Overclock Issue

[AledJ]

Can a mod move this to 'SCAN 3XS Systems - After Sales Support' please? This was a 3XS build.

RMA Number: 77885
Invoice: 0002368154


To anyone at SCAN.......................I have just had my system back from you after a motherboard fault, and have only now been able to set it up again. Now my first point is this; When you wipe a customers SSD it may be an idea to inform them you are doing so, because I was a little surprised to find mine wiped. Luckily, I had made a back up of important pictures and files etc, but it still took me two hours to get everything sorted. Then I thought I would check the over clock speed using Aida64....................... Take a look at the pictures below, do you see anything wrong???






That SCAN is stock speed not over clocked as I had on the original build, or been told would happen on the phone, or that it would be done by email!!! I have already been without my system for a week which was ok because it needed to be fixed, but now having to send it back because of failed overclock correctly is a joke!! Before I had to send the system back the CPU clock was about 4300MHz, now it at the top of standared clock.

As I was writing this I wandered if there was an overclock profile in the BIOS, and sure enough there was but was not loaded for some reason. So I selected the overclock profile thinking I had solved it, but no! Instead the overclock profile failed and I have had to use the default settings because even trying the standard profile failed.

[Kie]

Did you buy it as a complete system from Scan? If so you should have had an email during/after the build/testing process with all the overclock settings they had implemented. Not sure though as to why they would wipe your SSD without asking you first, along with a valid explanation as to why that would be necessary? That is not good and very un-Scan like...

Kie

[walibe]

Always presume your data will be erased regardless of what is said as when it's out of your hands there's nothing you can do. Very strange on the over clocked settings. I presume you purchased it over clocked?

Nice processor by the way -

[AledJ]

Did you buy it as a complete system from Scan? If so you should have had an email during/after the build/testing process with all the overclock settings they had implemented. Not sure though as to why they would wipe your SSD without asking you first, along with a valid explanation as to why that would be necessary? That is not good and very un-Scan like...

Kie

Yes it was bought as a complete system bought from SCAN and when I first had it was overclocked, but as i mentioned because the motherboard was faulty I had to send it back. I had an email from from the tech guy that worked on the system who mentioned it might not have it back before the weekend, because they have to re-overclock it and burn it in again. Also had an generic update email to say it was finished and that another tech guy would double check the system, but never one to say what the overclock speed they achieved. I did half expect that my ssd may be wiped which is why i kept a backup of important files etc (will be doing an image now), but I at least expected SCAN to inform me that they would do this.

Always presume your data will be erased regardless of what is said as when it's out of your hands there's nothing you can do. Very strange on the over clocked settings. I presume you purchased it over clocked?

Nice processor by the way -

Yeah, i know it always a possibility which is why I made sure I kept some back up files on external HD, but the reason I was annoyed and suprised was because I even asked the guy on the phone if this would happen ( i was told no it wouldn't). The system has not been overclocked the speeds you see in the screen shot is the stock setting, it is simply using a boost tool to achieve a higher clock speed. If it was over clocked I should see at least 4200MHz.

It was set to the default setting of the board not running any specific profile at all!!

It is a nice processor when overclocked :-)

[AledJ]

So I think I have solved it:






The CPU core voltage was set to 1.2v and the cache voltage was 1.3v and after getting advice from a friend i changed these, so cpu voltage is 1.3v and cache voltage is 1.2v.

[ik9000]

Maybe Scan didn't wipe your SSD. Maybe the postman swapped it out on the way home and is now uploading your holiday pics to sharing sites and printing your web history in a front page spread of your local rag. Maybe you're on MI5's watch list and they swapped it out and GCHQ are interrogating everything you've ever done right now. Did you check the serial number matches yours? Do you even know the serial number? If not then you'll never know.

[AledJ]

Maybe Scan didn't wipe your SSD. Maybe the postman swapped it out on the way home and is now uploading your holiday pics to sharing sites and printing your web history in a front page spread of your local rag. Maybe you're on MI5's watch list and they swapped it out and GCHQ are interrogating everything you've ever done right now. Did you check the serial number matches yours? Do you even know the serial number? If not then you'll never know.

ik9000 that did make me smile But there will only be a bunch of Star Citizen screen shots.

[ik9000]

ik9000 that did make me smile But there will only be a bunch of Star Citizen screen shots.

But what if the feds decide you're not a star citizen? It could be the gulag for you!

[AledJ]

But what if the feds decide you're not a star citizen? It could be the gulag for you!

As long as I can take my pc with me, i'll be happy!

At the moment I want to put SCAN in the gulag!!

[mycarsavw]

Have Scan replied at all?

[AledJ]

Think I may have solved this with a help from a friend:

The test 1 screenshots were taken on the profile that I set up with the cpu voltage at 1.3 and cache voltage at 1.2 (the voltages were the only difference between them and profile 2), and as you can see the temps were ok using aida64. I then ran another test of aida 64 but this time with core temp and cpu-z open (forgot you wanted to see these first time round), and as you can see slightly higher temps but I had already run aida64 once before. Upon further testing the problems that I had seem to be due to a bug in the bios when loading a profile, and this would cause the system to freeze with a solid dash upon reboot. So the last thing I did was to set the cpu voltage back to 1.2 and the cache to 1.3 (which was what was in profile 2), and rebooted back into windows. I then went back into the bios to set the optimal default to check this worked, and it booted back inot windows. The last step was to try profile 2 (the overclock profile you set) which rebooted but before posting a flashing dash appeared which then turned soild, and then froze meaning i had to hard reboot. When I started the system again the message I had yesterday (saying the overclock had failed) did not appear, and I went back into the bios to check it was on profile and just exited again. This time it did boot into windows and I ran the same tests again (see screenshots test 3), and the temps were much lower. So i think this may be due to a bios bug, does that sound right?

Test 1:


Test 2:


Test 3:



Still a little annoyed that the system arrive at stock settings, and me and a friend have had to spend a long time sorting it. Have been in contact with SCAN and have sent them the finding above, but not had anythign repsonse on here from them.

[AledJ]

So have kept Scan informed by email about the issue and have had some info back, and this was one reply:


You could be right about the BIOS bug, it is very, very strange because I saved and loaded the profiles here as we have had issues with some X99 BIOS’ just freezing when you load the profile. It happens on a few ASUS X99 boards like the X99-A, X99-S etc. Perhaps it’s happened again on the new BIOS I tried which I thought would have fixed this little issue. Best way to get around it is to save the BIOS again to a different slot.

Again very strange why it got back to you at stock, QC would have picked up on that when they check it. I definitely tested the PC, the screenshots show I did this. I can’t really say why this has happened, I’ve asked QC and they said it went out Overclocked so the only other thing I can think of is maybe QC accidently did not shut down the PC properly and this caused the fail-safe on the board to kick in thinking the settings that were inserted caused a boot fail and BIOS reset so it can POST. This can happen if you turn the PC off before the POST screen – the board thinks it’s failed to POST as it didn’t get up to the POST stage. It’s the only thing I can think of. My profiles were there indicating I had tested it.

And then a later email with this advice:

Think you can go up to about 1.250v so as I said try 1.22-1.24v if you ever feel the need to, it is flexible. Hopefully you should not have to though as I didn’t see any problems with the CPU at 1.200v here while I was putting it through stress tests. The reason I upped the Cache Voltage is this helps with high MHz DDR4 Memory, same as the System Agent. There are still a few issues with high MHz DDR4 and x99 on occasion, you had the same problem when you first ordered the PC and it was being built in the 3XS lab – we needed to go through a few CPU’s to get it stable with the high DDR4 , messing with those voltage didn’t help. Memory Controllers are located on the CPU which is why you need to mess with the Cache and System Agent on some CPU’s as every CPU is different due to the way they are fabbed and the silicon yield which also affects how well a CPU can overclock above its recommended specification. Just as an example; the Intel recommended specification on DDR4 speeds across x99 is DDR4-2133MHz, they are upping it for Broadwell-E to DDR4-2400MHz.


But it now running stable on the overclock profile that Scan did, but the failed attempts must have been some BIOS bug.