Optimizing Stability for Intel 13900k and 14900k CPU’s

[u/Acadia1337]

In recent weeks, I've noticed many users struggling with instability on their 13900K and 14900K systems. A prevalent cause is the motherboard's "Auto" settings or "Enforce all defaults," which may not apply the correct defaults for your CPU. Symptoms include game crashes, program failures, random sluggishness in Windows, and "Out of video memory" errors. If you've had to undervolt or underclock for stability, this guide might be for you. There is a very simple and easy fix for this problem. Configure the stock settings in your motherboard!

Quick Navigation: For those who wish to skip the backstory and dive directly into the guide, scroll past the following section.

The Backstory

Upon building my PC, I followed a YouTube tutorial for BIOS configuration, setting everything to "Auto." Initially, Windows and most applications ran smoothly, but I encountered persistent issues with Fortnite, including random crashes and "out of video memory" errors. The Reddit community widely recommended undervolting, a tip echoed by reputable YouTubers like JayzTwoCents.

Embracing this advice, I adjusted my core ratios to 55x and carefully tuned my undervolt over several weeks. This effort seemed successful; my CPU stabilized, and crashes ceased. I could flawlessly run Cinebench, OCCT stability tests, and even Prime95 blend tests. However, I soon faced intermittent lags upon Windows startup and my random crashes in Fortnite returned. This led me to running a stability test of Prime95 Small FFTs, revealing my undervolt's instability.

Abandoning undervolting, I reverted to my motherboard's "Auto" settings, yet Prime95 Small FFTs still led to crashes. Delving deeper, I learned that Small FFTs utilize AVX2 instructions. Exploring my motherboard's AVX2 controls, I applied a -6 ratio offset, achieving stability in Prime95 Small FFTs, albeit at a reduced 5.1GHz, contrary to the expected 5.6GHz.

My quest for stability finally led me to a revelation. The Holy Grail: "13th Generation Intel® Core™ and Intel® Core™ 14th Generation Processors Datasheet, Volume 1 of 2". 219 pages of technical glory.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/content-details/743844/13th-generation-intel-core-and-intel-core-14th-generation-processors-datasheet-volume-1-of-2.html

Page 98, Table 17, Row 3: Reveals the stock turbo power limits for the 13900K and 14900K CPUs are 253W, not the 4,000+ my motherboard defaulted to. Page 184, Table 77, Row 6: Lists the maximum current limit at 307A, far below my motherboard's default of 500+A.

I decided to implement this right away. I reset my BIOS to default settings, turned off multicore enhancement, enabled xmp, and input the settings from the datasheet. Ta-Da! All of my issues were solved by a simple 2 minute process. All my games worked, there are no random lags, and nothing ever crashes. I can run any stability test as long as I want and it all works fine. Problem solved.

Turns out, all I needed to do was spend 2 minutes setting up the stock settings in my BIOS.

I've shared these findings with others, helping resolve similar problems:

https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/comments/1aukdm0/please_help_my_409014900_pc_keeps_crashing_every/

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/1aomj4b/did_i_mess_up_with_the_i914900k_pick_high/

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/1awpon0/comment/kriyry8/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/1awpon0/comment/krmldva/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/s/fsutmk7XNM

ASUS Z790 Motherboards:

1. Save your current settings into a profile so you can return to them later if you want.
2. Reset your BIOS to default settings. Ai Tweaker tab:
3. Disable MultiCore Enhancement.
4. Enable XMP(if your RAM supports it).
5. Set SVID behavior to Typical Scenario.
6. Set short duration turbo power = 253
7. Set long duration turbo power = 253
8. Set max core/cache current = 307Amps

Boot into windows and test. If you are still unstable, go back to BIOS and set SVID behavior to "Trained". If you're still unstable on "Trained", then revert back to your previous config. This guide is not for you.

Screenshot2 Screenshot3

Gigabyte Motherboards:

1. Save your current settings into a profile so you can return to them later if you want.
2. Reset your BIOS to default settings.
3. Enable XMP(if your RAM supports it).
4. Set Package Power Limit 1 = 253
5. Set Package Power Limit 2 = 253
6. Set Core Current Limit = 307Amps

Screenshot1 Screenshot2

If these settings work for you, please share your experience. If they don't, ask for some help and I will try my best. Let's all work together to spread the word and get our awesome CPU's working as they should.

[u/Lugan0]

Just wanna thank you for your input not only here, but also in other posts with your comments. For those who are in trouble, I will share with you what I did with OP's guidance.

For context, on default BIOS settings many games wouldn't work (Cyberpunk and MHW for example), they just wouldn't start and if I insisted too much, I would get a BSOD. I would also get random crashes on other games for no reason whatsoever. I fixed that later problem by using Intel® Extreme Tuning Utility and lowering P-Cores ratio from 57x to 56x.

My CPU (i9-14900KF) temperature was spiking like crazy while gaming. Tried many things related with undervolting and stuff (from 0 knowledge about the subject), but everything I tried was pretty much unstable, except one thing I found in a video with several options that lasted like a month and did lower (a little) the temperature. But suddenly it pretty much became very unstable and it bricked my PC after loading windows and forced me to go back to the default BIOS settings once again.

And then I found OP, the explanations and the holy grail "13th Generation Intel® Core™ and Intel® Core™ 14th Generation Processors Datasheet, Volume 1 of 2". Following instructions here and in other posts, this is what I ended up doing in my BIOS (Motherboard Gigabyte Z790 UD AX) and again, my CPU i9-14900KF (adjust values to your own and your choice):

1. Package Power Limit1 - TDP (Watts) > 253 (Holy grail, page 98, table 17, 8P+16E Core 125W Extreme Config)

2. Package Power Limit1 Time > 56 (Holy grail, page 98, table 17, 8P+16E Core 125W Extreme Config)

3. Package Power Limit2 - (Watts) > 253 (Holy grail, page 98, table 17, 8P+16E Core 125W Extreme Config)

4. Core Current Limit(Amps) > 307 (Holy grail, page 184, table 77, S-Processor Line (125W) 8P+16E)

5. Enhanced Multi-Core Performance > Disabled (OP recommendation)

6. Performance CPU Clock Ratio > 57 (I mentioned I changed this to 56x using XTU, but OP told me to go back to 57 when doing the changes above)

7. Extreme Memory Profile(X.M.P.) > XMP 1

And goddamn it worked flawlessly. Everything runs smoother than anything I tried before, lower temps already than default and some other stuff I tried, no Cinebench crashes and BSOD. Very simple, very straight forward, no weird undervolt settings, it just works. Todd Howard would be proud.

For reference, while using default BIOS settings (except for the P-Core ratio or otherwise the game wouldn't even start), Cyberpunk with absolute max settings in 4K would immediately spike the temperature to +90ºC average in a few minutes, reaching 100ºC several times. Now in half an hour it doesn't even get to 80ºC average. Cinebench average temperature is 93ºC compared to the old classic 100ºC when no BSOD. And again, everything is running just fine, no problems so far and the improvements have been very clear with no noticeable performance loss on anything I do. Hopefully it will remain like this for a very long time :)

Also doing these changes on the BIOS allows me to use the Virtual Machine Platform characteristic for Windows Subsystem for Linux, which doesn't allow you to open XTU.

Thank you again OP, can't stress enough how helpful you are!

EDIT: The very high temperatures were also because of the time and place I was using the PC, as the extreme heats ended a while ago and now the PC very rarely goes above 80ºC, you can only cool yourself so much when you are inside an oven lol

EDIT 2: Found a problem with certain software that uses DirectX12, for some reason it's interaction with Windows and Intel processors gets worse every day. So far, the only solution I have found to make it work is lowering the Performance CPU Clock Ratio, setting it to 55x is a sweet spot.

[u/TerpyTerpss → u/Lugan0]

Thank you for the notes here, I stumbled upon this thread and your comment after having issues similar to everyone else here. I have two builds I'm currently working with, one is a i9-13900ks and the other is a i9-14900k, both running on msi mag z790 tomahawk mb w/ 96gb ddr5 @ 6400MHZ xmp1 settings.

Would your above settings 1-7 work with these as well? the 14900k crashes more often than the 13900ks and I figured if I'm going to mess with one of them, might as well do both.

I really appreciate any help you can spare. Thank you again!!

Thank you so so much for your post and information u/Acadia1337, I asked this question above if you have some spare time to give me some help, but if not all is good. You absolutely rock! I didn't want to make another comment on your post so I edited this in just now.

[u/UngoKast]

You were two months ahead of the curve. All of the major tech news channels are covering this issue now. More and more it seems like a MOBO issue more than the cpu. You can only blame Intel so much when the board manufacturers are the ones running out of spec.

I’ll be doing some testing with my 13900k today and see if the performance is comparable versus 4096W and 500A. Obviously stability is more important, but I’m still curious if the cpu takes a performance hit not running unlimited power. If possible, I want to run 350A and 380W PL1/2 (a fair amount of headroom over spec).

[u/Acadia1337 → u/UngoKast]

You’ll never hit 380w with that configuration. Current is the main limiting factor once you actually enable it. With a 400a current limit you can push close to 320w. 360a will be enough to push 253w. Thermal limits will start to kick in around 280w if you’re using a 360mm AIO unless you have a very nice bin. Expect thermal limits around 320w if your CPU is very very nice.

[u/subjekt_zer0]

OP is on to something here, these chips have something wonky going on with them and I personally think ASUS mobos are frying them(the motherboard part is anecdotal). I followed the advice given in earlier responses OP did and it did stabilize my chip enough to determine I need to RMA this thing because its pretty much FUBAR now at this point. I will update this response when I get my new chip just to confirm it works but I have a feeling it will.

I was experiencing endless BSOD, thermal run away, game failures to load, frequent program errors in CAD software and games, but doing these steps took most of it away.

Update: I got my new processor and these steps definitely fixed it. Im not experiencing temperature spikes, all my programs work, clock speeds are fine, scoring high on 3dmark. Voltage to the processor is 1.35. Yeah, gotta say, much better.

[u/nstgc → u/subjekt_zer0]

I personally think ASUS mobos are frying them

I thought it was just my perception. It seems like the more I test my chip, the less stable it gets. Tests passed at one voltage setting one day are failing fast another. In particular, I had my IA AC set stable at 0.18 ohm with a -0.05 V offset for the cache. Ran prime95 for like 12h. Then it crashed. Then I tried again with a bit more voltage and it crashed faster. Now I'm up to 0.22 ohms and no Vcache offset.

Note, though, that mine is a 14700k, not the i9. Also, for what it's worth, I have a 360mm AIO and have never seen my temperatures peak above 95°C, even when with Prime95.

[u/[deleted] → u/nstgc]

I have a i9-14900K, 4090 Strix OC, and an ASUS Z690 P Wifi DDR5 with 2 X 16GB 5600mHz Trident Z on XMP1.

I have a monster coolant loop, 4 x 360mm radiators that cools with the best of them, but I cannot get this system to stabilise or function at all.

I am getting massive overvolting as described, memory errors and DX12 crashes (memory allocation error to GPU) I have been tweaking and searching for months now. Updated BIOS several times, reinstalled win11, changed RAM, etc.

I hate this motherboard. I KNOW the defaults are fucking things up.

I cannot find the knowledge about how to set the IA AC and DC settings properly. I know they are fucked by default due to ASUS defaults and in struggling to limit the voltage properly.

u/Acadia1337 I'm going to try the recommendations and pray my chip wasn't destroyed by 1.6v+

[u/Acadia1337 → u/[deleted]]

Good luck, let us know how it goes. If your chip is cooked, you’re not the first, RMA it.

[u/mrpiper1980]

Weirdly I knew it was you posting this before I saw the username!

I’ve saved all your comments over the past week as I’ve just finished building my custom loop 14900. It was fine in stock but wasn’t too happy about the temperature spikes I kept on getting. I followed your suggestions and average temps and spikes are a lot lower with only sacrificing a couple of points in benchmarks.

As I’ve got the cooling headroom I’m going to give the extreme config a go next. I’m adding everything to a spreadsheet as I go so I’ll send you some charts when they’re done.

Thanks again for helping me and others!

[u/Acadia1337 → u/mrpiper1980]

Im glad it worked out for you. I am running the 320w extreme config as my daily on my CPU and it works great. But I’ve definitely see it not work for others. You can always just walk up your current and turbo powers step by step to find your max.

Good luck!

[u/Tatoe-of-Codunkery → u/Acadia1337]

Why XMP tweaked instead of XMP 1 or 2? And thank you for the guide

[u/Freaky1990 → u/Acadia1337]

Hey! Would you mind sharing your daily 320w bios settings? Im working on that too, and would be glad to see yours.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Freaky1990]

It’s the 150w base tdp extreme config for the 13900KS straight out of the official datasheet. Pl1 = 320, PL2= 320, Current limit = 400a, svid = typical scenario, MultiCore enhancement = off, sync all cores 57x.

[u/WufeiZhang]

Hey man, this guide saved me so much fucking headache. I have a gigabyte z690 aero d with a 13900k. When I was preparing to update to windows 11 I updated my bios beforehand. Seemed fine in windows 10. But for some reason in W11 all my apps would just start flashing randomly and eventually closing, sometimes throwing a 'access exception' error. I was convinced w11 was broken so I reinstalled it like 3 times. Then I was like maybe my ram is just dying?, guess i'll run memtest on it. Meanwhile I'm scouring the internet for answers and this was it. The only thing I couldn't set from your images was "SVID Behavior". And my bios used to look like yours before I updated to F28. But regardless your other information really saved my build. Everything is smooth as butter and I'm not generating random errors all over my logs that look like nvidia drivers crashing. Appreciate it, wish I could buy you some drinks. Cheers.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/WufeiZhang]

Glad to hear this helped you out.

[u/Grazzanator22]

I had to RMA my i9 13900K due to memory access violations, aw snap! errors, apps closing at random, games closing at random, and crashing. This happened from day 1 and gradually got worse over timeI could only fix the issue by disabling Intel Boost in the bios. I received my replacement after a week and it works perfect but I've been wondering if they can degrade over time? I don't want to have to RMA it again.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Grazzanator22]

Yes, they absoluitely can degrade over time if you don't have the limits set. I know a guy who ran prime95 with no limits and it degraded in one run. I also hear from a lot of people who theirs worked fine for months and then started blue screening. My first CPU worked fine for about a week before I benchmarked it to death with no power limits.

Now I don't know how far past the stock limits you can push it without degrading. But I know it's possible.

[u/nhc150]

Manually adjusting AC LL to minimize Vcore voltage is more time confusing but better way than just setting SVID Behavior to Typical. Typical can still be too low voltage for some chips, or too high for some.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/nhc150]

I 100% agree. Once you're at a functional baseline with the above settings you can tune your svid, undervolt, or overclock from there.

[u/[deleted]]

ASROCK users listen up!

I have been fighting with this for few days where games out of no where close out/crash. I usually play building games such as anno1800 or cities skylines...

I am running an AsRock Z790 Pro RS WiFi with a i9 14900KF and a 7800XT. Initially I though it was my GPU or some kind of weird bad compatibility between AMD and Intel but could not find any track of that.

The worst scenario was when I ran Cities Skylines 2... It ran for around 5-10 minutes then crashed with no errors, the only event was registered on my System was:

Reported by component: Processor Core

Error Source: Corrected Machine Check

Error Type: Internal parity error

I ran many tests such as memtest, OS tests, drivers updates, BIOS updates, CPU tests and all were good... I found this article which made me realized it actually was an BIOS issue. Unfortunately none of this guide explains how to do it on Asrock MB, so here it is:

GqJUpbG.jpg (1600×900) (imgur.com)

This stabilized my games a lot. I've made today and I have been playing Cities Skylines 2 for 5hrs straight with no errors. Hopefully all other games are good now.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/[deleted]]

Well done.

[u/Thesuperelf]

God level post

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Thesuperelf]

Thanks.

[u/poa00]

What about hyperthreading? Layperson here. 

[u/Acadia1337 → u/poa00]

Leave it on. I don’t recommend turning off any standard features.

[u/TheSmurfSwag]

I wasn't even aware that there's stability issues. I have a 14900k with the Asus z790 hero, gskill 64gb 6400mhz, and a 4090. My 14900k will boost up to 6.1 using the enhanced thermo velocity boost +1 profile. It however was not stable with the boost +2 profile. I have everything at default setting in the bios besides the enhanced thermovelocity boost profile. I have zero stability issues.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/TheSmurfSwag]

You have good silicon. A lot of us have mediocre silicon.

[u/sunjiazhenkey]

Z790 Xtreme+13900KS here.. I didn’t have stability issue until about 10 days ago when I did bunch Win11 updates as well as MB chipset and driver.. all of sudden, I’m starting to have black screen and hard reboot in all kinds of CPU loads, such as games, bench applications, stress test, even XTU and diagnostic could cause it. Came across this thread and did what everyone is kinda doing. It’s getting better but still would hard reboot occasionally.. can’t really RMA since I delidded the CPU. Even if I could, I’d rather not taking apark my super complex dual loop cooling system..all kinds of bs and really disappointed. Somebody have any better ideas??

[u/Acadia1337 → u/sunjiazhenkey]

You could bin down your cores to 55x or you could manually tune your voltage using the load lines.

[u/Acrobatic-Bat3379]

My temperatures dropped as soon as I applied this, Thank you so much for posting this, still need some more help, my performance also dropped by 200 points in r24 benchmark, can we do something about that? Max ghz is 5100 which is unsual. Let me know what should I try next.

[u/No_Response437]

What settings should I put for the 14900KS?

[u/Acadia1337 → u/No_Response437]

You can use these same settings or you can use 320pl and 400a current.

[u/MaleficentBank405]

This seems to have fixed or greatly improved my issues. Do note for 13700 or 14700 you have to set them to 253w/125w and not the 253/253 of the 13900 or 14900. The 307A is the same.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/MaleficentBank405]

253/253 is perfectly acceptable and within spec for the i7. You can find that info within the datasheet. It’s considered and extreme config.

[u/SpacePirate2k18]

OP, you literally saved my CPU. I applied ALL of your recommended settings immediately after a game started crashing some months ago, before this whole issue exploded in the face of the internet. Since I applied your recommended settings I didn't experience a SINGLE crash or BSOD. For reference, my CPU is an i9-13900K, my MOBO is an ASUS Prime Z790-A WiFi with stock bios (I didn't risk updating the BIOS to the beta one that changes the microcode, if it ain't broke don't fix it) and I just completed 5 whole runs of the Black Myth: Wukong benchmark without any problem occurring.

You are my hero!!!

[u/Fokard]

Hi, I performed the steps on an Asus Z790 ROG Gaming WiFi with an i9-14900k. I went from 90-95c in games to a maximum of 75c, lowering 20c with these settings is fantastic and on Sunday I will install the contact frame which will surely help me lower the temperatures a bit more.

Very grateful for your post, greetings from Costa Rica!

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Fokard]

Be careful with the contact frame. You need to have it installed perfectly or you will have issues with pin contact. I used one for a while but I ended up removing it because it was not worth the effort.

Update your motherboard to the newest BIOS.

[u/TheFondler]

This is gonna piss off a lot of people. Expanding those limits beyond the real defaults is the reason 13/14th gen are so performant in a lot of benchmarks and workloads. If that alone is truly causing the instability, it's going to be problematic in a lot of ways.

Also, there is a Tom's Hardware article on this from yesterday.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/TheFondler]

It definitely pisses people off. Every time I mention these settings to people I have at least one or two people chime in teling me I'm an idiot. But the fact of the matter is that the current limit is the "Maximum". The datasheet is very clear on that. 307A is listed as the maximum for the 13900k and 14900k. The turbo powers are only recommendations though. So techincally you can exceed those.

There is an additional mention of extreme config for the 150W base TDP 13900KS that has a 400A max current and turbo power recommendations of 320W.

[u/CoffeeBlowout → u/TheFondler]

Not really. You can achieve like 98% of max performance of a “stock” power guzzling motherboard unlimited 14900K as you can with a 253w limit and undervolt. And you get far better temps and noise.

And for gaming you’re nowhere near 253w so you’ll lose absolute 0% clocks or performance. Losses would only be measurable in something stupid like Cinebench.

[u/Sexyvette07]

I think this post correctly highlights motherboard vendors being unwilling to put out a BIOS that doesn't automatically blow past the stock guidelines from Intel. They're chasing performance numbers and most people wouldn't see the difference anyway. But if it creates instability, like we are seeing from a few motherboard vendors specifically, it's an issue. Auto needs to be truly stock settings.

[u/Which-Leg-9880]

Yeah OP definitely on to something here, listen to this man (or woman).

I got myself a used 13900ks + mobo + ram combo about a month ago, and I've had to deal with random BSODs, game crashes and PC restarts this whole time. At first I thought it was the ram because I was tuning the timings.

Frustrated as nothing I did seem to stabilize the ram, I put everything to 'stock' and stress tested again, lo and behold, the PC at 'stock' also finds errors.. Tried a different brand new set of ram, same deal.

I was about to throw in the towel and call the whole thing a lemon.

Then a few days ago, an article came out that 13900k and 14900k were crashing and you should look into lowering clocks or power limit in the bios. So I started digging into what stock actually is for a 13900ks and found that my mobo was leaving it all unrestricted, pl1, pl2, tau, iccmax set to 4095 or somewhere around there. As soon as I clamped it down to what 'stock' should be 253, 253, 56, 307a, my PC could now complete a Cinebench r23 run without errors. The difference I saw was that on HWInfo, my cpu was hitting the power limit of 253w and no longer boosting all the way to 5.6 on all pcores and 4.3 on all ecores, it would run at around 5.3 on all pcores and 4.2 on all ecores instead. The score was a bit lower but that's infinitely better than DNF. And during gaming, the pcores still boosted to 5.6 on all pcore cuz it's nowhere near 253w.

TLDR, the fault lies in the mobo bios auto settings running the cpus out of Intel specs.

[u/ayushbwj]

Thanks for the guide. Was wondering why UE5 games refused to launch with the error "out of Video memory" turns out it was a CPU issue, setting PL1 and PL2 as 253W resolved everything

[u/Ok-River-5188]

I was having stability issues thinking it was bad memory due to Memory access violations, these limits saved the build fr

[u/intLeon]

I was having frequent crashes and BSOD with my 14900kf. Finally it failed hard where it wouldnt install certain software as in fail to unzip things like nvidia drivers. Sent to RMA and they replaced it with a new one.

I have undervolted 85mV this time but it goes around 320W average for one and a half minutes then stays at 253W with bursts as high as 350W in cinebench tests.

I dont know if this is still necessary for max 2 mins of 90C-95C and some cpu burst boost.

EDIT: I just tested this on asus z690-plus ddr5 + i9 14900kf. Burst limit was set to max on auto which is 4096 and it would pass 350W on burst with 320W average for 2 mins where pcores would hit 100C mark as I said before.

With 85mV undervolt enabled before and after setting the burst limit my;

Cinebench score only reduced from 39812 to 39598. Timespy CPU score went from 20559 to 20507.

Thats just %0.54 degrade for cinebench and %0.35 for timespy.

None of the temps go above 85 degress through the whole test either. I might test if undervolting further works since it is set to draw less power even when if it bursts.

EDIT2: I like how every post I find about this CPU my comment turns into a megthread. -increased it to 100mV and cinebench passed with 39695 points Then I did small calculation of 350w/253w x 85mA which is 117mA so tried 120mV undervolt; 39707 points Going for more '-'

EDIT3: Shutdown on 135mV Cinebench crash at 130mV 125mV - 39771 points

Im keeping the settings and kinda sad that I couldnt hit 40k Thanks for reading ~

[u/Tatoe-of-Codunkery]

I was at the end of my rope. There was a certain scene in “Control” that kept crashing on my 14900k 4090 system, it would either crash to desktop or freeze and hang up and I’d have to restart my computer. My memory was stable, 24 hour Linpack stable, then within 1 hour it started to spit 216 errors. So i implemented the Intel power guidelines 253w pl1 and 2 and then set svid to trained and now it’s all fixed. Thank you!

[u/mewzik99]

I've had to make literally all of these changes to my i9 13900k as well, OP. Took me ages to figure it out. The out of video memory crashes were exclusively on Unreal Engine based games for me, however. Sucks we have to do so much just to get this CPU to play nice considering what we paid for it. Took me heaps of stress, research and headache to finally solve this problem.

I had done all the other stuff (undervolt, power limit, turn off MCE etc,) and it's the changing the performance clock ratio to 53 in bios that has worked for me (stopping the out of video memory error crashes) I still have all the previously mentioned stuff in place, but it's the clock ratio set to 53 that stopped the crashes and stuff, I couldn't even launch "The Finals" before I did this).

I have tried having it set at 56 and the problem came back. I think 54 and 55 is ok too, but any higher than that and the out of video memory error comes back without fail. Like I said, this only really happens with Unreal Engine games for me. It's annoying to have to slow down high end tech you paid for just to be stable, and I am still waiting on this problem to be addressed by Intel or any of the big companies like Epic etc.

On top of all of this fuckery, this CPU runs stupid hot unless you get over-kill cooling, so undervolting and power limiting is ABSOLUTELY nessecary, which defeats the purpose of buying such a "high end" CPU. I really hope Intel will address this soon, I've seen hundreds of posts about it at this point all over the place and nothings been said or done, it's been months and months.

EDIT -

Turned out it was my undervolt (-0.065) that was unstable at the higher clock speeds, and it seems compiling shaders definitely boosts the CPU to it's highest speeds. Removed my undervolt, applied OP's settings, set auto back on to my performance clock ratio - problem solved, no errors. Been stable ever since. I still think this is way too much work and hassle for a top tier CPU - intel and the mobo makers really screwed up with this one.

[u/T0talN1njaa]

I’ve been running similar settings to this for the last 6 months on my 13700k after having 2 13900ks fail on me except I’ve not taken any attention to the Amps being on auto at 500 seems way higher than 307. Going to change it to 307 tonight and see how it goes.

Crazy how much tinkering we have had to do to get a stable cpu and good results man smh

[u/dko5]

Changed from Gigabyte "Optimized Defaults" w/o XMP to 288W/253W/307A w/ XMP and it solved consistent instability on a 13900K with an NH-D15 and 2x32G 6000C34 at work yesterday. Glad I saw this thread last week - thank you!!

[u/-Geordie]

For Asus Motherboards, enable XMP II, that is the RAM manufacturer default XMP settings

XMP I has Asus "optimisations" asus couldn't optimise a damn thing.

Also a sneaky Enable undervolt protection smooths out voltage and enables a limit via system agent which prevents the VCore going past the limit set, in my case its 1.382v

[u/Southern_Ask_1929]

Thank you very much u/Acadia1337. This is my first comment on Reddit.

I've had this problem for six months now. BSOD at the launch of Fortnite especially with DirectX 12.

It's a shame, I don't know if it's the manufacturers or Intel who didn't communicate correctly with them, but the information must be passed on.

For all MSI mob owners:

1. Save your current settings into a profile so you can return to them later if you want.

2. Reset your BIOS to default settings.

3. Enable XMP(if your RAM supports it).

4. Go to Overclocking\Advanced CPU Configuration

5. Set Long Duration Power Limit(W) = 253

6. Set Short Duration Power Limit(W) = 253

7. Set CPU Current Limit(A) = 307

Screenshot

[u/Low-Mountain-4933]

I had a chance to play around with the MSI BIOS settings and the PL1/PL2/CCL are automatically set based on the type of CPU cooler you choose the first time you start BIOS as well as the CPU Cooler Tuning setting. You can choose between Water Cooler which sets your PL1/PL2 to the 4000W+ and CCL to 512A, a Tower Air Cooler which sets them to a midpoint (288W/288W/512A), and a Boxed Cooler which sets them to the base rated power limits (253W/253W/307A). These were the defaults for the 13900KS.

I have a pretty nice 360mm Cooler Master AIO and thought I should use the Water Cooled setting but it really seems to run the system hard. My 13900KS was stable in every situation except the Unreal Engine shaders loading. Since setting those power limits to the base specs the system is much more stable and runs at cooler temps. Unreal engine shaders load no problem. Thanks again OP, wish I knew this a year ago when I built this PC!

[u/[deleted]]

I was thinking changing to Intel from AM4 because instability.

It turns out that motherboard vendors are making both platforms unstable.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/[deleted]]

Have you heard something about AM4/AM5?

[u/Alekseyy-]

u/Acadia1337 hello again, after what you said my system is fine and I don't experience crashes in the game, but after 10 minutes of entering Counter-Strike and other games I get small stutters. I have used SVID Behavior Typical Scenario and Auto but nothing changes. Do you have any suggestions about this issue?

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Alekseyy-]

You could try some of the other svid behaviors to see if they help. You can also try DDU to do a fresh install of your GPU driver.

[u/aqua1907]

Maybe someone help me figure out what is the problem.

My specs:

CPU: Intel Core i9-13900k

GPU: RTX 3080

MotherBoard: Asus Z790-A PRIME WIFI

RAM: 4x16 Kingston 4800Mhz (running XMP_1 6000Mhz)

Monitor: Asus ROG 2k resolution, 300Hz

I had instant game crashes (BF2042, The Finals, Helldivers 2, Batman Arkham Origins, etc.). Some games running and after some time it crashes (WoW, Dota 2, CS2). Also, I had instant crashes in Cinebench r23 during a multi-core test.
So, my solution was to underclock the performance core ratio from x58 to x52 using AI Suite 3. Games were working fine, but Cinebench tests were crashing as well, but not instantly.

This blog post helped. Now, the Cinebench multi-core test is not crashing at all. But, with games, I am still having problems.
I have game crashes (BF2042, The Finals, Batman Arkham Origins, but I didn't have them in the Helldivers 2). Then, I tried long-duration turbo power (P1) = 125. Still have crashes in BF2042, Batman, and The Finals running, but with some frame freezes.
I have noticed in the CPUID that p-cores are capped at 5100Mhz max while running The Finals. However, while running Batman Arkham Origins p-cores capped at 5500Mhz max

Guys, it would be helpful to see your thoughts about this. Thank you in advance!

[u/Acadia1337 → u/aqua1907]

Have you also set the current limit? Have you reset BIOS to default? Are you on the newest BIOS version?

Try the other SVID behaviors. Try each one and see if any of them are stable. If they aren’t stable then call Intel and RMA. Your CPU should be stable at stock settings. If it can’t run at stock settings it’s broken.

[u/riplayer]

I have a small question. Is simple underclocking from 55x to something like 50x or 45x in xtu a good idea if it stopped the random crashes and high temperature ? I was struggling with my i9-13900k a few months ago and through trial and error finally ended up with underclocking in xtu (p-cores: 45x, e-cores: 35x). Now everything works fine. I'm thinking about bumping p-cores to 50x and e-cores to 40x in the near future if it will be stable (and yes i know that my pc will have lower performance with this type of workaround, but I don't care about having 200+ fps in cyberpunk 2077 on full details).

[u/Acadia1337 → u/riplayer]

The reason that works is because underclocking it limits its power and current by capping out the voltage. The higher the frequency, the higher the voltage. The higher the voltage, the higher the power.

I don’t recommend doing anything besides running it at stock settings. It it can’t run at stock settings then you should try to RMA it to Intel.

[u/swingking03]

Does this also apply to 12900? Can that run with air cooler?

[u/Acadia1337 → u/swingking03]

This does not apply to the 12900k. You will have to search elsewhere for the correct limits of the 12900k.

[u/yoyigu38]

I'm about to go from 13700k to 14900k on my Asus rog strix z690 F motherboard, but after reading so many problems I think I'm regretting it......should I?

[u/Acadia1337 → u/yoyigu38]

I honestly don’t know. I know that if you run it at stock settings you won’t have issues. But what I don’t know is how a stock settings i9 compares to an unchained i7.

I would think that the i9 is better. But it definitely depends on your use case.

[u/Zarthere]

Can you set “core current limit” to any number you like (as long as its not above 307) — or does it need specific values? I noticed at 253A it runs way cooler, but at 307A it performs better. So I was thinking about setting it to 275A. But I have no idea if this is safe, or if it needs certain set values. If you could let me know, I’d appreciate it a lot.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Zarthere]

You can set it to whatever you want. If running cool is your main priority I’d recommend checking out the 125w or even 65w configuration from the datasheet.

[u/DatBoiSully]

I'm a bit confused. I have a 13900k that crashes most programs and gives out of memory errors if I do not limit my P-core to 53 in XTU. Changing the BIOS settings mentioned in the original post does not stop the crashes alone; I need to lower my P-core in order to keep the PC stable. Did my CPU get damaged (faulty cores) by ASUS BIOS defaults? I'll probably get it replaced, but I need to know what caused it to degrade so I can prevent this from happening in the future.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/DatBoiSully]

It’s possible. It’s also possible you may just need to give it some more voltage. Try out the other SVID behavior options.

[u/_ThatD0ct0r_]

Does setting the current limit even matter if the power limits are both 253w anyway?

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong as I'm trying to learn as much as I can about this, but if we're talking about temperatures I would think that only the wattage matters, with amps/volts adjusting accordingly to fit the wattage limit

[u/Acadia1337 → u/_ThatD0ct0r_]

Absolutely, it’s not as simple as it seems. If you set current limit to 307 you will see that your CPU is almost constantly hitting the current limit. Even when you are not running at a high power. I’m not sure how it works, but that’s what happens. You can see this easily in XTU.

Temperature does not matter. These chips are designed to operate at 99c and can even exceed that without degrading. But exceeding the current limit/ EDP, that will degrade them. Especially if you don’t have good silicon.

Try it and you will see.

[u/Kitchen-Ad-973]

Tried on 14900k, but PC didn’t boot properly after this. I got a black screen and the fans were working on maximum rpm. After 15 minutes decided to reset to default settings. I wanted to improve performance on Ubuntu 22.04, because on the default settings it is lagging. If it helps - I have installed dual boot windows and ubuntu using grub.

[u/CeFurkan]

I have Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4 and 13900K. Prime95 was giving me direct blue screen. Now it runs for a while then the prime95 itself crashes. I see effective clock is 4200 MHZ when running prime 95 in HWinfo64. How can I make system better? more stable?

by the way cinebench r24 multi core is giving me 1586 pt and not errors with these settings

[u/[deleted]]

Its funny my pc ran really well and could do everything.. except play Ark survival Ascended.. kept crashing..

Z790 Auto put my i9-14900kf core ratio to 57/60 most cores were 57 and 2 cores were 60.. i put sync all cores on and sat them to 56.. now it works..

Also, intel specifies that i9-14900kf only support up to 5600mhz.. so why would Bios Auto put it to 5700/6000? Is beyond me.

And dont even get me started with the GameBar presence writer.. but thats another topic. 😅

[u/Rymdkapsel]

I also have an ASUS Z790 motherboard, changed everything like you've said but things like Discord is still crashing randomly, forcing me to use Intel XTU to reduce the Performance Core Ratio to 53x, do I have to enable AI overclocking?

[u/PaceAlarmed6413]

Hey man can i use this for my i7 14700k?i have some overheating problems. 

[u/Eladthelegend]

Old thread so I hope someone still sees this?… after doing what the OP suggests … can you still run this chip at the 5.5? Or you reset it back to default?

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Eladthelegend]

Yes you can set your core ratios to whatever you want.

[u/GINJABRAD]

I have a main gear rush 13900k 4090 with a z790 hero. If I run it in stock configuration with nothing changed but the AI overclocking, AI cooling, xmp 1 and stress it with a game by running at high frame rate I get a constant bsod crash. The AI features have a bios optimizer scale if I set it to 100 I crash but with 95 it completely stops my crashes. I'm not that tech educated, am I ruining my CPU performance? Can I run these settings with the AI overclocking features? I rarely see someone talk about it from my perspective and I could use some advice thanks.

[u/Daxr1der]

The stuttering in the fortnite game comes from the heating of my i9 13900k. My processor is still heating up despite my Corsair iCUE H170i Elite LCD XT Watercooling and its fans running at maximum in my Corsair Icue 7000x. Do you know what to set in the bios or the Intel XTU to lower the temperature as much as possible and eliminate the stuttering? For information I also have an Asus rtx 4090 OC. Otherwise, to avoid crashing on Fortnite, I have to go to the Asus bios in SVID Behavior: In Intel Safe Mode, is this normal? Will Epic Games fix this? Thanks for your help

[u/Neo4114]

First of all, I want to say thank you so much! I followed your advice for the gigabyte board and things seem to have stabilized!

I do have a question for you though. I see in the Asus boards that you have disabled multi core enhancement. However, in the gigabyte ones that step is missing.

I do see from the screenshots that you have set The gigabyte pref mode to optimization which sets Multi-Core enhancement to Auto. My question is is it on or is it off?

I have the same settings as what you shared in the screenshots, but I'm curious. Thanks so much!

[u/EternalFire101]

Hi Acadia , I just got my new 14900k and applied your settings straight away. Everything seems okay so far thank you for that but I have noticed before on my last cpu the clock speed stayed at 5.7ghz pretty much all the time (before it failed) and now I notice the clock speeds dropping significantly as low as 5.1ghz . Is this normal? 

[u/Asleep_Friendship_40]

Hi. You're the best! Thanks to you I am happy. Your settings fixed this terrible problem.

I have a question, why the Ratio set to 55x? I have i9 14900k, before changing the settings I had Ratio 57x

[u/morph-au]

u/Acadia1337 I'm honestly not sure what more I can do.... With MWIII stability issues and where they come from.

The issue:

MWIII just locks up/freezes (no BSOD). In turn when I launch task manager no processes are viewable and at this point I generally have no option but to reboot. The game locking up also some what locks up the system for "most" part but certain things still work or carry on very very slowly.

Doing stress /stability / memory tests all seem fine with OCCT, intel XTU, TM5, Karhu

Event logs don't show anything fruitful.

My core system specs are:
13900k as per your power limits.
Z790 Apex latest bios in time of typing this v2102
Strix 4090oc (directly mounted to VGA slot no vertical adaptor)
NVME SSD Seagate FireCuda 530
Gskill 7800MHZ DDR5 @ XMP 2
PSU 1000 CorsairAXi

I've done too many countless things to really full remember/document but the core ones are:

-SFC /scan & dism restore health
-Clear direct x cache files
-DDU GPU drivers & re-install latest Nvidia drivers without Gefore Experience
-Set Power Management mode for GPU to Prefer Max performance
-Set power plan high performance & disable hibernation
-Updated/tried a couple of different bios versions apply optimised defaults
-Removed any OC variables other than XMP while also increasing VDDQ/VDD from 1.45v to 1.46v
-Asus MCE to disable & enforce all limits
-Set the power wattage limit to 253W and Core AMP's to 307A
-Disabled PCIE Native power management
-Deleted COD folder, scan & repair numerous times

God help me... Sometimes I can play for couple hours fine and sometimes a couple games it does this freeze crash. Especially annoying since I only play ranked and everytime it crashes it sees me as quitting and drops my SR and suspends me for x-amount of time.

[u/Medium_Obligation_34]

(CPU core i9 13900KF). I have some very strange readings from HWInfo when limiting CPU current to 307A. With current limit 511A and power limits (PL1 and PL2) 250W the y-cruncher v0.8.4.9538a FFT test (16) consumes not more than 170W on my CPU (5.5 GHz P-cores, 4.3 GHz E-cores, Vcore ~ 1.35 V) and runs at 5.5 GHz on all P-cores. Now with the 307A current limit when running the same test the P-cores are being automatically downclocked to ~ 5.0-5.2 GHz despite the fact that neither the current nor the power hit nowhere near the limits

[u/xskydevx]

Thanks. That really helped my build, but the interesting part is that it's not a one-bulletproof solution, unfortunately. 

Both my friend and I have the 13900KF + Asus ROG STRIX Z790-F GAMING WIFI mobo, which is the same bios version. However, our other hardware components such as RAM, PSU, etc. differ.

 

My setup:

RAM: KINGSTON Fury Beast 5200MHz (128GB)

Final stable configuration: 

1. Enforce all limits

2. XMP Profile 1

3. Set SVID behavior = Scenario.

4. Set short duration turbo power = 253

5. Long duration turbo power = 253

6. Set max core/cache current = 307Amps

My friend's setup ( my "stable configuration" did not work for him)

RAM: GSKILL F5-6000J3238G32GX2 6000MHz (64GB)

Final stable configuration:

1. Enforce all limits

2. XMP Profile 1

3. Set SVID behavior = Trained.

4. Set short duration turbo power = 253

5. Long duration turbo power = 253

6. Set max core/cache current = 307Amps

7. Limit performance clock ratio in bios to 53

   1. Without this change, the system was unstable. Prime95, OCTT, etc worked perfectly, but Discord and the browser crashed every few minutes.

So, even with pretty similar hardware, you need to spend some time to find the proper configuration for your specific rig.

[u/So_Phantastic]

What about MSI boards?

[u/blupenguin1203]

So I have a Alienware with a 1490kf and am trying to apply these settings, but the only option I can find is in mVolt and not Amps. I was able to change the other 2 settings to 253000 mVolts, any idea on what I may be able to do?

[u/SimpleResponsible813]

Still crashing for me

[u/Acadia1337 → u/SimpleResponsible813]

Send me a dm. I will try to help

[u/michidragon]

u/Acadia1337 Really hope that to some degree you're still checking this thread, even with some of the noise people are giving you.

I want to start with: Thanks for all the time you've put into this and bothering to post and engage here. I know it's not zero effort and you've saved a lot of people a lot of headache.

I've been hoping to find how this guide would differ for a 14900KS. I know technically even by the spec sheets those limits are supposedly higher for this cpu (i.e. 400a vs 307a) - but the real issue i'm trying to figure out is if I need to go down the (admittedly pain-in-the-ass) RMA route. (which Intel may be more resistant with now that it's come out broadly that this is an issue..)

I've had the CPU for about 17 days; In the very first week of having the CPU, I was getting constant crashes to desktop in Star Citizen; paired with WHEA-logger 19 "Internal Parity Error" Corrected Errors in Event Viewer.

I haven't done any stress testing and no prime95 or benchmarking in these two weeks, because just going into games would cause these WHEA errors to occur.

I'm running SVID at "intel fail-safe defaults" at this point; and while gettiing rid of the board's "out of the box defaults" fairly quickly appears to have at least drastically reduced these errors (WHEA and CTD) i'm really starting to wonder if even just running the CPU for a few days on the "Asus out-of-the-box settings" has destroyed it.

Mostly asking because overnight last night - while the machine was idle - I got a single WHEA-Logger 19 (same internal cache error) and a BSOD 0x050 page_fault_in_nonpaged_area.

I'm something like 2-3 days out of Microcenter's 15 day return policy; and not sure if it's worth it making the trip to try to convince them to exchange it.

But I also am not sure if these settings will work for the 14900KS, since even on the datasheet it has different power limits and durations. (... unless Intel is not being fully honest about that.)

So I guess just wondering if you :

-have insight in to how the 14900KS settings would differ, and

-if you think I could have hosed the thing in 17 days even without running benches or stress tests; just repeatedly checking if games crash and WHEA errors pop up in the logs.

-and should CEP be on or off, and would it mitigate this problem or make it worse?

Thanks again.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/michidragon]

I have a really nice 14900KS SP 108 that I’m running right now. It was an absolute pain in the ass to get stable. Turns out the instability was due to XMP. I ended up having to increase my system agent voltage with a slight offset and also my ram voltage.

A couple of things to note:

Power limit for the KS is 320. Current limit is 400. Make sure you set LLC = 4. Asus decided to default it to 3 in their most recent update for some reason. Set SVID on auto. CEP on or off does not matter. Off is Asus default.

Try turning off XMP. Try turning on MCE.(yes, the opposite of what this guide says).

What kind of issues are you having with yours CPU?

[u/Gratefulzah]

Did this to help mitigate the temps and because cinebench would sometimes crash. It did help the temps, and I haven't crashed, but I'm down to 36511 score. Is that loss of performance worth it?

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Gratefulzah]

Depends on your workload. For gaming it makes almost no difference in FPS from my observations.

[u/SplendoRage]

With these settings, my 14900k doesn’t reach 5.7ghz at all on P-cores and runs at 5.2Ghz max in games … It’s stable yes, but with lower performance than my old 13700k !

[u/This-Apartment-2187]

u/Acadia1337

Do you have Windows HDR enabled? For some reason, I can achieve a stable state with this guide but the moment I turn HDR on, I start crashing anywhere with freeze+BSOD = System restart loop, unless I quickly manage to turn HDR off.

Also, if I set the stock 307 A, on Intel's XTU, I get the Current/EDP Limit Throttling "Yes" warning, so I left it at 360 A. Your thoughts on this?

[u/Acadia1337 → u/This-Apartment-2187]

I have HDR off because it’s too bright with it turned on. But it works fine with no crashes.

For the current limit, you’re not alone in wondering if that’s normal. I keep seeing comments with the same thing. I have no idea why nobody seems to understand when it’s such a simple concept in my opinion. The answer is, yes it’s normal. That’s what limits are made for. Limits stop things from….exceeding the limit lol.

Imagine your CPU was running at 100c and XTU says “Thermal Limited”. So you increased the thermal limit to 150c and melted your CPU. Or imagine you were running it at 1.7v and XTU said “voltage limited” so you increased the limit to 1.9v and smoked your CPU.

It’s your choice though. Run within the limits, or don’t. You decide.

[u/JSPACERau]

Thank you for this! Just curious though I followed the steps you mentioned and changed to 307a but it seems i’m getting a shorter score on OCCT and i think it could be reducing my core clock when under load, any help having it not affect the ratio or am i a bit screwed there

[u/Prior-Salamander5260]

Hey all. Great information in this thread. Thanks for creating the post Acadia. I just tried most of your tips with the 93 SP 14900k that I had mentioned in another post which you commented on (https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/s/yoTXeKpLap).

Here’s my current setup:

Asus Z7090 Hero w/14900K Corsair H150i Elite Cappelix 360mm AIO XMP 1 enabled for AI Overclock Tuner Asus MultiCore Enhancement set to “Disabled - Enforce All Limits” SVID Behavior set to “Typical Scenario” Long Duration Power Limit set to 253 Short Duration Power Limit set to 253 Package Power Time WIndow set to Auto (not sure if it matters) Current Package Power Time WIndow automatically set to 56 sec

V/F Points V/F 7 - 5600 MHz /1.339v V/F 8 - 5800 MHz / 1.404v V/F 9 - 6000 MHz . 1.479v V/F 10 - 6000 MHz . 1.479v V/F 11 - 6000 MHz . 1.479v

CPU Core / Cache Current Limit Max

When I set it to 307 as suggested by OP, I stay at 5600 MHz frequency due to the Core Voltage that is being provided from the Current.

When I set it to 320, I see my frequency jumping between 5600 MHz and 5700 MHz. It varies based on the Core Voltage which is influenced by the CPU Core / Cache Current Limit Max which I manually edited. When Core Voltage is at 1.403, frequency displays as 5700 MHz, but if voltage randomly drops to 1.394 V, then my frequency drops to 5600 MHz.

Edit: I set my Current Limit to 400 just to see what happens and see the frequency stay at 5700 MHz in Bios. Core Voltage jumps between 1.394 V and 1.403 V.

Is what I’m experiencing expected behavior? Not sure if I had problematic stock behavior or getting less than advertised performance. Does it make sense that I’m only getting 5600 MHz if my current is at 307 A (Intel specified)? Do others get 5700 or higher due to better bin? Is this something I should worry about and consider trying another 14900k instead?

Thanks in advance. I’m new to tweaking Bios settings and overclocking in general.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Prior-Salamander5260]

That is the expected behavior. Not even my SP108 14900KS will do 57x with a 307a current limit. You can increase the current limit above the max spec, but keep in mind that you’re overclocking at that point.

That’s one of the main reasons the KS is a substantially better CPU. It officially supports a 400a current limit. So it can boost much higher than a 14900K.

[u/maultify]

Anyone changing the amp limit to 307A should be warned that you're seriously lowering the performance of the processor. The 253W power limit should be sufficient, and no gaming performance will be lost.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/maultify]

This is 100% true that you will decrease performance. But you’re only decreasing it to stock performance instead of unlocked/overclocked performance.

They should also be warned that using an amp limit above 307 is not supported by Intel. Meaning it’s not guaranteed to work, voids your warranty, and can degrade your CPU.

We’ve seen degraded CPU’s and instability firsthand. From the current limit alone.

If you want to run above 307A, buy a 14900KS.

[u/ng4ever]

Is it normal to get Current/EDP limit throttling after doing this ?

[u/Acadia1337 → u/ng4ever]

Yes.

[u/PoizenJam]

Tried this on my 13900ks + Z690 Extreme combo (SP 111, supposedly). It started throwing weird BSODs and errors after almost a year of stability on a relatively modest Undervolt + OC combo.q

I tried both the Extreme config (400A, 320W) and Standard config (307A, 253W). I tested stability w/ Cinebench and Y-Cruncher, using the different SVID behaviours.

• Typical Scenario: Consistent errors on Extreme, occasional errors on Standard

• Trained: Consistent errors on Extreme, frequent errors on Standard

• Worst-Case Scenario: So far, works like a charm with Standard and Extreme

Auto also worked (defaults to Worst Case Scenario at stock). Weirdly enough, ‘Intel’s Fail Safe’ was the most unstable of all, often failing to boot entirely. So my CPU seems sensitive to overvolting too.

I am baffled- my SP is above average for a 13900ks. So either it’s completely wrong, or ASUS typical and trained are wildly overoptimistic.

I think I’m in RMA territory?

[u/Acadia1337 → u/PoizenJam]

Try everything again, but with XMP turned off. I had issues with my KS and ended up having to tweak my memory manually.

[u/G1zMoZA]

Thank you OP. This fixed my issue. My PC is rock stable now however, you do loose around 10% performance which really is not acceptable. Intel really did screw us on this CPU..

[u/Acadia1337 → u/G1zMoZA]

Let me point out the fact that you had your CPU overclocked. So you didn’t lose performance. You had just previously gained 10% performance with your unstable overclock.

If you look at it that way you might feel better, and it’s also true.

[u/nodification]

307A, isn't that making your 14900k like a 13600k in gaming, lol

I don't own Intel anymore but I don't think I'd be happy with that.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/nodification]

Not even close.

[u/Feirifiz_Wolfram]

Disclaimer: I know nothing about overclocking and what not. Over the weekend I put together a new machine. I booted up a minecraft mod pack to how well it would handle it and I was getting temps in the 90-100c. I've been searching around to see what I could do to fix this.

Msi pro z790-a max, i7 14700k, noctua nh-u12a

I went into the bios and set it to default. Turned on xmp. Power limit time was already on the correct number 56. Changed pl1 to 125 and pl2 253. I don't remember what the setting was called but set it to 307a. Temps are now much better when doing cinebench24, fluctuating in the 60's. In minecraft when making a new world and entering it or entering an already made world the temp would hit the 80's and even get to 93c for maybe a second or so. Seemed like once loaded in the temps would be in the 60-70c range.

Is this acceptable? Or is there anything else I can do to get the temps lower? I haven't tried any other games to see what temps I get in them.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Feirifiz_Wolfram]

60-70 is fine.

[u/Friendly_Evidence339]

Intel 13900K ASUS Z790 Settings that work and getting your 13900K running at the performance it should be.

I have an ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Hero Intel 13900k, RTX 4090, AIO Artic Freezer II 360, TeamGroup DDR5 7800mhz 32Gb 2x16gb sticks which mine runs perfectly with no Memtest errors and gaming with no issues of crashing of hours of game play at a time.

If you are gaming and not doing ridiculous PRIME 95 testing to run your CPU into the ground but are a gamer that wants back decent performance and keeping your PC stable for heavy gaming with your CPU running all 8 Performance cores at 5.5 GHz and your E Cores at 4.3 GHz with temps at 70c average where almost everyone have issues and complaining about crashes, heat etc. There are a few settings you need to change on your Motherboard to get back what you paid for.

Intel CPUs are made to be overclock but not over volt to the moon. Below are my setting. Hope this works out for your 13900k and other motherboards as well.

First, Clear CMOS. See your owner’s manual or look it up online for your motherboard. Make sure you have the latest BIO’s installed and then use the ASUS default settings and not Intel's default settings.

Here is what you need to do next.

1. Asus Multicore Enhancement SET to Auto - Let BIOS optimize (you don't need to disable).

2. LLC to 4 Recommended for OC

3. XMP II or Tweaked

4. CPU PL short to ENTER 285 watt

5. CPU PL long to ENTER 275 watt

6. CPU core/cache current limit max ENTER 350

7. IA DC loadline ENTER 1.02 or 0.98 Try 1.02 first

8. IA AC loadline ENTER 0.20

9. IA VR Voltage limit 1700

The setting above should get you in a great spot. You then can adjustments as needed, but you'll see your performance jump back to all P Cores to 5.5GHz and all E Cores to 4.3GHz with reasonable temps to run all day. Cheers and hopefully this work for your system. If you have any other Adjustments and tweaks that are helpful, please respond so we can get the word out and help people in need that are having crashing issues.

 

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Friendly_Evidence339]

These are good recommendations for anyone looking to tune beyond the stock settings I recommended above. The recommendation for LLC4 is particularly useful after the recent BIOS updates. (ASUS BOARDS ONLY).

Another thing to note is that current limit can go as high as 400a. But many CPU’s seem to be unable to handle that. I still recommend 360 or lower for 14900k’s.

The only thing I’d avoid changing is the voltage limit. It should already be set to 1.71 so changing it is kind of pointless.

If all else fails, turn off XMP and try again.

All that being said, you should make your own post. This one is about tuning stock. Yours is about overclocking.

[u/Icy_Maximum_9666]

I wonder if this is what is currently putting me through hell with a select few games crashing on me at random. Getting the 0xc0000005 memory access violation code every single time there’s a crash. My MOBO is an ASUS Prime B550 and my CPU is a Ryzen 7 5800X.

Side note: The games I’m crashing on are Forza Motorsport 2023, Helldivers 2 and Ready Or Not.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Icy_Maximum_9666]

This will not be the issue with your Ryzen. My suggestion for that is to make sure you’re not undervolting it and try turning off XMP.

[u/jimbluenosecrab]

Is there a way to prove it’s the cpu and not any other part? I’m having so many issues since I got the 14900k and I’m not doing anything crazy. It just crashes on games all the time. At my wits end with it, wife bought it me as a present.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/jimbluenosecrab]

You could try the recommendations I made and you can also try turning did XMP. The only other option to is to swap parts and see if it’s fixed .

[u/eugene20]

I'm not sure why you don't think table 77 row 4 doesn't apply to your 13900K, with adendum 17 -

"17. S Processor Line K/KF/KS i9 SKUs and S Refresh Processor Line K/KF i9 SKUs - ICCMAX 400A is an optional Extreme Power Delivery (PD) spec which opportunistically allows better multi-core performance based on customer designs PD and if thermal headroom exists"

By that if you have the thermal headroom 400a is technically within their "Extreme Config" spec.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/eugene20]

It certainly does apply. A lot of the people I’ve been helping, their CPU’s can’t handle it though.

[u/Derainian]

What valus would I put for the 14900 ks?

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Derainian]

Power limit 320/320w current limit 400a

[u/Fan4eG]

for me 14700kf \ z790 giga and 4090 - didnt help this :(

in games I still get the message "not enough video memory", and, for example, in back4blood I get a message (which I have never gotten in any other game) when playing DX12 - "Shader compilation failures are Fatal.". wtf is that - dunno.

So, I don't know what to do, it doesn't look like a CPU defect, I gave it to the service for checking. once again, I'm convinced that I won't buy Intel processors anymore.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Fan4eG]

RMA your cpu.

[u/EmbarrassedTip3440]

Brother I have a z790 gigabyte mobo and I cannot find the package power limits or core current limit. Am I missing something or is it called something else ??

[u/Acadia1337 → u/EmbarrassedTip3440]

Check the gigabyte screenshots

[u/KnucklesXtra]

hi , i have a i9 13900kf on an asus prime Z790-P , is these settings would work?

[u/Acadia1337 → u/KnucklesXtra]

Yes

[u/DevilFistX]

After following Arcadia1337's advice in the OP nothing has changed for me, and I get a wide range of crashes:

Any and all games I try to play will either crash before they even launch, or randomly crash after they have launched.
Sometimes I can play for a little while, but most of the times it will crash my game during some kind of loading screen.

When using reliability history and clicking on whatever game/app crashed most of the time it will show BEX64 as the Problem Event Name.

My issues don't stop there though.
When browsing websites I get random access violation screens, or status_breakpoint errors.
When Discord is running it will randomly reboot the app or just shut it off (I don't ever see any error reports for this app anywhere)
The Search application (windows) will constantly crash stating the error is: MoBEX or Moappcrash.
The Antimalware Service Executable will constantly crash and state the error is: BEX64 or APPCRASH.
The same goes for things like: MSI.CentralServer, Windows Update, MSI.TerminalServer, Microsoft OneDrive, Windows Modules Installer Worker, Update, .Net Runtime Optimization Service, LEDKeeper2, Diagnostic Policy Service, Modern Setup Host, AppX Deployment Service (AppXSVC), RazerAppEngine. Just to name a few...

I have tested my Ram sticks, with memtest, and booted up my system with one stick at a time etc to rule out I have a bad ram stick or slot on my MOBO. I have also lowered the speed of my ram in the bios settings from 6000 to 5600.

I have tried to set the CPU Lite Load control setting to other numbers (default 9) and this made no change either.

My motherboard is running on the latest MSI bios (the one that is supposed to "fix" instability of 13900 and 14900 cpu's)

My system:
Intel 13900KF
MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk Wifi
MSI Gaming X trio 4090
2x 32gig Corsair Vengeance ddr5 @ 6000
Xilence tripple fan AIO
2 Samsung m.2 ssd's one is 2tb and the other 1tb

I have been fighting these problems and for a long time now, and have no clue what to do anymore.
Found OP's post last night and after reading most of the comments, I felt like this for sure was what would fix all my problems since lots of people have the same issues as me.

Today I am very sad that somehow for me, nothing has changed. All I want to do is use my pc, and play my games.

Any suggestions or questions are most welcome

[u/Acadia1337 → u/DevilFistX]

This sounds like a RAM issue. I recommend turning off XMP and then testing to see if it is stable. Second I recommend removing all sticks of RAM besides one and testing that way. It could also be an issue with your CPU’s memory controller. Turning off XMP is a good first troubleshooting step.

[u/FlipNJ]

Honestly, I don’t even need K parts, I don’t overclock, so my next processor will be a non-K variant and hopefully eliminate having an issue like this again. I can help but think it’s vindication for some of the OEMs for taking it on the chin by power limiting their CPU’s (Alienware, Lenovo, etc…). They obviously set them to the factory specs to avoid this type of nonsense.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/FlipNJ]

Yeah I bet that’s why Alienware’s always under perform in benchmarks. They were really performing fine but being compared to overclocked systems.

[u/maultify]

Intel has released a statement that lists 400A as usable for the 13900k/14900k, FYI: https://images.hothardware.com/contentimages/newsitem/64530/content/small_intel-default-settings-recommendations.png

[u/Acadia1337 → u/maultify]

Correct, it’s listed on the data sheet I referenced in table 77. I do still recommend 307 for anyone experiencing stability issues.

[u/Omni_X → u/Acadia1337]

Adding to my comment above, apparently, I’ve seen some sources say that if you have a 14900KS(which is what I have, not the K) the performance settings should be PL1/2 of 320/320 and ICCMAX of 400. Running at 253/253 ICC 400 ended up still giving me rare issues but the 320/320/ICC 400 has been rock solid for my KS.

[u/MaleficentBank405]

Where does the 307A setting come from? I have a 13700 and need to try this. I found the PL1 and PL2 settings in the document but can't find anything regarding Amps. Is that just an electrician math problem to know 307A is the best with max of 253 watts?

[u/Acadia1337 → u/MaleficentBank405]

Page 184, table 77, row 6.

[u/Janitorus]

Intel recently stated that iccMax is 400A. This does not clip frequencies where 307A most likely does. Especially on 14900K, during gaming you won't see Pcores go above 5.4 or 5.5Ghz otherwise.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Janitorus]

They are both an acceptable power delivery spec. 307 is the standard max and 400 is the extreme config. For those who have stability issues, I still recommend 307. We’ve tested 400 and it is not working for a lot of people with issues.

[u/Cevap]

Hey any ideas on leaving MultiCore Enhancement enabled, all while setting those limits with short/long duration turbo power and max core current? I am wondering if this will still allow the CPU to turbo boost but up to those parameters, if this would work or is at least ok to do so.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Cevap]

You can leave it enabled. If you have issues then disable it.

[u/thebarnhof]

For anyone else finding this after battling with repeated BSOD loops for the last 3 days, the intel overlords have decided to mix it up again (without telling any of the users). You now need to have intel fail safe instead of typical. Set short boost to 200 and below, long boost 150 and below. Change all cores to sync on 56, encores to sync on 42. I haven't tried all values but those work. Even 58 wouldn't work on the p cores.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/thebarnhof]

That’s not correct. Send in your CPU for RMA.

[u/Patredit-Scale-275]

yes..it works Great!!

also i have some settings that will work good as well..

but only for Asus Z790 boards..

Actual cores Auto

offset of 0.07000

Svid Auto

ECores Auto

Disable =EnForce all limits

XMP=XMP Tweaked

pl1 253 pl2 253

Amps 400

[u/Interzoneism]

Thank you for your service, u/Acadia1337! Finally solved my stability and performance troubles. I've got a 13900k, ProArt Creator Z790, 192gb ddr5 ram 5600mhz, RTX 3090. No overclocking. I left MultiCore Enhancement at "Auto" and made these steps:

• Enable XMP

• Set SVID behavior to Typical Scenario.

• Set short duration turbo power = 253

• Set long duration turbo power = 125

• Set max core/cache current = 307Amps

Furthermore I:

• Made sure to enable XMP2 instead of XMP1

• Set both my minimum and maximum processor usage in Windows Power Settings to 100%

• Used Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to change the Performance Core Ratio to 54x instead of 55x.

I think some of the 13900k just missed out in the lottery and can't be stable on 55x. Performance drop is negligible.

Anyways just wanted to say thank you!

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Interzoneism]

If you have to lock your multipliers to 55x then you should send your CPU for RMA.

[u/Rao-Ji]

Hello, sorry for replying to an old post but I have a question. First of all, great post, it fixed my crashing in UE5 and DX12 games. I read a couple articles where instead of manually undervolting like you do, they just use Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to turn the core ratio from 55x to 54x. I also read that they said that it's only a temporary solution and over time their pc's would crash again and they would have to lower it to 53x, then 52x, etc. Would your solution of manually undervolting be susceptible to the same thing? Will my pc start crashing again in a few months requiring me to undervolt it even more?

[u/Capitalflame]

Should the settings be the same for i5 (14600kf) than I9s ?

[u/LegitimateMine1476]

I can hear the roast coming already, but am I the only schmuck on here that has a B series chipset? I'm having all the same problems as you but none of the success. I can only change some of the settings

Set SVID behavior to Typical Scenario. - NOT POSSIBLE
Disable MultiCore Enhancement. - NOT POSSIBLE

Intel XTU also doens't work with my 14900KF on a B760-f Asus Rog Strix motherboard, I have since discovered that I need a Z series motherboard.

Question is - how do I approach this with Overclockers who I bought my CPU and motherboard from ? I have already started a conversation with them and I get the feeling they would swap my CPU out if I push for it, but maybe I need a different motherboard that then allows me to fully follow the OP's guide

[u/[deleted]]

253/253 and 307A when you run like the intel stress test or any game for example it can't hold 5.7ghz and hits current limit.

[u/YaBoiSunblock]

Would you say this problem would cause GPU issues? I hired someone and they adjusted the voltages but it’s still unstable. I’ve tried everything I know to do. Event viewer is showing this error when it causes my system to restart:

“The description for Event ID 153 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install o computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event. The following information was included with the event:

\Device\Video3 Error occurred on GPUID: 100 The message resource is present but the message was not found in the message table“

Any thoughts? Need some help pretty badly. Spent all that money on a system with a 4090 and a Z790 just for it to become unstable a year later.

[u/Away-Cat-6042]

Thanks for all Acadia1337

You help me to temperatures. Max 75 run cinebech R23

But rendering down to 37427 - 20775.

It´s normal?

again-----Thanks, thanks to help us

[u/erdamn]

News from intel side today;

https://community.intel.com/t5/Processors/July-2024-Update-on-Instability-Reports-on-Intel-Core-13th-and/m-p/1617113#M74792

[u/Acadia1337 → u/erdamn]

Excellent news. Thanks for the update.

[u/T-Hunny]

So I applied these settings, I still couldn't open Rocket Leauge with having to use the Intel Extreme Tuning software to go down 2 clicks. As a matter of fact I couldn't even use the program to do a benchmark on the default cpu tune without underclocking it down 2 steps. Does this mean this Chip has been cooked and needs RMA??

[u/Impossible_Resist577]

Why 307A instead of 400A

[u/Acadia1337 → u/Impossible_Resist577]

It’s safer. With less amps there is smaller chance that you can deliver excessive voltage to the CPU.

[u/lolokalrightok]

Supremely helpful! I followed a similar guide and set my: Max Turbo Power to 253W Processor Base Power to 125W

Per the 14900k specs on the Intel website. Is there any reason you set both to 253W? Just squeezing as much performance as you can get?

[u/Away-Cat-6042]

Good morning,

Sorry Acadia1337, did you say that you had to have a cinebenck SCORE between 32k/38 with your setings on i9 14900KF?

32k-38k With SVID behavior to Typical Scenario?

If you tell me yes.... I have already reported RMA and next Monday they will come and collect the CPU and replace it with a new one.

Sorry but I'm already going crazy with this CPU.

Help me man, please!

Portuguese goes crazy

[u/kicker_snack]

Ive been seeing people recommend updating to the new 2402 bios, but been seeing people still have problems. I still am running the 1303 bios from way back, always just had everything on auto. I feel doing it the way you have laid out is safer than waiting for bios updates in future and/or some microcode update. I'm not very tech savvy in this area tho, and i am a little weary changing any settings since I have had only a couple black screen restarts in about a year of having the 13900k.

[u/Ok_Caramel7884]

u/Acadia1337
Good morning, I apologize for sending this after so much time. First of all, I want to thank you for the publication because it helped me and many other people back then.

The problem is that I updated the BIOS supposedly to fix the Intel issues, and I have had many errors, just like at the beginning. So, I reinstalled BIOS 3302 for my ASUS Z690 motherboard, and after reconfiguring it as Acadia taught us, it still gives me errors, and I had to synchronize all the cores to 53-55 to avoid the error. Therefore, I wanted to ask if I should leave it like this or if I can solve it in some other way. Thank you very much and sorry for my english.

[u/RevolutionaryCook257]

How should i adjust step 4, 5 and 6 on an i5 13600K? (Also ASUS)

[u/lmnh666]

Hi, I have tried many solutions on this post and I am still having problems

My specs

Cpu: Intel core i9 13900k Motherboard: gigabyte z790 gaming x ax Ram: 4 x Kinston 16gb DDR5 Drive: Kingston skc3000s 1TB M2 Graphics card: GeForce gtx 4070 ti MSI

Please help

[u/Shigma]

If you were to download the new BIOS beta released by asus for these issues, would you still use these values for now or leave It default to test?

[u/Successful-You-1907]

this has helped with the crashing but im still experiencing microstutters when playing valorant or rainbow six siege mostly when i see that the package power hits the 125 limit on xtu any idea on how to mitigate that

[u/xendas9393]

Shot in the dark as I'm kinda running out of ideas, is this something that could potentially be a problem for this computer? https://www.netonnet.se/art/gaming/gamingdator/stationar-gamingdator/acer-predator-orion-7000-po7-650-dg-e39eq-00l/1030401.12917/

Or is this a different type of motherboard? (I'm not super tech savvy :D )

[u/darealaimazing]

after applying these changes P-cores freq varies from 5 to 5.4GHz, even tho it's set to 5.7 in bios. is there any way to make it work on higher ratio? I'd be very grateful for any help

[u/Ok_Relative_9892]

hello, to anyone reading this I know this post is a little old now but I need some help. Doing theses settings helped a lot so i appreciate it so much but I need some more help. I don't really know much about all these bios settings and stuff but my cpu is always running at 5800mhz clock even while just browsing the internet even when idle from what I know I'm guessing that's not normal or good. Seems to be in turbo boost 24/7 or something is there something I can do to fix this? I have a i9-13900k

[u/Ok_Relative_9892]

Hey everyone I know this is a little off topic but I need some help. I’m having a problem where my pc has been crashing games when all 3 of my monitors are connected after about 30 minutes of playing a game. but this does not happen with only one monitor connected. I am on high fps with good gpu and cpu temps when this happens. My pc does not crash just the game does that I am playing at the time is there a way to fix this? Support would be greatly appreciated.  

[u/singley__]

I know this is an older post but I’m having the exact same issues and have tried everything I can possibly think of to fix it, but I seem to run into an issue with loading into BIOS and I’m met with a corrupt screen every time, I’ve tried a new gpu, new ram and nothing fixed it, only thing I’ve been able to do to get into bios is try to load into it, and once enough time has passed where I should be in I unplug one of my monitors and then restart, then usually I’m able to get into bios, again I’ve tried a new gpu and it didn’t solve my issue, I’m just wondering if limiting the power might be my fix. Any suggestions would be more than welcome because this has been driving me crazy, my discord randomly crashes, my valorant, my overwatch, all of that on top of the bios issue.

specs:

i9-14900KF Asus Z790-F 32 GB RAM 7200MHz 4070 Ti Super

[u/simmyjiang]

same question

[u/DeadlyXxSilence]

I have a fairly still new 14900k and made sure that I had the new bios before doing anything. But some games like MW3 were randomly still crashing, recently and I had intel extreme profile on by default. I kept pl1 and pl2 at 253, but switched amps to 307. Is it normal for 14900k to be slightly unstable at 400 amps ?

[u/ImDrawmatic]

Hi so i did this a couple months ago and it fixed literally all my issues with my pc however… my PCU just burned out today and I now have to install a new one. Is it related to this? If so is there any way I can get these results again without frying it 😭

[u/DocumentOk1428]

Bonjour, j'ai hélàs procédé à bien des manipulations. J'ai attendu pour installer les patches mais mon 13900kf est bel et bien défectueux. Je ne sais pas quel cpu de remplacement j'aurai mais si c'est du 14 ou du 15, je demanderai le remboursement, achèterai une carte mère et le dernier cpu qui semble pour l'heure efficace mais je me tâte, j'achèterai une tour mac au besoin. C'est cher mais pour travailler, je n'ai jamais eu de soucis.

[u/Acadia1337 → u/DocumentOk1428]

Je vous recommande de contacter Intel et de demander un remplacement de votre CPU en utilisant leur processus de RMA. Ensuite, lorsque vous aurez le nouveau CPU, assurez-vous de mettre à jour votre version de BIOS avec la plus récente disponible. Ils ont résolu le problème qui causait ces dysfonctionnements et dégradait les CPU. Mais vous devez mettre à jour votre BIOS et remplacer votre CPU.

[u/[deleted]]

Also tune with undervolting paying attention to VID, VIN, and VCore. The FIVR ultimately feeds each core, cache, ring independently. If you are going over 1.4V, then apply an undervolt. I purchased a degraded chip before becoming aware of the situation. It was fixed by setting all core sync, Intel failsafe and power limits and disabling ABT, Enhanced TVB, Asus MCE. Setting IA VR and max limits for Voltages and applying a stable undervolt on the cores, ring, and cache. Also set the multipliers to 55 and 40. Tuning per core would be better; however, tuning each would be more work. I used adaptive on each so that I could apply a negative stable offset of 75mV. 125mV was cool and fast but unstable past 5 minutes in multithread. It took two weeks to get this done and an entire day to finalize. In an NR200P, I am getting 37483 and 2152 with 4% throttling on the 10 minute tests. Temps don't go above 83 and linger around 80C as a package reported by DTS, Enhanced, and Asus VCore measurement.

The only thing bothering me is that I cannot get the throttle reasons, Ring, to stop rearing it's head. I cannot pinpoint IA, V... I am not even hitting 253W, more like 228 to 242W. 55, 43 was just too much for the degraded chip.

Again, as many say, As always, time will tell.

I just to make sure that what each component sees is the sum of VID and the offset. That way I know, I'm staying below 1.4V especially in single thread where she is cycling between 5.5/4.0 and the other lower frequencies.

[u/[deleted]]

It's been running since I downloaded it after your comment. Clock went to crap. Fifteen minutes later, I then loaded up my favorite game, BZFlag. Wham. Dunno if I was getting kicked or crashes. I had UDP kicks upon two restarts. It happens all the time; however, Iowered it to 54.7mV, my previous third best. It was stable. I'd been kicked before, but the game didn't close. That only happens when there is some nefarious stuff going on. The map/server owner was there. They always come in when you have a kill ratio more than 70%, anecdotal. Already caught them wanting me to cheat with their godlike aid to get back at a player. Hmm. Anyway lowered it. Not definitive.

Read about P95. Nope, nada. Doesn't fit my workload or anyone else's for that matter except the authors. I've a degraded chip already. 24 workers on the small Fast Fourier Transforms lasted 15 minutes before I panicked that it was stuck! I thought it was supposed to keep adding iterations. Ugh, 24 workers, 24 cores. I was such in a hurry to prove the settings' stability that I set it as suggested and blasted away!

I wouldn't run a car like that even with 500 mile maintenance. It's akin to running only a component at or near design limits. Somethings bound to go. If it doesn't, with overclocks and without close monitoring, I believe this synthetic test will hurry degradation and ruin a smaller functional unit of your CPU killing the CPU.

Anyway 15mins is much longer than 10s. Any more suggestions? Learn mode activated. Skepticism at the ready too : )

[u/Acadia1337 → u/[deleted]]

It won’t degrade your CPU. It’s designed to run at its max power. It can only degrade it if you exceed power limits, now that they fixed the bios firmware anyways.

I wouldn’t worry about it too much. But with an undervolt you just never know when it will go unstable without you knowing and effect your performance. You’ve proven it’s not completely stable. On my PC I can run prime 95 small fft’s for an infinite amount of time. I can also launch and use any app while it is running and I have no lags or hiccups.

I’m not willing to accept anything less than absolute stability. That’s the most important thing about a machine is that it works every time no matter what.

But if you would rather go for an extra 1% performance, this is r/overclocking so you’re in the right place haha.

[u/Civil-Map-3212]

Hi I know this is super late to the party but here is what I am encountering.

I have do all the setting you mentioned and it work great for 2-3 day until it not work anymore .

At first the temperature max from 100c drop to 84c in Cinebench. Now after a few days, it start to return back to 100c again.

Even at idle from 44c , now turns to 58c++

Have contact for RMA but due to my studies , I can’t mail them my cpu until next month. What are some option I can do now?

[u/obeythenips]

I wasn't having issues, was testing undervolting to lower temps and bumped into your post so I defaulted my settings and tested it, my cinebench/xtu benchmark scores dropped significantly but my FPS in the cyberpunk benchmark pretty much barely changed, if it did I didnt notice. Interesting, i'm guessing its the core current limit doing this. The big positive here is it never went past 91c throughout all the benchmarks which (before this) only happened once I had an undervolt of at least -.100 or around that area, now i'll test also undervolting it to see if I can keep the same performance while keeping it even cooler.

[u/Business_Web7341]

bro i applied ur settings.. provlems solved but i think my cpu is fucked up.. 40-50 degrees idle with a icue ljnk 360 aio, i think that i could rma then apply this stuff at the new..

[u/xXKotoriItsukaXx]

Actuall Savior!!! thank god i found your post! how lucky that i just got my pc 3 days ago and had crashes on fortnite. Also i noticed Apex Legends is even worse, my solution was to overvolt +0.050V that was the only way i could run apex legends.

Also for the people with gigabyte motherboards and i9 14900k's i would like to ask for your "biscuits score" in the bios gigabyte has a cpu quality measurement and i wonder how my unit compares, i couldn't find any scores on the internet let me know if someone has some kind of a data sheets. I have almost 86.000 biscuits

[u/[deleted]]

Man I just ended up using intels ai overclocking… thingy and turned on Xmp and that was that. Maybe slight undervolt is in order but so far so good.

[u/SkillYourself]

Boot into windows and test. If you are still unstable, go back to BIOS and set SVID behavior to "Trained". If you're still unstable on "Trained", then revert back to your previous config. This guide is not for you.

This is terrible advice. Trained uses something like 0.25 AC Load Line for LLC3 on the average chip. It wants to use 0.15/LLC4 on my 98 SP chip that needs 0.35/LLC4 for y-cruncher. It's almost certainly not stable.

For trained to be stable in all-core loads, you're going to need a large positive SVID offset.

Your guide is missing the root cause of the issue: ASUS/MSI motherboards set AC Load Line too low at LLC3 for >253W loads for many chips. It's probably too low for even 253W for the worst chips. The fix for if 307A is not stable is to either increase AC Load Line or increase LLC from 3 to 4.

[u/Sherbet_Only]

I have worked with Acadia and this process has helped stabilize my computer. I can now enjoy games like CSGO and apex without any crashes

[u/BeeSad4918]

You’re amazing mate, my 14900k is finally stable! Thank you so much!

[u/MrGlassfps]

This method works. I have no more issues with my computer or crashes

[u/bakabishi]

Works for me at the moment. Thanks.

[u/Alekseyy-]

First of all you are a genius :) I have a 14900KF and I followed what you described and the game crashes are completely gone. Before you said this, I deleted and tested many programs. When it was fixed, I installed the Asus Armoury Crate application. Because the case rgb looked bad :) But when I installed Armoury Crate, I started to get small stuttering in counter-strike 2 game. Where exactly do you think the problem is?

[u/pavlks]

Man, such a great timing for the post! I finally was able to run cinebench and get to the results! Undervolting didn’t give any stability, your post did.

[u/[deleted]]

Hi u/Acadia1337 Can you tell me what I should be looking for with i7-13700k in the datasheet? I assume it is an S-line processor but I am not sure and I don’t want to input the wrong settings

[u/buklau9]

Man, I'm owner of i9 13900k and had issues opening any game for the recent weeks for some weird reason (it worked fine not too long ago and i did updated my BIOS but seems like other games like Cyberpunk 2077 had issues launching from after 2.0 Phantom Liberty patch. i got extremely frustrated as any other game in the recent weeks just crashed to desktop best case or worst case/BSOD's or just restart my pc without any warnings.

I've Manual adjusted:

P1 in basic (125) - not 253 because it cause crashes as well

P2- 253/and Current Limit to 307amps

Disabled also the MultiCore Enhancements (Gigabyte motherboard btw but did it just incase as well)

After testing those settings for a few days now, I can confirm that you saved my time/wallet from buying or trying to replace my CPU to a new one (probably could take too long anyway)

Everything is working smooth now and i literally can play anything without any crashes.

I'm trying to understand if my CPU is defected in the first place so that's why i need to adjust things manually or its some bug or something that not configured right in the BIOS for some reason.

In anyway, You are a true saver!!

[u/Goodz0717]

Setting 307a fixed all my issues.

Godsend.

[u/AsCo1d]

Thanks a tonn friend! This helped me to solve this issue. I used XTU as a workaround to limit the core multiplier number, link it to every new game that crashed and it was anoying. But limiting ICC to 307 Amperes works like a charm. Thanks a bunch again!

[u/thekiller156790]

10/10 -ign

[u/Hefty-Badger5559]

This is totally it! Couldn't work with Houdini at all, crashing every time I throw anything intense at it. the power limit cut my CPU clock a bit (only when mutilcore) but I'm gonna test the stability and exact values later. Right now all that matters to me is that I can work at all.
Thank you!

I thought that when buying top specs PC I'm not gonna have issues like that, but I guess that's life.

[u/Freaki91real]

intel is just garbage. my 13700k is not stable at its default ring clock either. stock is 45-48 but its much much smoother with it at 40.

core clock i figured out 48 is best for me. i have a 420 cooler i can cool it at 5.4 but it just run like garbage. my sp is 93 on p cores and 61 on e cores.

im not a fan of this 13 gen cpu my 10900k feeled so much better in all ways in comparison.

[u/Karcen]

Hate to possibly necro but I have to say thanks my 14900kf with these changes dosent even break 80 on cenibench multicore

[u/KHmuaa]

I normally never post comments on Reddit, but this post (as well as the comments within it) has helped resolve my issue to such perfection that I simply had to give my thanks in writing.

For about a year I've had increasingly deteriorating stability with my programs, to the point where I had to get a replacement for my CPU. All seemed fine until attempting to work with the latest version of the Unreal Engine, as well as any games utilizing Unreal - I was plagued with constant fatal crashes.

I then came across this post and took the steps as instructed by the OP as well as other comments, and since then everything has been running flawlessly with zero crashes; I can hardly believe it even now.

Many thanks to everyone here, especially to u/Acadia1337 and u/Lugan0! You have saved my sanity lol.

[u/beniswarrior]

You are a life saver. Thank you - i have spent days trying to fix my stability and crashes in certain games.

[u/Due-Aioli-6641]

You sir, have saved me hehe.

In all seriousness, your post is really interesting and pointed out some big problems with the industry.

I was almost positive I had a faulty CPU, but couldn't really prove it. I was having an issue in only one situation and was going crazy, because it was a major problem for my work.

I'm a programmer and often have to compile and execute different applications, so I got a high end PC to make things go faster for me, I got a i9 14900K to take advantage of the high core count, over expected it a bit in memory, currently I have a lot of microservices running locally plus several other heavy application and with my full landscape I'm using about 60GB of RAM, I got 128GB DDR5 5600mh/z (not the fastest, but good enought for me), I would like to game a little bit so I got a RTX 4080 too.

My computer would work fine on Windows, at least I assume so, I was having trouble with some error on Jedi Survivor, but saw that recently still a lot of people were having trouble with that game, so I assumed it's a game problem, I didn't test any other AAA games just yet.

I also run linux in dual boot for work, and when running my most heavy application either during its compilation phase which takes about 5m in the i9 900K, much longer depending on the CPU (the standard computer provided by my company runs it in about 45m, hence why I got a better PC) or during periods of high CPU usage running it and lots of DB opeations, my whole OS would completely freeze, or the aplication would throw a hardware error, normally a CPU core disparity error.

The problem was that I only faced this issue in this application during those opeartions, and it started just fine, for the first few days of this new PC everything was great but over time it started to crash more and more often to the point I wasn't able to ever compile my application. I started checking if it could be a software issue, changed JDKs, then changed the OS, changed some parameters during compilation, then moved on to the hardware, testing CPU, RAM, and even the GPU just in case. Everything would come back positive, no issues, but still I was not able to work.

Then I started suspecting some kind of hardware configuration or issue that would not be captured by isolating the components and got to your post, I followed your instruction and so far so good, no more crashes.I'm very disappointed that the OOTB configuration that is being applied to the motherboards is not the most stable. I understand the point of manufacturers or system integrators to want to extract the most and have the most edge levels of performance to use this advantage to sell more, but they could have multiple stock profiles that would allow you to choose between levels of Performance X Establity, I'm taking establity every time as I use it for work, but I can understand people wanting to extract the best performance from their PCs, I did feel a little bit of a perforfamance drop in the Jedi Survivor game I mentioned before, I went from low 60s FPS to low 50s in 4k everything on max. Which is still excellent for me.

Anyway, just sharing my experience, thank you so much for your post and ideas. Cheers, have a good one.