Just had a cpu fail -- seeking opinion

[Brooke]

2 weeks ago, the cpu failed on my main computer.

Took me a week to figure out it was the cpu because of the weird progression of the problem and confounding indications.  The sordid tale:
-- Opened an e-mail that was malware,
-- started doing virus scans,
-- d: drive sata hard disk directories stared to become unavailable (which reinforced malware indication) but could have been bad HD or bad cable, or bad sata port (which all needed checking out),
-- did fresh reinstall of OS to get around any potential malware issue,
-- found that hard disk and cables and sata port weren't the issue (through lots of swapping),
-- RAM wasn't issue (as did memtest),
-- temperature wasn't an issue (measured it over time),
-- then started getting network instability and increasing HD instability (which pointed to motherboard) but could be cpu or power supply (but cpu failure is so rare for me, and hwinfo showed fine power from psu)
-- then instability that would result in reboots without bsod (started with network instability and eventually would reboot)
-- event viewer wasn't much help, other than slight indication it was cpu (but although dealing with 100+ computers in my life, don't think I ever had cpu failure)
-- Could be mb, or psu, or cpu.  Cpu is most expensive and least likely, so:
-- replaced MB with new one, same issues
-- replaced PSU with new one, same issues
-- replaced cpu, issue solved

My question.  Do any of you computer experts think it would be at all viable to try underclocking that cpu to see if it would then work and be stable?  My feeling is not to bother, and not worth the effort.  But I am curious.  Any of you guys ever do such a thing?

[Spikes]

I guess the big question is what CPU is it?

[Meatwad]

Probably easier to replace the cpu

[Brooke]

Definitely easier (and my current plan) just to replace the cpu.

It's a 16-core AMD 3950x.  I can get a faster 16-core 5950x (which still is AM4 socket) for $340.  So not so much about the value.

I just got curious about it.  If any of you guys ever tried underclocking as a fix for a flaky cpu.

[Bizman]

My question.  Do any of you computer experts think it would be at all viable to try underclocking that cpu to see if it would then work and be stable?  My feeling is not to bother, and not worth the effort.  But I am curious.  Any of you guys ever do such a thing?

You already may know this: All CPU's of the same generation are made similar, the chips are baked and cut off in a 1½ ft diameter biscuit. The center ones are of best quality and are sold as the flagship CPU's. The closer to the rim you get the more defects there are but they still can utilize the chips by reducing the amount of cores, narrowing the bus etc. including, you guessed it, underclocking. If that's an industry standard, why not try it!

[icepac]

My current system uses a amd 555 black edition sold as a 2 core but it has 4 cores.    It was not sold as a 4 core because 2 two did not pass the testing done by the manufacturer.   

I originally overclocked everything using two cores for a year before enabling the other two and found all 4 to work fine……..for 10 years until increasing instability led me to go with stock clocking and I got another 2 years out of it but now I’m running it on two cores and it’s still working now.   

Through those years, I found that the heat cycling would slowly cause the processor to lose a couple of connections.     
Removing the processon and re-installing it has worked a few times. 

[Shuffler]

I dated a few women that were less than I expected. They were underclocked. I finally decided to go for the gold and have been married for 38 years now. So this works in life with many things.

[AKIron]

The X3D Ryzens claim the gaming performance titles but you can get a 5800X for 150 bucks.

[AKIron]

I dated a few women that were less than I expected. They were underclocked. I finally decided to go for the gold and have been married for 38 years now. So this works in life with many things.

43 years here but I do get clocked occasionally.

[Brooke]

I dated a few women that were less than I expected. They were underclocked.

Lolz! 

[hazmatt]

Definitely easier (and my current plan) just to replace the cpu.

It's a 16-core AMD 3950x.  I can get a faster 16-core 5950x (which still is AM4 socket) for $340.  So not so much about the value.

I just got curious about it.  If any of you guys ever tried underclocking as a fix for a flaky cpu.

Makes sense that it would work. Although I have not on a CPU but I have with a 1080 ti that was factory overclocked. I dropped it to 90% and capped the temp at 70C which made the fans run more. At 90% it was about the same speed as the reference card. It's now stable but wouldn't run for more then 30 minutes before without having issues.

[Getback]

I would have never thought to underclock. I'm a plug and play guy, drop it in and turn it on.

Best wishes on the new beast!

[Randy1]

Not sure about this but AH may only be using one primary core.  Newer games use more cores.

 Even old games like Iracing have minimum number of cores they use.  Iracing is working on moving from DX11 to DX12 which will use more cores.

I am guessing AH will not be moving to DX12.

[AKIron]

I've never seen AH tax more than one cpu nor that one very much.

This was up in practice offline.

[Randy1]

If you are near a Microcenter, they have built PCs on sell now and then.