The case of the Lock-16X - What The F?

[Massman]

Alright, seeing more and more people report having boards stuck at 16x CPU ratio. I, myself, have had two boards with this issue:

 

- Z77A-GD65: still stuck at x16

- Z77X-UD3H: after night of drying out back to functioning normally

 

I've heard reports of people having this issue with the Gene V too, so it doesn't seem to be a specific brand issue.

 

What happens?

 

 

Well, essentially, your board gets stuck in 16x CPU ratio and will not allow any other multipliers to be set. With the GD65 I'm stuck at 16x whenever I'm increasing the CPU Vcore, but the board works perfectly normal without overclocking. With the UD3H I got totally stuck at 16x, but after a night of drying out, the board went back to normal life and is doing all multipliers again.

 

In both my cases, the lock appeared following a hard crash at 6.7G+ PI-32M. With the UD3H, I could actually notice the CPU going to 16x during the PI loops as up until loop3 all times were normal, but loop4 was incredibly much slower.

 

So, why does it happen?

 

No idea.

 

Is there a fix?

 

Yes, there is a temporary fix for this problem

 

I've verified this issue with the help of Massman on MSI Z77A-GD65. Also found a temporary solution, apparently if opening ThrottleStop 4.0 in Windows makes the multiplier jump back up. Can someone please verify this on their board?

 

Just confirmed the solution on my board here at home. Using:

 

- 3770K

- Z77A-GD65

- Bios V10.5b3

- ThrottleStop 5.00 b1 (http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Benchmarks/ThrottleStop.shtml)

 

Board boots in at 16x, enabling ThrottleStop makes it jump up to 45x (as set in BIOS).

[carpo93]

i have a GA-Z77X-UD3H stuck at 16x after a crash, but not with so high frequencies like you, at 5,8ghz 3dmark 06 cpu test, tried f10, f9 and f8 bioses but no solution

[Massman]

With the MSI I tried reflashing all BIOSes as well as the Intel ME firmware and it never recovered from 16x.

 

Thanks for the input Carpo5. So we got 5 x16 boards already ... seems like a systematic error to me!

[sin0822]

i have actually not had this happen at all. Perhaps it has to do with insulation. Maybe the CPU and some of its SMD components get shorted??

 

I have benched for long hours and with a lot of boards, and none of them went to 16x. But I also haven'ted used retail.

Prob Intel's fault.

 

Pretty crazy stuff. So the MSi board never went back to normal? I am interested to know how many people this has happened too.

[Splave]

I use eraser and got x16 on gd65 after 2 hours

[Massman]

Ever got it back to normal, Splave?

[Masterchief79]

You should actually suppose that Intel learned their lesson from the last chipset disaster Or it could just be a general CPU issue. I mean, everybody was crying already at 32nm Sandy and 1,7V. Now we are at 22nm and 1,9V+. On the other hand, it really seems to be the boards fault... Concerning the fact that some boards still run fine @stock, also could be a software problem eh?

Edited May 25, 2012 by Masterchief79

[Hondacity]

i had the problem on a 2500k. z77a-gd65

 

max cpu freq was 5.9xx

 

stuck @ 57x

 

2600k was used...a 5.8ghz chip

 

stuck @57x

 

flashed it with older bios and viola back to normal working order.

 

still bad efficiency though...

[Splave]

Ever got it back to normal, Splave?

 

I killed it flashing bios on ln2

[carpo93]

tried with 2500k but still 16x

[Gamer]

No troubles here with Maxiumus V and P8Z77-V.

Benched for about 5 hours with both cards full pot.

Sometimes hard locks on both boards, but could reboot.

 

Sometimes I do get 00 after a few hours, but I guess it's condensation at that time.

Edited May 25, 2012 by Gamer

[ME4ME]

I haven't had any 16x issues, but my Z77A-GD65 got stuck at 39x for a while today.

 

Cause of the problem .. benching with 1-core and then crashing to full shutdown.

Easy fix is to bench with 2 cores, and set windows to only use 1 core. Obviously only if the first core is better then the others..

[DrWeez]

Z77A-GD65 was working perfectly reset bios to stock before the end of the session now it is stuck at MAX 39x

Tried to flash 10.3 and 10.5, removed OC profiles, reset with jumper, bios a bios b, new chip old chip same story.

OCGene max is now 37x. was 42x

 

eish!

[Hondacity]

moa will be fun lol

[sember]

Now this only makes me think, why i have only one GD65 board for LN2 tests...

Only weekend when i can bench for MOA, il stay away from using only 1 core!!

[Massman]

Z77A-GD65 was working perfectly reset bios to stock before the end of the session now it is stuck at MAX 39x

Tried to flash 10.3 and 10.5, removed OC profiles, reset with jumper, bios a bios b, new chip old chip same story.

OCGene max is now 37x. was 42x

 

eish!

 

Tried using 2 cores again?

 

With the Giga boards I'm always booting up at 39x when using 1 core (after crash). Just using software to go up in OS works fine.

[DrWeez]

Tried using 2 cores again?

 

With the Giga boards I'm always booting up at 39x when using 1 core (after crash). Just using software to go up in OS works fine.

 

yeah, 1core, 2 cores, 4 cores, HT on HT off. Its not an issue anymore the board no longer works. It just gives a d3 (or 3d cant remember exactly) post code now.

 

Oh yeah one other thing to note. The Blue LED next to the bios was on for both bios A and bios B

[Hiwa]

m5g stuck at 16 yesterday now at 35 + turbo if enable maybe tmr will be ok ? lol

[MaJ0r]

I had some trouble with multiplier with Asus Maximus V Gene, but I've never seen x16 value ))

[Christian Ney]

On one of our P8Z77 sample here too, bo way to overclock our cpu, both SB and IB, cpu stays at stock freq no matter what multiplier you set in the BIOS.

[sember]

Not z77 board but we had X79 GD65 wich is now stuck max 45x multi. All lower works but not any higher -.-

 

And mine Z77 GD65 is stuck at post code 55. First it worked well and bootet to windows, ran some superpi with safe clocks and crashed. Newer boot again. Il check it tomorrow again if it suddenly works. Tested every other parts and they work. It just wont give enough volts to memory (only 0.4v measured). Tryed both bioses too (newest beta and stock)

 

so no scores for this weekend just as i feared with one board

[riska]

Alot have the 55 postcode bug my teammember ZZolio have 2 of those 55 postcode mobos

 

We have tryed anything but it wont come to life maybe we have to find the chip that deliver the voltage for the mem and mod it to higher vmem?

[Splave]

I believe 55 = memory settings are not happy

[MaJ0r]

I believe 55 = memory settings are not happy

 

I saw postcode 55 when I broke lga1155 pin in ASUS M5G

that was bclk_0 pin

[sember]

Il check my cpu pins again, already did it once and didnt see anything special.

 

Splave: I had really loose timing and only 2000-2100 speed -.- I suppose that 0.4volts only for memory is the only reason why i have that 55 code.

 

Edit: No pins bend or nothing. still same 55 code bootloop. Would be nice to know what causes this effect, impossible to bench moa IF next stime board does same thing

Other strange thing is that board itself flashed 'backup' bios when i tried to put my air cooled memory settings few times. Just booted few time and then suddenly "Flashing backup bios 0%" etc..

Wouldnt just "overclocking failed" message be enough

Edited May 28, 2012 by sember