AMD 860K Overclocking on A88X help!

[Haxorinator]

Hello all! So, this is my first post being on OC3D but I came here to present my issues.

TLR Overclock frequency keeps dipping, causing hitches/stuttering in gameplay, benchmarking, etc.

Currently, I'm having (semi) poor results overclocking the Athlon 860K. Coming from Intel, overclocking here seems a bit more tedious.

Here is my build:
Obsidain 250D ITX Case
MSI a88x ac v2
Athlon 860K
8GB Kingston 1600Mhz
GTX 970 Reference (For ITX + I like the design. I know its Overkill but I got a good deal)
EVGA 430w 80+
850 Evo 250GB (OS + Priority games)
840 Pro 128GB (2nd Priority games)
2Tb External (Games i'll never play but have on steam anyway xD)

Anywho, It seems this board, a mighty "a88x" DOES NOT have voltage control -_- or if it does I can't seem to find it. There isn't a lot of info on this board so I can't confirm if it does or does not. I can't seem to overvolt or undervolt, even using AMD Overdrive.

My main issue is that I can overclock to about 4.4Ghz (can't go beyond or BSOD, thanks AMD lottery) and it seems stable. BUT stressing the CPU will nosedive the frequency to 3.5Ghz very often and it will stay there for a few seconds. I have noticed this in heavy threaded games where my performance dips HARD for a few seconds.

Here is an example (don't mind the wallpaper, its Nyan Cat if you're wondering)
Full Speed:

Dip:

I've tried lowering the frequency to 4.2Ghz, turned off AMD turbo and the SAME thing happens.

I overclocked the NB to 2Ghz to see if it would help (heard its about the max) and the same problem occurs. It seems the only way to not "throttle" is to run completely STOCK, but thats no fun, considering this is a "Black Edition" chip ):

Messed with the RAM XMP profiles and it doesn't seem to affect the CPU OC, so i'm running it at 2133Mhz.

No overclock on the GPU (I can't even fully harness the power 99% of the time) so It doesn't appear to be a power issue.

Gotta say, I'm a little disappointed in this chip. Came from Pentium G3258 OC to 4.6Ghz (traded my brother, and he sold my build) and it seems in my testing that this "little" Pentium outperforms this 860K in nearly every application and use ): though I heard otherwise from 860K users.


Am I missing something? Any tips or tricks to help me out?

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

Do you have an aftermarket cooler on that chip??

 

[shambles1980]

how are the vrm's handling it. I know on my old amd board "bulldozer" if the vrms got hot the cpu would throttle down.

 

[Haxorinator]

Do you have an aftermarket cooler on that chip??

Yup! Unfortunately, its not the "best" CPU cooler but its a Cooler Master Gemini M4, the latest revision, paired with a Corsair SP120 High Performance Edition fan. Noise is seldom an issue, and thermal margin reported at about 6 degrees under maximum load (stress tests) at 4.4Ghz and usually around 10 degrees while gaming (unless this is why? Its not hitting max temp, so I'm unsure)\

 

[Haxorinator]

how are the vrm's handling it. I know on my old amd board "bulldozer" if the vrms got hot the cpu would throttle down.

Hmm.. I never thought about that. It is possible I guess, but I figured the beefy passive heatsinks could keep it under control. Might have to check in on that but so far I can't see any temp readings from the motherboard, perhaps this one doesn't have any? ):

 

[WYP]

I think that mono only officially supports overclocking on Apus with a 65w tdp. The 860k is 95w tdp

 

[RobM]

is amd cool n quiet turned off in the bios?

 

[Haxorinator]

I think that mono only officially supports overclocking on Apus with a 65w tdp. The 860k is 95w tdp

Wow! The legendary "WYP" responded to my thread

Haha, but anyways I didn't know that! Looked further into what you said and apparently this motherboard's VRM's aren't designed for 95W Overclocking ): so good call there!

That's quite unfortunate but I guess I'll just have to live with what I can get! Perhaps jacking up system fans to compensate for the less than stellar VRM cooling (even though they look beefy)

Also to Rob, I did disable AMD Cool N'Quiet for testing, but I like to keep it on so the CPU doesn't max draw 100% of the time, but thanks for reminding me! I double checked!

Thanks all for the input, I'll probably be switching platforms in the future as I enjoy ITX FF.

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

That's quite unfortunate but I guess I'll just have to live with what I can get! Perhaps jacking up system fans to compensate for the less than stellar VRM cooling (even though they look beefy)

It's all about the mos-fets they are using underneath that heatsink (and the number of those mosfets as well)
I own an 8350 -same architecture with some slight changes- and even at 4.5Ghz with the voltage at just below 1.4Volts the mosfets on the 990FX Sabertooth were really having a hard time. According to the asus utility half of them was over 85C.

 

[WYP]

Wow! The legendary "WYP" responded to my thread

Haha, but anyways I didn't know that! Looked further into what you said and apparently this motherboard's VRM's aren't designed for 95W Overclocking ): so good call there!

That's quite unfortunate but I guess I'll just have to live with what I can get! Perhaps jacking up system fans to compensate for the less than stellar VRM cooling (even though they look beefy)

Also to Rob, I did disable AMD Cool N'Quiet for testing, but I like to keep it on so the CPU doesn't max draw 100% of the time, but thanks for reminding me! I double checked!

Thanks all for the input, I'll probably be switching platforms in the future as I enjoy ITX FF.

Wow, when did I gain legend status?

Shame your motherboard does not support overclocking on that CPU . ITX is best suited to intel ATM as they have the lowest power consumption.

 

[Haxorinator]

Wow, when did I gain legend status?

Shame your motherboard does not support overclocking on that CPU . ITX is best suited to intel ATM as they have the lowest power consumption.

You're the "News Guru"! I heard a lot of good things about you before coming here haha. Read a lot of your articles too! Cheers!

Also, yea ): Looks like i'll have to go Intel later *wallet cries* but thanks again all!!!

 

[Haxorinator]

Hey all, interesting note.

RobM noted that I should turn AMD Cool and Quiet off. I said that i like to keep it on to reduce power draw. I noted, however, that when it was on in the bios, windows kept the minimum CPU power to 100%.

I figured "this is weird, I want to save power" so i lowered it to 5% minimum and BAM. System will freeze NO matter what I do if I change the minimum CPU power lower than 100%. Weird huh? I tried stock everything, no OC on core, memory, or NB and still freezes.

So far, I'm running 100% all the time and some quick searching turns up that this only affects AMD users, notably the 860K series, and 8350 series..

Any tips? In the meantime, RIP power bill.

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

I figured "this is weird, I want to save power" so i lowered it to 5% minimum and BAM. System will freeze NO matter what I do if I change the minimum CPU power lower than 100%. Weird huh? I tried stock everything, no OC on core, memory, or NB and still freezes.

So far, I'm running 100% all the time and some quick searching turns up that this only affects AMD users, notably the 860K series, and 8350 series..

Any tips? In the meantime, RIP power bill.

I think that the cpu power management of windows has to be supported by the cpus. I always have that setting in windows at 100% but AMD has Cool n Quiet which you can turn on or off in the BIOS and it works perfectly. Asus also has the EPU setting in the bios that also saves power (if the chip is at stock of course otherwise it causes BSODs)

 

[RobM]

you will not save power and overclock m8 overclocking and increased power come hand in hand so you need to turn cool n quiet off and over clock or just leave things stock

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

you will not save power and overclock m8 overclocking and increased power come hand in hand so you need to turn cool n quiet off and over clock or just leave things stock

I think that leaving cool n quiet on should work also when overclocked it just uses dynamic voltages and clocks depending on the cpu load. (at least that's what it does on my 8350)

 

[RobM]

cool n quiet and C1E can affect your OC and sometimes prevent it reaching max.
The function basicly lowers the multiplier and voltage thus making overclock unstable so always wise to turn it off, since you want to increase cpu thus up voltage and multiplier

 

[Haxorinator]

I figured it out (sigh). After 5 hours of changing one setting, benchmarking, freezing the computer, and sweat/blood I figured out what was wrong.

Again, coming from Intel and then moving to AMD, I always keep the power saving functions on to save power . Not only that, it keeps temps lower when Idle.

The problem was C1E in the bios. Did some research and it's function is to shut down cores if they're not in use unlike Cool n Quiet which lowers voltages and clock speeds.

It seems when the cores are "parked" (shut down) the system cannot wake them up/activate them. The voltage spikes to over 1.5v and the system crashes. This makes sense as the freezing only occurs when the cores are at idle ~1700Mhz and then I do a task that quickly raises them to ~3700 or OC ~4400.

Regardless, thank goodness it's solved. Running stable:
3.7Ghz Non OC, Turbo to 4.5Ghz (4.2Ghz on 4 cores IIRC)
Memory at 2133
NB @ 2Ghz
The system doesn't seem to throttle at the base 3.7Ghz

So thanks again all. I really appreciate the help here at OC3D. Looks like we killed two birds with one stone in the future if someone else has this issue!

 

[Thelosouvlakia]

Cheers mate!

 

[RobM]

glad your sorted

 

[Haxorinator]

Hey all. Just wanted to report last last final results. I admit, I'm a little ashamed that the fix was this "easy" and I can't believe I didn't read the details/spec sheet of my CPU cooler.

So, after some digging and comparing, I figured out the CPU cooler pre-installed was a GeminII (my brother got it).

Great right? I thought so, there was a high pressure fan on it and it looks really big from the top (thats where my case window is).

Finally read the spec sheet the other day and found it this CPU cooler is a 65W MAX TDP.. No.. Fricken..WAY. The 860K is 95W. No wonder when I OC the thing throttles like crazy. Looked a the base plate of the GeminII and its PUNY.

Bit the bullet and picked up a brand new AIO CPU cooler, an Enermax Liqtech II 240 for $50!!! (Reviews said it was > H100i) Installed it in pull to prevent dust build up.

On top of that, threw in another case fan near the VRMs and MOSFETS and BAM. I couldn't believe it.

4.5Ghz stable on ALL cores, temps never going above 55c with a thermal margin of 20c+, NO throttles, NO issues! DD

Computer is also super quiet now and idles temps show a thermal margin of 45c+


In short, I do still believe my VRMs were overheating but didn't realize my CPU was overheating even at stock speeds.

Thanks again all for all the input.

P.S. When I took off the GeminII, I could see a burn mark near the center of the CPU on the thermal paste. LOL