The process of overclocking led to reduced frame rates.
The process of overclocking led to reduced frame rates.
I had been pushing the limits by overclocking and running stress tests on my roommate's machine yesterday, while he was away at work. He had an i5-4590 processor paired with a Hyper Cooler Master 212 EVO. A few nights back we had managed to boost it from 3.3 to 3.5 MHz without any issues. I ran Prime95 for stress testing and used CPUIDMonitor to monitor temperatures. He even played games like Skyrim and Borderlands 2 and reported everything was fine.
Last night, while he was occupied at work, I increased the MHz by 100, adjusted the CPU Core Voltage by .025 (starting at 1.100 for 3.3MHz and reaching 1.150 at 3.5MHz), and continued stress testing for several hours. Everything remained stable; I stopped the test, confirmed no errors or warnings, checked temperatures, restarted, and repeated the cycle. Eventually, I reached 3.7MHz with a 1.200 MHz setting and extended the stress test for about four hours to verify long-term stability under heavy load. CPUIDMonitor indicated the highest temperature reached was 80°C, fluctuating between 65-70°C. When the machine was running normally, temperatures stayed between 35-40°C.
I felt confident until I tried playing a game. Even when launching Skyrim and Borderlands 2, the frame rates were extremely poor—lagging significantly. I attempted to save an overclock profile in the BIOS, set it to 3.5MHz, restarted, and then played the game again; the performance remained terrible. Concerned, I reset the BIOS by removing the CMOS battery for 15 minutes, tried to boot it up again, but the issue persisted. He even attempted a full BIOS reset, but nothing improved.
I was increasingly worried. I tried resetting the system by disconnecting the CMOS battery and waiting 15 minutes, then rebooting. The frames were still subpar. It seemed the problem was more serious than I thought. Please let me know if this helps or adds clarity. Thank you for your time and assistance.
Did you really push it to 3.5ghz? It would have been better to leave it as stock, since you didn’t actually overclock it—just forced it to run at 3.3 instead of 3.5. BLCK overclocks on non-K processors aren’t usually worth it; I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t reach 3.7 even with turbo boost enabled. It’s possible something went wrong, but I think it would be better to return it to stock and let it run normally.
You "overcloked" a 4590 to 3.5ghz? It turbo boosts to 3.7 on its own, so you would have been better off leaving it stock. You didn't really overclock it; you just forced it to run at a 3.5ghz base clock instead of 3.3. BLCK overclocks on non-k processors are often not worth it at all—I doubt you'd reach 3.7ghz it can achieve when turbo boost activates. I'm not sure why it's slow now, but something might have gone wrong. I think you should just put it back to stock and let it run normally.
Additionally, when I play Skyrim or Borderlands, nearly all the CPU resources are consumed and it continues to lag.
GoldJomell :
Dunlop0078 :
You pushed the clock too high on a 4590 to 3.5ghz? It would have been better to leave it stock, you didn't really push it overclocking—it just made it run at 3.5ghz instead of 3.3. BLCK overclocks on non-k processors are usually not worth it, and I doubt you'd reach 3.7ghz naturally when turbo kicks in. It's possible something went wrong; I'd just reset it to stock and let it run normally. It's currently back at stock but still lagging. Is there a way to fix this?
Is there a BIOS option to restore the original settings? Try using it if you haven't done so already. Your CPU is at full capacity in Skyrim? That's unusual—Skyrim only uses two cores effectively, leaving the other two idle, so it can't be the game causing such high usage. What is the actual CPU usage when it's idle?
Extremely low usage. Certainly not zero, but it consumes minimal CPU power. I can share screenshots if helpful. Could you confirm if the MOBO was shorted? The CPU becomes unstable under load. Also, I removed the CMOS battery and reset the MOBO, which brings it back to default settings.
I'm not entirely confident about the cause, but I think it might not have damaged the hardware. If it did, it would likely stop working completely or cause more than just bad game performance—probably a software issue. Do you have CPU-Z? If not, you can download it from the link below. Try running Skyrim and capture a screenshot of CPU-Z during the game to observe what it displays when the problem appears. Taking a side-by-side screenshot of HWMonitor and CPU-Z while the issue happens would be very useful.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
Did you unplug the computer after removing the battery? If so, did it stay out for a short time? I think the capacitors might still hold some power and preserve the CMOS for a brief period even without the battery. You should reset the CMOS by using the jumper on your motherboard to clear the pins that store it. Check your motherboard manual for the correct procedure.
GoldJomell will complete everything upon returning from the Chemistry final today, aiming around 5 or 6 PM PST. Appreciate your assistance once more! No issue at all.