Z590 issues with i9-11900K often involve repeated freezes or blue screens, possibly due to a known Intel bug.
Z590 issues with i9-11900K often involve repeated freezes or blue screens, possibly due to a known Intel bug.
@iransofaraway Which Windows power settings are you applying? To help resolve this issue, switch to the High performance plan and turn off all C states in the BIOS. Test it for a few days and observe any difficulties. Light workload crashes often stem from the CPU reducing its voltage too much when transitioning between C states. Most applications don’t keep all cores running, so these failures can occur anytime but are more frequent under light load. After adjusting the BIOS settings, use ThrottleStop to verify which C states are active or inactive during idle periods. https://www.techpowerup.com/download/tec...ottlestop/ If this resolves the matter and you wish to lower power usage, enable the C states gradually and conduct further checks. In the BIOS, start with C3, then C3 and C6, followed by C3, C6, and C7. On older processors, package C states were the main culprits; leave those off. Freezes are common on Z590 and 11th Gen chips. It’s unclear exactly what’s causing the problem yet. I hope you can identify if it’s related to C states. Another issue with 11th Gen is the CPU occasionally displaying a 0°C reading. Does HWiNFO display the lowest temperature for any core? These two concerns seem connected.
Running on two original RAM sticks in the correct slots. Keeping power plan balanced. XMP, ReBAR, and Intel Adaptive Boost are enabled. Will check if it freezes again. Hope I can repair it. If it freezes once more, I’ll try turning off ABT first—maybe my cooler is enough—but not sure. If that doesn’t help, switching to Power Plan High Perf might work. Sounds like a reasonable approach?
I disabled ABT and noticed it can cause crashes when running the multi-core Cinemark test. It typically takes around 45 seconds before freezing and displaying a blue screen. Unlike previous instances where I experienced a blue screen, this one only results in a complete freeze without any movement. It seems the cooling system isn’t handling it well. Now I’m using XMP and ReBAR instead.
You can use an Intel CPU at maximum performance while consuming great energy only when it's not busy. The Balanced plan works well for laptops that run on batteries. For other scenarios, it offers little benefit. Consider running 10 cores at full speed (5000 MHz) and see what your CPU usage reports as idle.
@unclewebb I'm not totally familiar with this program, but how should I best monitor that? It looks like C0% on left is showing 1.5 - and then on right I do not see C3 or C6 at all, only C7. I appreciate your help! I was waiting to try changing power plan to only tweak one variable at a time. The processor should be able to run on balanced without freezing. I think if I keep having issues then disabling C-states/running high perf is a nice workaround, but unacceptable for a pricey new processor (and hopefully Intel can fix it?). I'll switch to High Perf for now.
When the CPU is busy, it operates in state C0. If it’s idle and higher power modes are active, it switches to a more energy-efficient state. Using core C7 is preferable over C3 or C6 when available. If no tasks are present, the CPU should aim for the highest possible state to conserve power. Your system is functioning properly. Consider enabling the Windows High Performance plan. I shared an image confirming it’s fine to run an Intel CPU at full speed under these conditions. Enabling C states doesn’t significantly affect performance when idle. Keep the CPU running steadily at a steady speed and check for issues. If problems persist, we can investigate further. It might help to adjust BIOS voltage settings—default is 100°C, but higher values aren’t ideal long-term. Try increasing SA and IO voltages; monitoring with HWiNFO may reveal improvements.
Thanks for the clarification on C-states! I've moved to the high perf plan now. It's a bit puzzling: "I would suggest entering the BIOS and avoiding setting the max temperature to 115°C." — that means not changing it? It should stay at the BIOS default. I'm using only the standard BIOS settings except for ReBAR with XMP profile 1, all fans at full speed, Secure Boot enabled. Regarding SA and IO voltages, I'm observing an average of 0.825 V for SA and 1.056 V for IO.
The BIOS should not be configuring the thermal throttling temperature to 115°C. Intel recommends 100°C as the standard. Check your BIOS settings to confirm this value and adjust accordingly. ThrottleStop should display the correct temperature, not PROCHOT 115°C. It seems your System Agent voltage might be too low. The default IO voltage is 1.05 V. On my Z490 board, I added extra voltage for RAM and increased VCCIO and VCCSA, which improved stability. Normally, a frozen screen occurs at default settings, but adding more voltage resolved the issue. You may want to compare your IO and SA voltages with others on overclock.net. Some users run higher SA voltages successfully—see if they post screenshots.