Stability issue with overclock?

[Dave3000]

Yesterday I was stress testing my CPU with Prime 95 and running Real Temp in the background. My CPU is an i7 4930k and I had it overclocked to 4 GHz with leaving the vcore on auto and C-states disabled. Max temps hit around 68 °C - 70 °C on hottest core, I don't know exactly how hot because I had to relaunch Real Temp when I got back home from work because it somehow closed on me while running Prime 95, after 4.5 hours of running Prime 95 small FFT test without errors. No problems running Prime 95 though for 4.5 hours. The issue I was having was Real Temp closed itself and Kodi launched itself while Prime 95 was running while I was at work but Prime 95 still kept running fine in the background. Do programs launching themselves and closing themselves, excluding the stress testing program currently running, while stress testing indicate an unstable overclock? I have Kodi setup as a quick launch item in the taskbar by the way. I had other people inside my home at the time but I don't think any of them would admit to it even if one of them did it and would just bring up overclocking as the cause. So does it sound like an unstable overclock when programs from the taskbar start launching themselves and other programs close themselves?

 

[Burpo]

Not unusual for a program to crash while stress testing, but I don't recall any that started by themselves.

 

[LTC8K6]

It sounds like a cat at the keyboard to me.

I can't recall any CPU instabilities being organized.

 

[Dave3000]

It's like someone came to my computer and clicked on the X button in Real Temp and Prime 95 and then clicked on the Kodi icon in the taskbar as when I got back the Kodi interface was showing on the screen and so I exited Kodi and the Prime 95 icon was still showing in the taskbar so I clicked on it and Prime 95 was still running. Prime 95 still runs if you click on the close button and you would actually have to click on Stop in the menu of Prime 95 to stop Prime 95 testing. Maybe I should just try testing the overclock again with the same variables to see if it happens again? To me it does not sound like an unstable overclock but then again unstable overclocks can cause strange things to happen in systems.

 

[Dave3000]

I don't recall closing Prime 95 and Real Temp and then launching Kodi and then leaving Kodi running before I left to work yesterday because I started running Prime 95 and Real Temp just before leaving to work and I know the proper way to close Prime 95. Virus? Hacker remotely accessing my PC? Windows 8.1 issue?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Doesn't KODI have scheduled "EPG" update downloads or similar features?

My Media Center does these downloads whether the actual software or live TV feature is running -- or not.

You ARE describing something of "weird behaviors," though. Barring the other possibilities people mentioned, you're always better for stress-testing to stay close-by and keep an eye on it.

Personally, there were many times I'd done testing while letting Media Center with Live-TV continue playing in the background -- with Prime95 and even affinitized LinX.

Just another thought. If there's some sort of borderline instability that doesn't reveal itself with Prime95, it should show up over a shorter period of testing with OCCT:CPU. With that, I'd also avoid running RealTemp or any other monitoring program, since OCCT incorporates HWMonitor.

I've just never had a monitoring program decide to "close" while stressing -- or anything similar to what you describe.

 

[PhIlLy ChEeSe]

Unless the system rebooted?

 

[Dave3000]

How do you then explain why Prime 95 was still running, minimized on the taskbar, and when I ended the test it showed 4.5 hours tested with no warnings or errors. Prime 95 starts over again at Windows startup of system reboots during testing?

 

[Dave3000]

I'm not getting any issues when running OCCT in the normal and Linpack test, at least not for the few hours I ran it. I ran Prime 95 again for a few more times but the weird issue that I explained here didn't happen again. As someone here mentioned, it's just seems too organized for it to call it unstable. Then again I had weird issues in Windows when running even at stock settings before, such most of my desktop shortcuts to my games getting deleted by themselves. Here is another weird issue I had when I had my CPU overclocked. After installing the PMDG 737 base and expansion pack for FSX, I activated it during loading the aircraft but then everytime I loaded that aircraft in FSX it kept asking me for the activation key even though it's been successfully activated. Reinstalling the PMDG 737 base and expansion pack fixed the issue. Now I wonder if something got corrupted or silent errors occurring during installing of the PMDG 737 because of the overclock. I mean there was not BSOD or system crashing during the install but I never had this weird thing happen with the PMDG 737 activation at stock settings. Should I blame overclocking before I blame a software issue even though I reinstalling fixed the issue? Is it best to set my system to stock settings when installing software if I want to overclock?

 

[LTC8K6]

Some hard drive errors, corruption?

Have you checked the drive for errors?

I typically remove or back down any overclocks before installing software or doing things where I don't want any problems.

 

[Dave3000]

Some hard drive errors, corruption?

Have you checked the drive for errors?

I typically remove or back down any overclocks before installing software or doing things where I don't want any problems.

You might as well run at stock settings then. What about Windows auto updates in the background unless you disable auto download and install of updates. Can't a Windows update downloading in the background get corrupted without the user knowing if his overclock is unstable? I would find it a hassle to go back to stock settings if I was overclocking each time I wanted to install software and I think you can get more done faster at stock settings all the time than keep switching to overclock settings and stock settings. For example restarting the system and going into the BIOS and selecting the overclock profile after installing a game, restart the system, that's about at least 1 minute spent there because the person wanted 10 seconds shorter load times which is not much if it took 1 minute to load the level in a game at stock settings.

 

[LTC8K6]

I typically did not allow auto updates, just notification.

I almost never did anything major with the system at a high overclock.

You don't even know if new software like a game is stable at stock speeds until you run it.

To me, it was not worth the risk to install a new game with the system at max overclock.

But I don't have a problem with others taking the risk with their own systems.

It's just the way I did things.

 

[Dave3000]

Some hard drive errors, corruption?

Have you checked the drive for errors?

I typically remove or back down any overclocks before installing software or doing things where I don't want any problems.

Well I just ran sfc /scannow and at the end of the scan it said that there were corrupted files and some of them cannot be fixed and to check CBS.log. Maybe that could explain the weirdness going on while I was running at 4 GHz despite stress testing with OCCT and Intel Burn Test for hours-on-end without crashing or error messages and with core temps not exceeding 70C. I also had trouble printing from a website that uses Java and my printer is stuck in offline mode. I have not been getting errors messages or crashing at these OC settings, maybe it was files getting corrupted behind the scenes due to OC not stable? I thought disabling CPU power saving settings fixed my issue of stability issues because stress testing did not show any issues but only at periods of low CPU load like loading CPU-Z it BSOD on me. Thing is I could stress test for many hours with OCCT and Intel Burn Test at 4.2 GHz at 1.17v vcore without crashing or error messages during testing but I end up with corrupted files and software acting unusual at 4 GHz at Auto vcore (1.195v) and C-states disabled. I'm right now running at stock settings. Time to reinstall Windows 8.1 and my software.

 

[Racan]

Well I just ran sfc /scannow and at the end of the scan it said that there were corrupted files and some of them cannot be fixed and to check CBS.log.

Check if you have update KB3022345 installed:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/29...le-corruption-which-sfc-is-unable-to-fix.html

 

[Dave3000]

Too late, I reinstalled Windows 8.1. I also had another issue with a game with my CPU at stock clocks. The games was City Skylines. When I exited the game I got a message that said the City Skylines has stopped working. Maybe all that overclocking damaged my CPU that now it has stability issues at stock speeds as well? Maybe it's caused my the mods I added to the game?

 

[Dave3000]

This morning I reinstalled Windows 8.1 and I just finished installing every Windows 8.1 update and performed a sfc /scannow. Corrupt files were found and some of them could not be fixed once again. This time I didn't overclock and I still got corrupt files. Maybe a Windows 8.1 bug? My SSD checks out fine with Chkdskinfo.

 

[LTC8K6]

I think you need to do the SFC deal as an administrator a few times a row?

Most help sites are saying 3.

Have you been running it from an admin command prompt?

 

[LTC8K6]

Also found this command to try before running SFC:

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/26512-dism-fixing-component-store-corruption-windows-8-a.html

Maybe need to do a full erase of the SSD?

 

[Dave3000]

Well Racan had the right advice for me. It was the KB3022345 update that caused the issue with corrupt files. I uninstalled this update and reran sfc /scannow and this time it found no corrupt files. I just set Windows to check for updates but not automatically download and install them. Maybe I should just keep my CPU at stock settings anyways even if it might not have been the overclock I previously did that caused these issues.