Sudden loss of overclockability after bios upgrade

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unixguru

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I am running a Phenom II 555 BE on a MSI 890 GXM-G65. The CPU HSF is a CM 212+. I had unlocked the extra cores, set the CPU voltage in the bios to 1.4v, and acheived a stable over clock of 205 x 18 = 3.7 Ghz. I had run Prime95 for 8 hrs as stability test and it has run perfeclty for over 6 Months through many demanding games, and some matlab simulation also ran perfectly for many days continously .

Recently MSI has a released a bios upgrade which brings AM3+ compatability to this motherboard. For no reason other than curiosity I upgraded a perfectly stable and nice setup to this new BIOS yesterday. I faced a lot of issues with this new BIOS. It would not do 3.7 GHZ. stable, the system will power off after a few minutes of prime95. So I upped the voltage to 1.45 and just for fun, increased the multiplier to 19. Again the system powered off after a few minutes of Prime. But this time after a reboot I was shocked to find that the Cores had become locked again! I restarted the PC, and in the BIOS tried to unlock again. But, I found ot that no matter how many times I could not get the cores to unlock. So, I downgraded the BIOS back to the older version (1.8) and thankfully the cores unlocked. But, even without overclocking the system would shutdown after a few minutes of prime95. With the cores locked, everything was rock-hard stable.

After panicking for some time, I searched the internet and I found that in many cases undervolting could help. So after a trial and error, I have found that the system is perfectly stable (40 min. OCCT Linpack, followd by 30 mins. prime95 in-place fft.) at 3.3 Ghz. with the cpu voltage set to 1.27v. The system immediately powers off if I set the voltage any higher in prime95. I noticed that eventhough prime95 shuts down the system games, and even AIDA64 stability tests seem to work fine.

So can someone explain what has happened? I am a little dissapointed at the loss of 400 Mhz., but I do want to know how it happened. Could it be that the extra cores were locked for precisely this reason? They seem to work well in most circumstances, but there is a chance that the defects in the cores could randomly show-up some day. Or is it possible that my not so wise decision to upgrade the bios lead to all this? Is it even possible for a BIOS upgrade to change the overclockability of the processor even after downgrading back to the older BIOS, or are the issues I am facing now a result of my over-adventerous overclocking damaged the locked core, or may be some part of the motheboard? Hopefully, the motherboard is not damaged, is there anyway to check this?

I had originally purchased my system in August last year, when the 555 BE was the most recommended processor on TE because of the high probability of unlocking. At that time I did not anticipate that I would buy a radeon 6950 a few months later. So is running the Phenom II B55 at 3.3 GHZ. a big bottleneck? I guess there should'nt be much difference between 3.3 and 3.7 right? What should I do now? I am not averse to selling of my motherboard and processor after Bulldozer launches, but how much do you think I will get on TE for the combo, given the fact that there is a chance that something could be damaged on the Mobo or processor? Or, should I just be happy with 3.3 GHz. till a game I like comes along which is severly limited by the CPU?

I guess I am asking way too many questions, but I spent the whole day on this and am ver depressed. On top of that I have heck of lot of work to get done by tommorow and I cannot concentrate with my current frame mind. I keep getting this negative thought that my system is going to stop working when I need it the most. I hope I am wrong!
 
Have you tried reflashing the older BIOS again? Perhaps the older BIOS wasn't reflashed properly this time or perhaps you've got the version wrong.

Edit - You worry too much. 400Mhz wouldn't make any real time drop difference in performance and even in gaming you'd probably get a frame drop of 2fps. Tbh this isn't anything to get completely depressed to the point you can't work properly. Go buy a bottle of booze or call up an old friend or figure out some way to cheer yourself up.
 
Its not uncommon that a BIOS upgrade locks out overclocking or reduce your overclock potential or lock out other features. BIOS is at the end of the day software and while there can be improvements in newer revisions, there can also be bugs. The difference from regular software is that BIOS interacts with hardware at a very low level and bugs can have drastic effects on the overall system.

For instance trying googling and you will get a look the hell that BIOS upgrades have unleashed on various sandy bridge motherboards. There are instances of RAM getting locked to 1333MHz, Not able to change Turbo multiplier at all etc. There were other problems like system unable to come out of sleep as well. People have often bricked their motherboards even while following the proper instructions to the letter. On the bright side Your motherboard is at least still working and your CPU is working as per specs.

The moral of the story is to never upgrade a BIOS unless you have an issue with your existing BIOS. People cannot often resist the urge to upgrade even if the upgrade is only changing things that they don't need. That has been the reason for downfall in many a case. You can't believe the number of cases you will see on the internet where people upgraded the BIOS just for the heck of it and paid for it in various ways.

In my 14 years of building computers for myself and friends, I have had need for a BIOS upgrade only once and that was the only time that I have ever upgraded the BIOS. If the existing BIOS is working for me, I don't care about upgrading to a newer one.
 
The moral of the story is to never upgrade a BIOS unless you have an issue with your existing BIOS. People cannot often resist the urge to upgrade even if the upgrade is only changing things that they don't need. That has been the reason for downfall in many a case. You can't believe the number of cases you will see on the internet where people upgraded the BIOS just for the heck of it and paid for it in various ways.
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I have learnt this the hard way, but I am curious why even after downgrading the BIOS, I am still unable to push voltage beyond 1.27 when the exact same BIOS was working fine with 1.4v just 2 days ago. Anyway I am also very conservative with BIOS upgrades but the latest one adds AM3+ support and support for 3 TB+ hard disks, both of which I felt are important in the future. Guess I should have waited till I really needed these features.
 
An update. I did a lot of research on the internet and found out that the issue I am facing could be releated to the issue of MSI 890 series boards blowing up on six core processors sometimes even at stock voltages and clocks. Why I suspect this is that in many forums, people say that it usually happens when the voltage is set to > 1.45v which I had done to experiment with the new BIOS. Eventhoguh I am runing a quadcore, as it is an unlcoked one there is a chance that it was locked because it consumes more power than a 955, thus at 1.45v it could quite well be consuming as much as a 1090t at stock. Since the computer just shutdown (usually bad overclocks lead to BSOD), I am assuming it was because of some protection mechanicsm of the motherboard. Note that both the CPU and the system temperatures hover around 40-45 on full load both of which are very good temperatures. Moreover, when I lock any one of the cores to make it a tricore processor, the system is rock hard stable at 3.7 ghz at 1.4v. I did not go any higher for obvious reasons. My conclusion is that setting the voltage to 1.45v has caused some permananet damage to the motherboard. This leads to me belive that if I shove in a 1100t, it is not going to work even at stock. My questions now are
[1]. Is my theory correct or just paronoia?
[2]. I had originally planned to upgrade to a bulldozer 6/8 core or Phenom 1100t depending on price/perfomance in August. Is there a chance that the upgrade may blow up my motherboard?
[3]. Can I RMA my motherboard when I have no proof but only a belief that it will not work with six core processors? It seems to be working very well in tricore mode, 3.7 ghz. at 1.4v is pretty decent.
 
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