Z97M Anniversity OC limit?

Limits? There are no limits set on the board or in/by the BIOS !

If P95 kicks it out to a reboot or freezes with a BSOD, then the system/OC isn't stable.

So my problem isn't bsod or random restarts, its that the cpu frequency returns to stock after awhile under prime95 loads, then when I stop prime95, it returns to oc frequency again. To me it seems like some current limit or something kicks in.. The higher I have vcore and frequency, the faster this happens.  I have the long duration limit set to 1000, which is max.

Rest of my setup is:

-i5 4670k (loads around at 70c when oc'd, watercooled)
-Coolermaster v1000w, under a year old.
-16gb crucial sport vlp 1600mhz
-msi gtx 1060 6gb


Edited by TAMW - 13 Nov 2016 at 4:47am

TAMW wrote: I have a z97m anniversity and a i5 4670k on watercooling. The cpu oc's ok, but returns to stock after a while under prime95 etc do to some current limitation in the bios im guessing. I have turned off everything there is to turn off in the bios regarding limitations and power saving, but still this happens. What am I missing? Im running the latest bios p2.10. I have thermal glued heatsink on the VRMs, and they are nice and cool. Can you (asrock) or some handyman provide me a bios where the limits are totally disabled? I have voided the warranty anyway with gluing the sinks on, I just want som badass speeds on my 4670k ;)

OMGosh, seriously!?! On a 2 + 1 phase/component VRM design? I don't care how cool the heat sinks on the chips feel, you can still kill them with current draw. That the heat sinks are "nice and cool" tells me they are not working as well as you think they are.

I just ran a "wimpy" Intel IXTU stress test on my i5-6600K at 4.4GHz. The 12 phase VRM temperature was ~111° F, with three 140mm intake fans, two 140mm exhaust fans, and 120mm + 140mm fans on the CPU cooler. 111° F is warm to the touch, which I would not classify as "nice and cool", but that's just me.

Since you are asking how to potentially destroy your board, which you would eventually discover on your own I imagine (unless the UEFI protects it from destruction), I'll do that sooner than later. I have your documented request to kill your board preserved in this post.

But first my modified Disclaimer, borrowed from ASRock:


Have you configured these options in OC Tweaker to their maximum settings? Higher numbers are moar powah.

Long Duration Power Limit

Long Duration Maintained

Short Duration Power Limit

Primary Plane Current Limit

Of course you have disabled:

CPU Integrated VR Faults

CPU Integrated VR Efficiency Mode

Power Saving Mode

Another thing you can do is install Intel IXTU, where you might be able to modify all the Power Limits and Duration's beyond what is allowed in your UEFI. Sorry, the forums link tool chokes on URLs with a '?' in them, so highlight the link text below, left click on it and select an Open option:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24075/Intel-Extreme-Tuning-Utility-Intel-XTU-?product=66427

I'm not suggesting this as an over clocking tool (although it is actually very good, but not considered cool by some OC enthusiasts) but as a way to achieve what you want to do. It might also show you what is causing your OC to throttle to stock speeds.

The display on the Stress Test screen, on the lower right in blue, has many options not shown by default. Click on the blue wrench icon on the far right to reveal a list of everything that can be displayed and monitored. The parameters you should monitor include:

Thermal Throttling

Power Limit Throttling

Current Limit Throttling

Motheboard VR Thermal Throttling

If you see any of those displayed as Yes during stress testing, you've reached a limit.

How long is "after a while", when the CPU switches to stock clock speeds? Assuming your CPU temperature is below 100° C, then the following would explain the change in CPU speed.

If it is a short time, under one minute, that is a UEFI/system imposed power/current limit throttle.

If it takes longer than one minute, it is probably a VR (Voltage Regulator) over temperature power throttling.

Intel recently added a list of things that their newer processors will flag as Performance Limit Reasons. My Skylake processor has 31 different Performance Limit Reasons. I forget how many my Haswell processors have. Some are not applicable to an OC, but if you want to monitor those parameters, run the HWiNFO64 Sensor display.

The first and only time I ever had any CPU thermal throttle was my i5-4670K, on an ASRock Z87 Extreme6 board (12 Phase VRM.) Hit 100C running AIDA64 stress test with a Corsair AIO cooler in a minute or two. Haswell runs hot hot hot!!

There is Zero chance ASRock will provide a custom UEFI/BIOS to bypass any power limits that might be programmed into the UEFI. A 'Z' board should be wide open regarding power settings, but the ability of the board's VRMs to supply that power is a different situation, and certainly not a given for every board.

Hahahaha, Like I said DO NOT touch them. Back in the Athlon XP days I left some seared skin on some hot sinks.

Dang guy. 90c is 194degF !!!

And yes. A fan style CPU cooler distributes air over the surrounding parts. Using a water cooler doesx zero zip zilch to cool these parts. If you look in the manual for your cooler it most likely states when installing the water cooler to place a fan over these parts.

Unfortunately, I'm with parsec on this boards 2+1 VRMs having not much chance to net you the OC you're hoping for. There just isn't the room for a decent spread of VRMs to accomplish much OC'ing on a micro-ATX motherboard.




Edited by wardog - 13 Nov 2016 at 7:08pm

The OCD in me just blew a gasket