Overclock not showing in Windows

[equazcion]

Intel Core i5 2500K, Gigabyte Z68 UD4

I've encountered this before on other chips and boards, and was never able to fix it. I'm sure the overclock would show on a benchmark, but I'd like to see the numbers show up in Windows (7 x64) for my own constant sense of gratification.

I assumed being the champion overclocker that it is, the 2500K could surely be tuned so as to disable any on-the-fly auto downclocking during low load. This must be possible. It simply must.

C1E, EIST, and Turbo are already disabled in bios. I still get the same 3.3GHz number in Windows. Has anyone overcome this before? How'd you do it?

 

[Cerb]

If you are just using Windows' own UI, it may not be accurate. I haven't checked a large sample size, but My Computer shows mine as 2.66 @ 2.66, even though it should be either 2.44 or 3.25 (E6750, all power saving enabled in BIOS).

CPU-Z is the easiest way to verify your speeds. MS has no reason to put any extra work into Windows to support running your computer out of spec.

 

[equazcion]

CPU-Z wasn't showing it either actually.

I just now finally got the true multiplier number to show up in CPU-Z, after disabling "C3/C6" in bios, which I found out is yet another power-saving feature to turn off. CPU-Z also shows the overclocked speed now.

No other software does, though. I got a few Windows "Gadgets" that are supposed to report clock speed in real time, but they all continue to show 3309MHz ever since my first bootup. Even PC Wizard is getting it a bit wrong -- tells me my multiplier is locked at 33x max, but does show the current multiplier as 43x (correct).

I hate computers. Thank you for the response, though

 

[MrTransistorm]

Do you have a specific reason for disabling turbo and power-saving features? Is there something wrong with letting the CPU downclock at idle?

I've been running my 2600K at 4.7 GHz with Turbo, EIST, C1e, and C3/C6 enabled for a few months now. I even use an offset (auto) voltage instead of a fixed Vcore. This allows it to idle at 1.6 Ghz with Vcore less than 1V. Under full load it goes up to 4.7 GHz at 1.392V.

Sandy Bridge isn't like previous platforms. You don't need to use a fixed Vcore and disable turbo and power-saving features unless you're going for a high overclock (>5 GHz). Otherwise you are just wasting power and possibly degrading your chip faster than necessary.

 

[equazcion]

Do you have a specific reason for disabling turbo and power-saving features? Is there something wrong with letting the CPU downclock at idle?

I've been running my 2600K at 4.7 GHz with Turbo, EIST, C1e, and C3/C6 enabled for a few months now. I even use an offset (auto) voltage instead of a fixed Vcore. This allows it to idle at 1.6 Ghz with Vcore less than 1V. Under full load it goes up to 4.7 GHz at 1.392V.

Sandy Bridge isn't like previous platforms. You don't need to use a fixed Vcore and disable turbo and power-saving features unless you're going for a high overclock (>5 GHz). Otherwise you are just wasting power and possibly degrading your chip faster than necessary.

I'm not necessarily planning to run the computer like this permanently, but while I'm tweaking the clock settings it would be nice not to be forced to test the PC under load in order to see the real max clocks.

Incidentally, I'm beginning to think PC-Wizard has it the most correct. PC-Wizard tells me that while my multiplier is indeed set at 40x, my bus speed has dropped down to 82MHz (from 100MHz as set in bios). This would indeed leave me with 3390MHz. I've disabled all CPU features I know of that might make such FSB/multiplier adjustments though... What is doing this?

Is my i5 2500k lowering my bus speed even when I manage to get my multiplier up? CPU-Z seems to have no idea about this, as its real-time clock speed field shows the clock hovering around 3990MHz. All other software reports 3390 or less.

Could it be that everyone who looks at CPU-Z to check for overclocking success are really getting inaccurate numbers, as it's not taking a real-time sample of the FSB, but just going by what the bios is set at? The evidence is pointing that way right now... Or is something just off-kilter in my system?

Help! How can I tell what my speed actually is?

 

[MrTransistorm]

I currently use CPUz 1.57.1 (necessary for B3 boards), Real Temp 3.67, and HWiNFO32 3.74-1244 beta. The three of them cover pretty much every parameter that I want to monitor.

I doubt that your bus is really dropping that low. Pretty much everything runs off of that clock, and many devices (such as those on PCIe) don't like run too much above or below 100 MHz. I've never seen my bus speed fluctuate in any monitor I've tried so far.

I'm not really sure what to trust for the current multiplier either. CPUz 1.57.1 jumps straight between x16 and x47. Real Temp 3.67 jumps around to different levels in between while idling. Under load they both go to x47. It's all kinda moot though. As long as it jumps up to x47 when needed, then I don't really need to know what exact multiplier is at idle.

 

[DirkGently1]

Do you have a specific reason for disabling turbo and power-saving features? Is there something wrong with letting the CPU downclock at idle?

I've been running my 2600K at 4.7 GHz with Turbo, EIST, C1e, and C3/C6 enabled for a few months now. I even use an offset (auto) voltage instead of a fixed Vcore. This allows it to idle at 1.6 Ghz with Vcore less than 1V. Under full load it goes up to 4.7 GHz at 1.392V.

Sandy Bridge isn't like previous platforms. You don't need to use a fixed Vcore and disable turbo and power-saving features unless you're going for a high overclock (>5 GHz). Otherwise you are just wasting power and possibly degrading your chip faster than necessary.

Exactly this. I always use power saving features so that for the 95% of the time when the CPU is practically idle, it's not running flat out for no reason. My C2Q is still running with the lower multi even when watching a HD movie (at a reasonable bit-rate), as it's off-loaded to the GPU.

If the OP wants to see all states in action then, as mentioned, he should monitor in CPU-Z whilst stressing the CPU. I can't conceive of a scenario where somebody who is overclocking isn't doing this already? My standard practise is to set the clock, boot, open CPU-Z/CoreTemp/Prime95 and monitor the lot.

EDIT: Looking around i'm left wondering if some of these monitoring tools are updated regularly? PC Wizard still lists 'Vista experience index' as a feature which is confusing. Perhaps some of them aren't compatable with contemporary hardware yet?

 

[Dadofamunky]

Windows never does. Not in my experience. Nothing to worry about.

 

[equazcion]

If the OP wants to see all states in action then, as mentioned, he should monitor in CPU-Z whilst stressing the CPU. I can't conceive of a scenario where somebody who is overclocking isn't doing this already? My standard practise is to set the clock, boot, open CPU-Z/CoreTemp/Prime95 and monitor the lot.

That's what I'm doing. The incongruence between readings of various programs is my concern, specifically PC-Wizard's claim that my bus speed has been downclocked; which would explain the low speeds reported in most of the other software I've tried. I'm hoping they're all wrong and CPU-Z is right (PC-Wizard is made by the same company as CPU-Z, FYI).

I just tried Gigabyte's Touch Bios software, a Windows-based program for reading and modifying bios settings, and it reports the higher speeds as CPU-Z does, so I guess that's a good sign. I just wish someone knew for sure that PC-Wizard et al generally have problems with these readings...

 

[betasub]

^ I can only assume that PC-Wizard is out-of-date. It is taking the CPU's fixed "rated speed" (3.33GHz) and the detected multiplier (40x in this OC'd case), and making the false conclusion that the bus speed must be 82~83 MHz. CPU's true speed at 40x multiplier is ~4GHz, because the bus speed should be fixed at (or close to) 100MHz.

 

[equazcion]

For kicks I tried re-enabling all the power-saving features along with turbo, and then all the programs meant to read the CPU clock in real-time started working. I set the Turbo to 43x and they're all reporting exactly that on load, 4.3GHz (down as low as 1.6GHz on idle).

^ I can only assume that PC-Wizard is out-of-date. It is taking the CPU's fixed "rated speed" (3.33GHz) and the detected multiplier (40x in this OC'd case), and making the false conclusion that the bus speed must be 82~83 MHz. CPU's true speed at 40x multiplier is ~4GHz, because the bus speed should be fixed at (or close to) 100MHz.

If I had to guess based on this, it looks like those programs ARE updated, but are expecting the 2500k to have its power-saving features turned on, and don't know how to read the clock if they're off? Just speculating.

Thanks everyone for your input!