Am I suffering from an unstable overclock?

[MarkW]

So I overclocked my 8700K to 4.8 at 1.28 volts...which I later started to decrease down to 1.27 and then 1.26.  Ram overclocked using XMP to 3000 (not really overclocked as this is what the ram is rated for).  1080Ti unchanged.  Board is a Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 5.

Ever since I have all kinds of weird things happening in P3D v4.1.  Blurry ground textures, aircraft menus don't always work, FSUIPC and GSX control panels will not open, etc, etc.  Sometimes everything works perfectly ,other times not.  I have since lowered by overclock to 4.7 and increased the voltage to 1.29.

I strongly suspect that my overclock is unstable.  So what are the suggestions from the experts here?

[Bert Pieke]

Do you have the option of testing your system without any overclock at all?

If so, that should be your baseline.

With the components that you have, an overclock should not really be necessary IMHO, and only attempted if everything is rock solid without it..

[jabloomf1230]

Overclocks should always be done in small increments and tested with a CPU stress test utility. I use AIDA64 but Intel provides a nice freeware utility.

[lodestar]

i would recommend realbench only for the stress test on this new generation of CPU's https://rog.asus.com/tag/realbench/  Just my opinion. And manual overclock, not using mobo utilities for automatic OC.

The idea is, increase your clock until you get BSOD, then increase your voltage until is stable. Or set the clock you want to achieve and then increase your Vcore until it's stable(no BSOD). Check some OC websites to see the charts with clocks vs voltages. After you find voltage needed for stability, add a couple of notches - i did this a long time ago and i didn't touched it since then, but if i remember well, on my MB(in BIOS)you can increase Vcore by 0.005 = 1 notch  I'm always using XMP profile for RAM BTW, and i highly recommend it.

I strongly believe blurry ground textures, aircraft menus etc has nothing to do with your overclock, i would look at P3D installation, addons, OS optimization, security settings / antivirus, c++ redistributable etc

[MarkW]

6 minutes ago, lodestar said:

i would recommend realbench only for the stress test on this new generation of CPU's https://rog.asus.com/tag/realbench/  Just my opinion. And manual overclock, not using mobo utilities for automatic OC.

The idea is, increase your clock until you get BSOD, then increase your voltage until is stable. Or set the clock you want to achieve and then increase your Vcore until it's stable(no BSOD). Check some OC websites to see the charts with clocks vs voltages. After you find voltage needed for stability, add a couple of notches - i did this a long time ago and i didn't touched it since then, but if i remember well, on my MB(in BIOS)you can increase Vcore by 0.005 = 1 notch  I'm always using XMP profile for RAM BTW, and i highly recommend it.

I strongly believe blurry ground textures, aircraft menus etc has nothing to do with your overclock, i would look at P3D installation, addons, OS optimization, security settings / antivirus, c++ redistributable etc

Thanks.  I was running a default chip settings for a month with no issues at all.  Once I started to overclock things got wonky.  I will try as you suggested.

[Maarten Otto]

Had the same issue years ago with a little unstable OC. Indeed just one notch up might do the trick.

[martin-w]

19 hours ago, MarkW said:

So I overclocked my 8700K to 4.8 at 1.28 volts...which I later started to decrease down to 1.27 and then 1.26.  Ram overclocked using XMP to 3000 (not really overclocked as this is what the ram is rated for).  1080Ti unchanged.  Board is a Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 5.

Ever since I have all kinds of weird things happening in P3D v4.1.  Blurry ground textures, aircraft menus don't always work, FSUIPC and GSX control panels will not open, etc, etc.  Sometimes everything works perfectly ,other times not.  I have since lowered by overclock to 4.7 and increased the voltage to 1.29.

I strongly suspect that my overclock is unstable.  So what are the suggestions from the experts here?

 

Well it's easy to find out... Save your OC profile in the bios.

Then reset to optimised defaults. You can then test P3D and find out.

If it is the OC, then nudge the voltage back up. Test in RealBench for a couple of hours. Once stable, run RealBench for about 4 hours. Nothing else is usually required. 

 

Quote

Ram overclocked using XMP to 3000 (not really overclocked as this is what the ram is rated for)

 

No, XMP is an overclock. It's just that the manufacturer of the RAM has determined that your modules will indeed handle that degree of overclock. 

If your issue occurred after you lowered the voltage then it's logical to assume that this may be related. It's up to you, either test at optimised defaults or try the voltage back where it was. 

 

[PaulGR]

4.8 @ 1.28 would be pretty amazing. 5GHz average is 1.35 (that's what I'm running in the end).
I would go up not down. What's your cache?
Did you test your overclock running stock memory settings (not XMP)?

As for overclocking the way I do it I install fresh. Do all the tweaks and tests to figure out my end settings then I wipe everything and install clean.
Only way to make sure nothing gets corrupted during BSOD / Freezes when testing overclock.

And remember, as long as your temps are fine you can go 1.4 if you want. 
There's a reason why intel sells Overclocking Warranty. People with 7700 are reporting year long 24/7 machines running 1.45 without degradation.

[martin-w]

1 hour ago, PaulGR said:

4.8 @ 1.28 would be pretty amazing. 5GHz average is 1.35 (that's what I'm running in the end).
I would go up not down. What's your cache?
Did you test your overclock running stock memory settings (not XMP)?

As for overclocking the way I do it I install fresh. Do all the tweaks and tests to figure out my end settings then I wipe everything and install clean.
Only way to make sure nothing gets corrupted during BSOD / Freezes when testing overclock.

And remember, as long as your temps are fine you can go 1.4 if you want. 
There's a reason why intel sells Overclocking Warranty. People with 7700 are reporting year long 24/7 machines running 1.45 without degradation.

 

I remember quite a few years ago windows getting corrupted as a result of my overclocking endeavours. But these days, with modern boards designed for overclocking, they restart quite cleanly, so I would say going to the trouble of a reinstall of the OS isn't necessary at all. 

Yes, I agree, 1.45 seems to be a voltage that's pretty safe for long term use. In fact the Intel spec goes right up to 1.5. Of course, with anything but extreme cooling you'd be nuts to risk 1.5. Especially given the die/IHS thermal issue to consider.

[PaulGR]

38 minutes ago, martin-w said:

 

I remember quite a few years ago windows getting corrupted as a result of my overclocking endeavours. But these days, with modern boards designed for overclocking, they restart quite cleanly, so I would say going to the trouble of a reinstall of the OS isn't necessary at all. 

Yes, I agree, 1.45 seems to be a voltage that's pretty safe for long term use. In fact the Intel spec goes right up to 1.5. Of course, with anything but extreme cooling you'd be nuts to risk 1.5. Especially given the die/IHS thermal issue to consider.

Windows still abruptly ends operation and if that happens several times I'm certain something gets messed up. Might be small in the beginning but then grow into a larger thing. Happened to me before I believe so I learned my lesson so to speak.
I did turn HT off though as temps with HT were hitting a bit too high for my taste but since I got the intel OC warranty I'm going to push it higher at some point and if it fails just get a replacement.

[lodestar]

2 hours ago, PaulGR said:

4.8 @ 1.28 would be pretty amazing. 5GHz average is 1.35 (that's what I'm running in the end).
I would go up not down. What's your cache?
Did you test your overclock running stock memory settings (not XMP)?

As for overclocking the way I do it I install fresh. Do all the tweaks and tests to figure out my end settings then I wipe everything and install clean.
Only way to make sure nothing gets corrupted during BSOD / Freezes when testing overclock.

And remember, as long as your temps are fine you can go 1.4 if you want. 
There's a reason why intel sells Overclocking Warranty. People with 7700 are reporting year long 24/7 machines running 1.45 without degradation.

I don't know about new CPU's, i'm still waiting to upgrade my PC. So, i don't have a idea about 7700K voltages, but my 2700K is running at 4.8Ghz and 1.4 Vcore for 6 year now  No problems BTW, and P3DV4 runs great

[MarkW]

I have started to bump up the voltage and last flight was fine.  Will keep testing per the suggestions here.