PC Processors

[Madmardigan]

MOBO: ROG STRIX X570-E (BIOS 4602)

CPU: R9 5950X (upgrade from 5600X)

CPU COOLER: Noctua ND-D15

RAM: 64GB RAM [G.Skill Trident Z Neo (2x16GB) F4-3600C16D-32GTZNC]

GPU: 1050Ti 4GB

SSD: Samsung 980 Pro (500GB)

PSU: Corsair RM 750x

I purchased a few upgrades for my system recently.  I had 32GB system RAM and upgraded that to 64GB with matching RAM.  I also purchased a R9 5950X to replace a R5 5600X.  I never had freezes until I installed the CPU, RAM & bios update.  The really odd thing is that I can put this system under stress with testing programs (Cenebench, PowerMAX, Prime95, FurMark CPU Burner) and there's no issue.  The freeze tends to happen when installing apps or when I click on "GPU-Z" within FurMark.  It use to freeze when I tried installing Ryzen Master.  It's not frozen in any of my games nor aps, only on opening apps or attempting to install them.  The GHz of the processor seems to be up/down all over the place even when nothing is running but IDK if that means anything.

The memory passed windows memory check but I have not tried running memtest86 yet.  I'm running D.O.C.P. in the BIOS to put the RAM into 3600.

I read somewhere that someone else had similar issues and they turned off "Global C-STATE Control" in the bios.  I did that and the freezes became less frequent but still happened.  I also read that adjusting "Curve Optimizer" could help.  I tried +10 on the CPU and that seemed to really help.  The freeze was nearly gone.  I now have it @ +15 and only get a freeze if I attempt to open "GPU-Z" in FurMark.

Prior to these changes and even with freezes I was seeing my CPU jump to 5 GHz.  I don't see that anymore and it appears to go to 4.8GHz max but usually stabling around 4.6GHz.

I am concerned that this CPU is bad and while it appears to work fine atm it may go out on me in the future.  Do I need to RMA this CPU?  Is this normal behavior for my setup?

[Madmardigan]

Update:

I read on reddit that the processor needs to be set to negative in the curve optimizer and the cores depending on thier rating need to be adjusted indipendantly instead of as a whole.  I found the core rating in HWiNFO64 and used the first of the two numbers (#/#) as windows rating instead of the hardware rating.  I also set some other options in the bios as well.

PBO Advanced

PBO Limits

PPT:200

TDO:200

EDC: 150

Scalar: Auto

Curve Optimizer:

4 Best cores: -10

Next Two: -15

All Remaining: -20

Max Boost: +125 MHz

Everything is running well except after running benchmarks @ ultra settings on some games I had a freeze.  The problem seems to persist and I'm thinking about RMA'ing this CPU.  Any ideas?

[Madmardigan · Accepted solution]

I RMA'd the CPU and got another.  This one is showing no issues like the last, glad I exchanged it.

[jamiec1]

I had exactly the same issue and managed to fix it by fixing the voltage on the cpu rather than leaving it on auto. 

I have had the chip for 2 years and it suddenly started freezing when idle or not doing a lot. This got worse and worse. Fixing the voltage at 1.3 or 1.4 fixed it and it is now stable with no further problems as far as i can see. It seem like quite a few people have this issue. Hope this helps.  

[km782]

Thank you for posting this!  I had the same exact problem with a very similar components in my system.  I changed the voltage to 1.3 and the freezing has stopped (at least so far, it used to be every hour and now it has gone 12 hours without freezing).

Curious if you experimented with using positive voltage offsets instead of fixing the voltage?  Did you modify any other voltages in your system?

Also, is there an explanation for why this works?  I'm worried the CPU is dying (which has been making the freezing more frequent over time) in which case changing the voltages is only a temporary fix before this begins happening again?  I only have about a month left on my warranty from AMD if I want to RMA it...

Any thoughts here would be really appreciated!