Yes, CPU overclocking can cause games to crash.
Yes, CPU overclocking can cause games to crash.
I performed an OC with PBO to 28 negative on my Ryzen 5900X. It worked well across multiple tests, no issues during idle or light tasks. However, when playing demanding games, I experience frequent crashes. Most crashes happen only at the desktop, while other apps stay stable. Occasionally, I get a BSOD with a hypervisor error, but not always. My HWMonitor data suggests some cores reach around 5020 MHz, which might be too high for the default TDP. Could this be related to the CPU overclock? I was under the impression that CPU overclocking could lead to OS crashes or PC restarts, but not app-specific issues.
Any adjustment to the CPU speed can lead to an unpredictable system. This instability means outcomes of processor tasks might be slightly off. Such issues can result in crashes, BSODs, or data loss. The impact varies based on the type of calculation and its importance (how crucial accurate results are). While it shouldn't crash the operating system, it could affect individual programs or games. Both software components can suffer negative effects if their calculations aren't stable.
I'm still confused about what's happening. After reinstalling the graphics driver, the crashes stopped at least for a few hours now. It seems like there might have been an issue with the drivers. I usually update drivers using the Nvidia app without a clean install. I believe it shouldn't be a CPU OC problem since it passed all tests for a few hours. There was a crash in the single-core test at version 28, but it was stable at version 29.
There seems to be a root issue. The PC runs smoothly under light usage but crashes in games even with default clocks. I suspect it might be related to faulty RAM, possibly due to a corrupted DMP file showing memory errors—though I’m not sure if it’s VRAM or regular RAM. Also, I frequently encounter random access violation errors in Chrome compared to watching YouTube, which suggests a memory problem.