Knight_

I'm back. I followed your original list along with the suggestions on the VCCIO/SA voltages, ran Cinebench R15 and then ran OCCCT for 5 minutes for a quick stress test. Everything's fine so far. Cinebench just brushed 90C at its highest but was mostly in the 80's. It also didn't instantly shoot up to 100C like it did originally back when I made this post. I'm fine with that, it's something I'd expect and I believe is about normal. Overall score wasn't amazing at 1935 but I guess that's because I'm not hitting 5Ghz yet. OCCCT was absolutely fine. It was 68-73C and stable around there. It didn't increase. The clock speed was hitting 4500Mhz but I'm assuming that's because it's using AVX instructions? I set the negative AVX offset to 2, so that would make complete sense. CPU Voltage dropped to about 1.6V / 1.5V here too. Again, I'm assuming completely normal. Now I feel more comfortable, I'm probably going to begin playing around with it to get higher clocks. I think my issue with temperatures is largely solved and, where it could be better, I think my new thermal paste will improve it. Just one more question: CPU-Z reports 1.181V vcore. This being 0.02V lower than the value I set is called "vdroop", right? Slight follow-up; If it's having no issue hitting 4700Mhz at this voltage, the silicon lottery is looking to be in my favour, right? Haha. I know I've said it loads, but thanks again. When you start off knowing absolutely nothing about overclocking and your £400 purchase starts burning in front of you, it's really frustrating and upsetting. I'm glad to have it working and to now have the knowledge on how to deal with something like this in the future. Not sure if this forum has it but I'd say the post can be labelled "solved" now.

1) I've gotta say, I've heard good things about the predictions and namely the cooler ratings. It's an arbitrary rating system but at least consistent. It actually does use data from your temps, load and power consumption. I think the general rule is if your CPU is under high load, has a lot of power flowing through it and it's relatively stable but low temperature wise, you get a good 'score'. You can train it and manually set how optimistic it is about its predictions, etc. I don't think it's completely right but I think it's good to keep in mind. 2) I thought the VCCIO would be too high. I'm wary of dropping it straight down to 1.175V, but I'll try 1.2V now. It seems like most people have it between 1.15V - 1.35V (the latter for 4200Mhz+) so I don't want to accidentally undervolt it if my RAM happens to be on the more demanding side (despite its specifications). Could you be more specific about the warning signs? I wouldn't want no input or a black screen before I can enter the BIOS, that sounds irrecoverable. 3) Understood. For now, I think I'm going to leave them all at 4.7GHz using "Sync All Cores" and just have those conditions dictate when that speed is reached or not. Seems the safest and most stable whilst I'm still getting the grips. 4) SpeedStep and C-States are on "Auto" by default. SpeedShift isn't an option so I'm assuming it's just always on. I'll leave them as they are. 5) Yeah, people say it's a good place to start. Not always perfect, but it does a pretty good job. I watched a few videos on it and it's said to use the SVID table built into the processor and then mixes that with your cooler rating. You can artificially change its predictions if you manually set your cooler rating if you are anticipating an upgrade or think its values are wrong. I'll make a system restore now, change the AVX offset, reduce the VCCIO / VCCSA voltage to 1.2V and set all cores to a synchronised "47" and let you know how it goes. Thanks again.

Massively appreciate it, mate. Just a few questions; Biggest one first; I've noticed that my H100i is getting 125 points in the BIOS. That's well below what others are getting and is on-par with a 120mm radiator or air cooler. I also do plan on using RPCS3 which really likes AVX and, given my poor cooling score, wouldn't it be better to have the AVX offset as 1-2? I imagine that once I've applied this new thermal paste that the score will go up but 125pts is pretty concerning right now. Also, I noticed yesterday that my CPU System Agent voltage was around 1.4V. I've heard that's insane and causes a lot of heat and anything above 1.3V is unnecessary. According to OCCCT, my VCCIO is 1.4V too... Given my RAM, I really don't think I should have 1.4V on either, right? DRAM voltage is obviously at 1.35. For CPU core ratio: I wanna hit 5Ghz at some point for sure. The BIOS reckons 1.33v for 5Ghz but CPU-Z right now is reporting 4800Mhz / 48x100 at 1.19v. It is fluctuating massively though, sometimes dropping to 3600Mhz every few seconds. I've heard this could be due to C-States and SpeedStep and can easily be made more consistent. Also, wouldn't I be better off on "Sync all Cores" and just setting them as 48-50? As you can see, I've done some research of my own looking into overclocking guides for my exact motherboard, CPU and sometimes even the same AIO. I think I'm going to be more conservative for now just so I can get a good look at my temps and stability. Like I mentioned, I'm probably going to use an AVX offset of 1, Min/Max cache ratio of 43 and an LLC of 6 whilst below 5Ghz. I'm definitely not going to touch anything until you've gotten back to me though. Research is good an' all but some circumstance specific advice and information is safer. Cheers again.

Ah, I get you. That sounds awful. Thanks for everything by the way. Although not completely fixing my issues, just that simple voltage change has given me a lot of relief. In terms of a more complete solution, I'd really appreciate it if you could also write up that BIOS settings list. I've a feeling that a few more edits and I'll be good to go with temperatures hopefully perfect. No worries if not, I'd fully understand. On another note, you mention the fans and the coolant from before. Could I not plug the radiator fans into the CPU_FAN and CPU_OPT headers to have them speed up when the CPU gets hot rather than the coolant? Perhaps there's another underlying issue but it did really feel like they were incredibly delayed when running Cinebench.

As far as I'm aware, I've not run any overclocking or tuning program through AI Suite. The closest thing I'm even aware of is the "AI Overclock Tuner" and "CPU Core Ratio". The latter I've not changed from default and the former I've changed from auto to manual at one point as I meant to say in the OP where I mention "disabling AI overclocking". Is this what you mean? I have already changed the voltage and, fortunately, haven't run into any problems or boot loops.

I'll give this a shot right now. I appreciate your speedy replies, it provides some relief after having been so clueless and frustrated for the past few days. I'll edit this comment and let you know how it goes. EDIT: Disregard last edit if you saw it. I've set the voltage at 1.20 and, like you said, it's sat at 4700ish Mhz. Temps still occasionally shoot up to like 50/60C when first starting Windows. Cinebench still reaches 90-95C but at least it's not hitting 100C now. One thing I've noticed is the H100i fans getting loud *after* the test is done. It's almost like it's reacting to the temperatures but like 10-20 seconds after they've been reached. I feel like some more tweaking is needed in the BIOS but I feel at least more comfortable letting it just run naturally now.

My CPU is idling at around 41-45 right now with just Chrome open. It's a hot day here in the UK but it's not 35-40C in my room, that's for sure. So perhaps the idle temps aren't as good as I expected then. Also, thanks, I think I understand the energy and vcore fluctuations now. As for the vcore during games and Cinebench or RPCS3 (the latter isn't synthetic btw): I'm getting 1.3V - 1.41V having just booted up the Sims 4 and going in-game. I'm almost worried to check Cinebench again given that it maintains 95-100C for about 3-5 seconds. Not something I'm super comfortable with right now. Nonetheless, seeing it hit 1.4V in games is pretty worrying and I believe gives us enough of an idea, right? That's well out of the ordinary, I'm assuming. Could you give me a rundown on what 'tweaks' I'll need to do to get this under control? I've heard of people running 9900K's at 5Ghz on all cores at lower voltages than me right now.

I've recently just upgraded my PC by grabbing an i9-9900K and the temps are a little worrying. At idle, it sits around 30-38C with some fluctuations into 40C seemingly at random. Not awful. Whilst gaming it's not terrible either with temps seeing 50-70C depending on the game and how CPU intensive it tends to be. However, when running Cinebench R15 or playing RPCS3 (both very demanding, I know), the temps hit Tjunction Max at 90-99C. That's not right for a stock 9900K despite how demanding that is. Here are my simple specs: i9-9900K @ 3.60Ghz (Stock) ROG Maximus Hero XI 16GB G.Skill Trident Z 3600Mhz CL16 Corsair H100i V2 MSI Gaming 6G GTX 980Ti Corsair 570X case EVGA Supernova 850P2 More details: The H100i is about 2-3 years old, worked fine with my previous CPU and is setup in a push/pull configuration at the front of the case. Two of the three front fans are pushing air into the radiator and two fans connected to the radiator are pulling the air through the case. The third fan at the front is just pushing air in. I then have 2 top-mounted fans exhausting air along with an external fan above the I/O shield doing the same. This isn't my PC but it has the same case and H100i layout. The 3 font fans are connected to CHA_FAN1 through FAN3. The 2 radiator fans are connected to the H100i pump directly and the 2 top-mounted fans are connected to CPU_FAN and CPU_OPT. The H100i pump itself is connected to AIO_PUMP. The external fan above the I/O shield is connected to H_AMP. I used a peasized amount of CoolerMaster E1 IC Essential thermal compound when placing the heatsink over the CPU. The CPU itself fluctuates between 0.9V to 1.3V when idle. It averages 1.2V @ 4500-4800Mhz 35-37C (reading it right now from CoreTemp 1.14). Cable management is very tidy. Some things I've tried: Setting all fans to 100% speed in the BIOS. No change Disabling XMP. No change to temps Disabling [AUTO] on ASUS' AI controlled overclocking / voltage control / clock control. Increase in temps to about 40C idle Disabled MCE in the ASUS bios. Temps increased by a small amount it seems Enabling Legacy USB Support and XHCI Support in the BIOS Ensuring the AIO_PUMP header is enabled and set to DC control / no Q-Control Reinstalled, downgraded, updated Corsair Link 4 as the H100i V2 doesn't show up, no drivers except for "Corsair Bus" exist in devman (This still didn't cause it to show up). Ran dism and hydros and siusb don't exist - I manually installed hydros and no change. I downloaded SIV from these forums and it couldn't recognise the H100i although it's clearly working I moved the 3-pin pump connector to "CPU_FAN" instead of "AIO_PUMP" and swapped the USB header the connector was plugged into [Not done yet] I've ordered some 12.5W/mK Kryonaut thermal compound and am going to reapply the paste tomorrow when it arrives Can anyone else offer any advice or suggestions? I find it really odd that it's so terrible under extreme load but not awful whilst just gaming or idle. It seems to fluctuate in temperate and voltage but, from what I've read, it seems normal. I initially thought this was a thermal paste issue but now it's seeming more like an issue with the pump and Corsair Link not recognising it / perhaps adjusting it depending on the temperature and load. It's been like this since when I built it on Saturday and I've researched it and tested with it non-stop since - I'm so incredibly frustrated at this point.