The original post: /r/overclocking by /u/IgotoschoolBytrain on 2025-06-09 08:01:38.
This is my PC:
CPU: i7-14700K
Cooler: Valkyrie A360W RGB AIO water cooler
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-A MAX WiFi
RAM: 32GB DDR5 5600 with XMP
GPU: RTX 2060 6GB
OS: Windows 11
What happened?
Everything looked normal until I encountered occasional screen blackouts on both dedicated GPU and the onboard GPU. So I did everything, updating drivers, booting into Linux, changing monitors, and I found out the graphics card was not really the problem. And I started to realize the CPU was running hot too. The same OC settings have been running for over one year without problem for me. Updating the BIOS to the latest M80 version doesn’t help either. I also reapplied thermal paste but it did not help.
My BIOS settings:
Version: M80 (7E07vM8)
ME Firmware ver: ME_16.1.35.2557
OC Profile: Intel default profile
Lite Load Mode: Mode 9 (ACLL: 40, DCLL: 110)
Load Line Calibration: Auto
CPU Voltage Mode: Adaptive Offset
Core multiples: all using Intel defaults
This settings has been stable running for over one year already, now suddenly not working
Two major problems now:
Problem 1: Idle temperature is abnormally hot
On idle, CPU package temperature is around 85c to 90c already. If I run the Intel XTU benchmark and fully load it, it will instantly shoot up to 100c within 1 sec. The heat is real, I touch the AIO water out tube, it is significantly warmer than the other one.
Also, the individual core is reporting 60c to 70c on idle, still too hot, but way lower than the package temperature of 90c, also doesn’t make any sense. Please see figure1.
So the whole CPU now becomes quite hot even when 1 or 2 cores has some tiny loading on it. Is it the CPU or motherboard having some short circuit internally that can cause this?
Problem 2: Vcore is jumping around when on idle
Also something strange I noticed is the Vcore is jumping around. I tuned the ACLL before so the Vcore will follow the VID very closely. This jumping was not C-state power saving, I already switched to Ultimate Performance on Win11, so the CPU is always on higher clock speed, VID is stable on 1.38V, but Vcore jumps from 0.95V to 1.42V. When on full load, VID and Vcore are stable on 1.05V, temperature still very hot on 100c anyway. Please see figure2.
Experience told me this may not be related to OC settings entirely. Do you think this is due to a bad VRM on hardware level?