Hey guys , haven't logged in on TekSyndicate in a while because I've been on Yahoo Answers! :D
I've been trying to overclock it , and it's just not going anywhere. I tried 3.4Ghz to 4.0Ghz and it was fine , I tried the voltages on auto and then replicated it on manual and then tested if I could put a little less juice in and the overclocks were stable (I ran prime95). I then thought 4.2Ghz would be breaking the ice , so I tried that - it didn't work.
Yet again , I tried 4.2Ghz on auto voltages and replicated it manually and tried upping and downing the amoutn of juice. Whilst running prime95 , Core Temp and CPU Z said it was taking in 1.32V . I don't know , but that's a hefty amount for 4.2Ghz! I tried undervolting it to 1.25V and it wasn't stable , I tried below that and it wasn't stable. So I tried 1.32V , that worked - but that's far too much voltage for such a small overclock?!
I'm using my old H80i from Corsair , MSI Mpower Z77. I've tried re-seating the cooler and cleaning out the fins on the radiator , I've even been considering de-lidding the CPU , selling it and going to sandybridge or going to another i5 3570k.
Heat and voltages rise exponentially with frequency. Perhaps try a de-lid but that will only help lower the heat, not the volts. 1.32V doesnt sound all that bad.
That's crazy ridiculously terrible!! Try your luck at another 3570K. I do 4.5Ghz with only 1.21 Volts (I got an extra 100MHz from changing the BCLK which helped keep my volts down) for reference. And that's on the average end. 1.3V typically gets people around 4.7-4.9 you CPU is using way too much voltage.
Look up an overclocking guide for that board everyone is different because there is something wrong there is no reason your i5 shouldnt run at 4.2 at 1.2v or less even with a bad overclocking chip. If it was really bad maybe like 4.2 at 1.2v but thats pretty bad look into things like loadline calibration or v droop and maybe disable or enable turbo some boards are picky with that too. Like on my board (EVGA stinger) you need to have vdroop at 50% and turbo on to get a stable oc.
well its deffanetly not your mobo, the Msi Z77 Mpower is one of the greatest overclock boards arround. probably you did some wrong settings, but did you let the motherboard overclock it self? with OC genie ? you probably did some wrong settings somewhere.