can't seem to find Load Line Calibration anywhere.
Thats indeed a good tip load line calibration will help proventing vdrops.
The only problem is, that Msi 970 boards lack on that feuture as far as i know.
Next to that the 970A krait is only a 4+1 powerphase analog vrm, which is basicly not decent enough to run a FX8 core on properly.
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I just tried running prime 95 over night with it completely stock. It still throttles itself. wow... to be honest the only reason I got this board was because it was the only white and black AM3+ motherboard I could find. But if it cant even run my cpu properly I dont see the point in keeping it.
Yeah, the 970 Krait does not boast the best VRM. It might have decent components, but it only has 4+1 phases, which is not enough for serious overclocking on AMD's 8-cores.
If it can't run your processor at stock, you can try undervolting. If that is unacceptable to you (which, I don't blame you for feeling that way) then, I agree, it's time to look for a replacement.
This guy is using a 9590, but same diff... AMD FX 8 cores need beefy VRMs.
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You might be able to get the core speeds up if you disable 2 of them and then try overclocking. But again that kind of makes owning an 8-core pointless to begin with
I think im just going to get another gigabyte. the one I traded this one for was working well. Just wasn't white :D
i wouldnt botter too much about colors.
I would say if you want to stay on your AMD platform, then just invest in a decent board with a good vreg design.
i could eventualy post a list of some good boards.
Or if you realy want white + black theme, then selling your cpu and mobo.
And look into a haswell or Skylake i5.
I can help with that as I have evaluated quite a few. You should PM me when your thinking of doing it
I would say as far as tiering by brand goes with AMD
1. ASUS
2. ASROCK
3. Gigabyte
4. All the other vendors except MSI
5. MSI
(being completely serious here)
@MisteryAngel Has a list that she can copy paste anywhere if need be of the best 990fx boards. I swear she keeps a copy in a notepad on her desktop...