[17.04] Skylake BCLK OC Problems

Support & Help Requests Hardware
#1

Hello! I’ve switched to Ubuntu Mate from Linux Mint and I’ve been enjoying the (in my opinion) cleaner UI and the better performance in games.

However, I can’t seem to get my i3-6100 overclocked using my Z170 motherboard. I can confirm it’s not a user error; the overclock config worked flawlessly with Mint after setting the max cstate to 0 in the grub config. Attempting the same thing with Ubuntu Mate leaves me unable to boot, which disappoints me, as the primary reason I went with the i3 was becuase I wanted i5 performance for cheap and was (admittedly) somewhat impatient.

I would prefer to be able to continue using Mate as my main install, although if required I could switch to Debian or another super-light OS then run Mate on top of it.

If you think you have a possible solution,then I’d love to hear it. Thank you in advance. =]

EDIT: It should be noted that overclocking the i3-6100 is considered “hacky” as it is not intended by Intel to be overclocked. However, other distros (e.g. Mint) are able to handle the overclock, so I am unable to see why Ubuntu MATE can’t.

#2

Can you please post the output of:

grep LINUX_DEFAULT /etc/default/grub

#3

Here you go:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=“quiet splash, intel_idle.max_cstate=0”

#4

I don’t think this coma between “splash” and “intel” should be there.

Edit: hm I tested the coma on my laptop and it works. So nevermind.
Do you have a specific error message when your machine fails to boot?

Edit2: can you post the output of:

lscpu

#5

Sure! Here’s my lscpu output:

Architecture:          x86_64
CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order:            Little Endian
CPU(s):                4
On-line CPU(s) list:   0-3
Thread(s) per core:    2
Core(s) per socket:    2
Socket(s):             1
NUMA node(s):          1
Vendor ID:             GenuineIntel
CPU family:            6
Model:                 94
Model name:            Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-6100 CPU @ 3.70GHz
Stepping:              3
CPU MHz:               799.890
CPU max MHz:           3700.0000
CPU min MHz:           800.0000
BogoMIPS:              7392.00
Virtualization:        VT-x
L1d cache:             32K
L1i cache:             32K
L2 cache:              256K
L3 cache:              3072K
NUMA node0 CPU(s):     0-3
Flags:                 fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid mpx rdseed adx smap clflushopt xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves dtherm arat pln pts hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp
#6

Alright, are you sure this is an overclockable model? Maybe you can try max_cstate=1 instead?

#7

I am certain it is NOT overclockable by default. This is why I have to do a BCLK overclock as opposed to changing the clock multiplier and keeping the BCLK at 100. BCLK overclocking was my only reason for buying a Z170 board to go with a non-K chip.

As I said, the overclock was working under Linux Mint, so I know it is not the fault of the hardware. It is ubuntu mate’s fault.

I will try max_cstate=1, but under Mint this didn’t work, so I don’t expect much change.

#8

Right.
What kernel were you using in Linux Mint when this was working?
Do you have any link to Linux Mint documentation that explains their overclocking tweaks?

#9

No, I do not. Instead I have a phoronix link of someone doing the tweak I used to fix it on Ubuntu as well: Link

I was using the latest Linux Mint Distro, 18.1 Serena. If it is relevant, I was using the Cinnamon DE.

#10

OK, I tried booting again with the OC to get the error message:

[0.018961] ACPI Error: [_SB_.PCI0.XHC_.RHUB.HS11] Namespace lookup failure, AE_NOT_FOUND (20160930/dswload-210)
[0.019026] ACPI Exception: AE_NOT_FOUND, During name lookup/catalog (20160930/psobject-227)
[0.019111] ACPI Exception: AE_NOT_FOUND, (SSDT:xh_rvp10) while loading table (20160930/xbxf load-228)
[0.019522] ACPI Error: 1 table load failures, 8 successful (20160930/tbxf load-246)

#11

After a bunch of OS hopping and realizing that none of them come close to Ubuntu Mate’s performance, I’ve tried 16.10 as well and it still crashes, but on the GRUB selection menu instead.

#12

Since this problem I’ve tried Mint Mate and added Ubuntu Mate’s repos to it, gaining me some nice performance but at the cost of it not looking as clean as Ubuntu Mate and possibly having issues with packages. Switching back to Ubuntu Mate would be nice, but I would like to be able to overclock my chip. If there is a solution that has been discovered, let me know.