i7-4930K Overclocking frustrations on RIVF - am I doing something wrong?

[Peddeh]

Hello, first timer here (although I have lurked for quite some time)

First, I'd like to let it be known that this is my very first motherboard from ASUS and my first X79 board. Less than two weeks ago I bought all my brand spanking new parts all from the same online retailer (full system below).

Full system (all items are new)
i7-4930K + H100i cool it
16GB Kingston HyperX Beast Quad kit - with XMP profiles for 2133 and 2400MHz
ASUS Rampage IV Formula (RIVF) with latest BIOS
AMD R9 290X @ Stock
Samsung 840Pro with fresh install of Windows 8.1 Pro (64 bit)
EVGA Supernova 1300W PSU (I know it's an overkill, but I do plan on crossfiring later)

The system has been running great at stock but until recently I decided I wanted to dabble in some overclocking as my first Intel chip, the 3770K was a pleasure to overclock. I pulled 4.8GHz out of that chip on the MSI MPower board without much difficulty. Anyway, I wasn't expecting to get much out of this 4930K, and was only aiming for something like 4.4GHz at most.

I stability tested the system as best I could at stock (with the 3.9GHz turbo in tact) before dabbling and my stability methodology is like this:

First: Cinebench
Second: AIDA64
Third: OCCT (I let it run for about 20-30min, depending if I have the time in the day)

You might be wondering why I jump into Cinebench first, and it's simply because I've had overclocks in the past pass AIDA and OCCT but then fail Cinebench for no apparent reason, so I always like to get it out of the way first.

So from here, I restarted and jumped into the ASUS UEFI BIOS for the first time, which is still very overwhelming for me but I went straight in with these settings (starting at 4GHz):

Sync all-cores: 40 (for 4GHz)
Manual VCORE: 1.265
Intel SpeedStep: Disabled
C States: Disabled
CPU Spread-spectrum: Disabled
GPU Spread-spectrum: Disabled
CPU Load Line Collaboration: Medium
CPU Current (can't remember the exact name for it in the BIOS): 140%

Anything not mentioned above you should assume to be auto/default. Note: I always leave the RAM initially on stock/default values as I work on the CPU first.

Booted into Windows 8.1 fine. Booted up Cinebench and this is where things start to go wrong. Almost instantly I get a BSOD that states WHE_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR

I decided it could need more voltage, so I increased the vcore from 1.265 to 1.285. Same result again, BSOD with the same error. In the end I tried 1.325V and upward only to get the same recurring result.

Have I really gotten unlucky in the silicon lottery, so much that I can't go from a mere 3.9GHz to 4GHz or am I doing something wrong (which is highly possible as I hardly know what I'm doing)?

I'm almost tempted to ditch this for the X79 XPower board from MSI or get the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Black Edition when it eventually hits retail stores.

 

[Netroxen]

I assume you're doing this as a fixed voltage, right? It seems very unusual...
If you have any IO cards, remove them temporarily.
Have you installed your motherboard chipset drivers and whatnot?
Check for your motherboard BIOS and see whether there are any relevant fixes or updates, sometimes companies release CPU stability fixes.

Other than that:
BCLK = 100
Memory = Default
Thermal States = Disabled
C States = Disable, although not entirely necessary.
LLC = Between Medium/Turbo (Motherboard dependent)
PLL = If at 1.8v try lowering it between [1.6v-1.8v] don't exceed. (Don't set it higher than what the motherboard sets, however can lower it) Sometimes helps with stability.
Try disabling Hyper-threading?
Set CPU power limits to:
Watts = 300
Amps = 250

Not really sure TBH, seems a little, well, shit if it can only do 3.9...

 

[Peddeh]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, fixed voltage.

No IO cards installed. Latest chipset drivers installed, taken from the ASUS website and BIOS which I flashed with the USB Flashback feature. Other than that, I can't see anything else I would need.

I'll try those values and get back.

 

[Peddeh]

I assume you're doing this as a fixed voltage, right? It seems very unusual...
If you have any IO cards, remove them temporarily.
Have you installed your motherboard chipset drivers and whatnot?
Check for your motherboard BIOS and see whether there are any relevant fixes or updates, sometimes companies release CPU stability fixes.

Other than that:
BCLK = 100
Memory = Default
Thermal States = Disabled
C States = Disable, although not entirely necessary.
LLC = Between Medium/Turbo (Motherboard dependent)
PLL = If at 1.8v try lowering it between [1.6v-1.8v] don't exceed. (Don't set it higher than what the motherboard sets, however can lower it) Sometimes helps with stability.
Try disabling Hyper-threading?
Set CPU power limits to:
Watts = 300
Amps = 250

Not really sure TBH, seems a little, well, shit if it can only do 3.9...

Well that was incredibly weird. I threw in the values you suggested (with 1.6V PLL) except for disabling Hyper-threading, threw in 1.265vcore. With little hope I booted into Windows, opened Cinebench and it PASSED! I tested my luck and started doing things in the background, like opening up Photoshop and other applications to try to get it to throw up, but it didn't

Shut down, put on the XMP profile for 2400MHz and it still ran Cinebench without any hiccups.

Thank you very much! I just wish ASUS's BIOS was a little more friendlier, like the MSI MPower Z77 UEFI!

Original post modified to include PSU

 

[Netroxen]

You're welcome, glad it worked out!
PLL is one of those funny voltages, just make sure you do some more testing as your system will become less stable as you lower the PLL voltage. That's because, if I'm not mistaken, at higher voltages it increases the margin for jitter in the clock speed, at lower voltages this margin is reduced which consequently means that the system can lock up if the noise or jitter in the clock speed or power delivery is exceeded.
The problem is, ofcourse, that as you increase the clock speed and with it the voltage, so does the jitter. This is the limiting factor, you need to find the sweet-spot that it'll run at.
One bonus however, is that lowering the PLL voltage does marginally reduce core temps sometimes.

 

[JR23]

I thought I would try lowering PLL after you suggested it here (auto down to 1.7v) and I found that my core temperatures increased and the vcore became slightly less consistent. I tried to read about it but it's moderately confusing stuff! I'm still not 100% stable, not sure really. Anyway don't want to threadjack.

 

[Netroxen]

There could be other variables affecting the temperature, the PLL voltage controls the multiplier that sets the core clock. The higher the voltage, the lower the margin, the lower the voltage, the higher the margin and so on... It's essentially loosening up the clock control which means jitter spikes become less predominant.

Obviously, every user to their own - it'll work for some people and for others it won't.

 

[fz2011]

Though i am not an expert overclocker yet, but i think you would have been fine without changing the PLL voltage. Here is what i suggest, setting everything to stock first find the stock voltage by using CPUZ and running a stress test using OCCT. Thats the base line, try working your stock frequency at a lower voltage than what you found. The thing you missed was load line calibration, you set it to medium which causes voltage to drop when the processor hits load. Set it to extreme this will deliver 100% power that is needed. if your down volt was successful set the voltage to stock and start overclocking at step. I think the idea is to overclock at lower voltage, i.e getting to know your system. I wouldn't have tried bios flashing since if you can achieve what you desire at the current version then why change it.