How To Turn Off Overclocking? [Explained]

Overclocking your GPU or CPU is a great way of getting the maximum performance out of your hardware, but it does come at the cost of high temperatures and shorter lifespans. If you’ve tried overclocking, and it hasn’t worked out the way you intended, i.e., the system crashes, or the temperatures get way too high, then you should know how to turn off overclocking. In this article, we’ll discuss overclocking, how to disable it for GPU and CPU, and other questions regarding this topic.

Key Takeaways

• If you are facing any problems with your PC after overclocking either your CPU or GPU, it will be best to turn off overclocking.
• You can turn off CPU overclocking by going to the BIOS settings and reverting everything back to how it was before.
• You can turn off GPU overclocking by using any GPU overclocking software, such as MSI Afterburner. 

About Overclocking 

Overclocking means running hardware at a faster speed than the manufacturer’s intended one. When executed correctly, overclocking can improve the speed of a computer at the cost of stability and thermals. Overclocking your GPU and CPU will allow you to reach higher FPS in games and reduce the time spent completing various productive tasks such as rendering or editing.   

Modern CPUs come with base and turbo clock speeds, meaning that the processor changes frequencies depending on the amount of processing a task requires. The turbo clock is typically enabled in only a few CPU cores rather than all of them. By overclocking the CPU, you turn up the base clock and turn off the turbo boost clock to run the CPU at a higher clock. This higher clock may or may not be higher than the turbo boost clock and is enabled on all CPU cores. 

But overclocking can be expensive and time–consuming as you’d need to install the proper cooling solutions for the extra heat your CPU will produce. Moreover, you’d need to change other sensitive settings, such as voltage and fan speeds, along with the CPU’s frequency which requires a lot of research. Also, overclocking can damage the GPU, so make sure to take that into consideration if you are thinking about overclocking this component. 

How To Stop CPU Overclocking?

There are many different methods to answer the question of how to stop overclocking on the CPU. You can go through the BIOS and revert all the settings to the original, change the power settings in Windows or use different software such as AMD Overdrive or Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to disable overclocking on your CPU.  

From Windows

The easiest way of turning off overclocking on your PC is by changing the power settings on Windows. To do it, follow these steps.   

1. Go to Settings > System > Power & Sleep.  
2. Click the ‘Additional power settings‘ button on the right.  
3. Under ‘Preferred Plans,’ ensure that the ‘High performance‘ option is checked. Then click on ‘Change plan settings‘ on the right. 
4. Now click on ‘Change advanced power settings‘ at the bottom. 
5. Look for the ‘Processor power management‘ option on the menu and expand it.  
6. Expand the ‘Minimum processor state‘ and ‘Maximum processor state‘ options. 
7. Now change both values from 100% to 99%.  
8. Click ‘Apply‘ and Select ‘Ok.’ 

This will turn off the overclocking on your CPU.  

From BIOS/UEFI

To stop overclocking your CPU from BIOS, you must reverse all changes to its settings. To access the BIOS, restart your computer and repeatedly press a specific key to access the BIOS menu. This key differs from PC to PC, but you’ll be prompted by a message like ‘Press F10 key to enter startup’, so follow its instruction. Note that this message usually lasts for a short time, so you must be quick when pressing the key.  

To access your computer’s UEFI firmware, you need to go to Settings > Update & Security > Recovery, and under Advanced startup, click on ‘Restart now.’ Once your PC restarts, Windows will prompt you with a menu where you’ll have to navigate through Troubleshoot > Advanced options > UEFI Firmware Settings. This will restart your system and take you to the UEFI settings.   

Once you’ve accessed the BIOS/UEFI, follow these steps: 

1. Under the ‘Advanced‘ tab, select ‘Performance.’ 
2. Look for an option that says ‘OC‘ or ‘CPU Overclocking.’ Check if overclocking is enabled. 
3. If it is, then disable it and save changes.  
4. Exit the BIOS and restart your PC.   

Alternatively, if there’s an option for reverting your system to its default settings, select it, save changes and exit the BIOS/UEFI. If there’s no direct option to restore all settings to default, you’ll have to manually revert all the settings you changed. To do this, follow these steps: 

1. In the ‘CPU core ratio‘ settings, reverse all changes made when you overclocked your CPU back to the original. Do this for each core before proceeding to the next step. 
2. Next, change the ‘CPU core voltage values and ‘FSB Frequency’ settings to their default settings. 
3. Save the changes and exit the BIOS/UEFI menu. 

With that done, your CPU should be back to normal and running at its default clock speeds. If you encounter any unforeseen problems, it’s best to consult a PC technician.   

How To Tell If CPU Is Overclocked?

You can use CPU-Z software if you want to check whether your CPU is overclocked. Install the software and run it. If your CPU is overclocked, it’ll show that your CPU cores are running at higher clock speeds than their original ones.  

Alternatively, you could open the BIOS/UEFI and check if the core ratio and voltage values differ from the original. Also, check the FSB frequency values. If they are different from the defaults, then it means that your CPU is overclocked.

How To Stop GPU Overclocking? 

If you’re unsure whether your GPU can handle the new overclocking settings you’ve assigned to it or the temperatures are out of hand, then you should know how to turn off overclocking on a GPU. In this section, we’ll do just that.

1. Open MSI Afterburner. 
2. At the bottom, you’ll find the ‘Reset‘ button. Click on it to revert your GPU to its default settings. 
3. Restart your PC. 

When you restart your PC, your graphics card will run at the default settings applied by the manufacturer. You can check all the values from MSI Afterburner and compare them to your GPU’s default values to confirm if your GPU is overclocked.  

How To Tell If GPU Is Overclocked?

You can use many ways to check if your GPU is overclocked and its current clock speeds. The easiest way of doing this is by checking the clock speeds of your GPU on software called GPU-Z. This will show you both the default clock speed of your GPU and its current clock speed. If your current GPU clock speed isn’t the default, it means that your GPU is overclocked. 

How To Fix A Bad Overclock? 

If your GPU crashes after overclocking through MSI Afterburner, and there’s no display even after a restart, then here’s what you can do.  

1. Restart your PC three times until you see a prompt that says, ‘Please wait.’ After loading, you’ll see a ‘Recovery’ menu on your screen. 
2. Click on ‘See advanced repair options’ and navigate through Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings. Ensure that ‘Enable Safe Mode‘ is checked before clicking on ‘Restart.’ 
3. After the PC restarts, Windows will ask you for the settings you want to boot the Windows with. Among the different options, you’ll see ‘Enable Safe Mode‘ as option number 4. Press the F4 key to select it.  
4. You’ll need to go to the Control Panel and uninstall MSI Afterburner. Make sure that you don’t save the profile settings that caused the problem to occur in the first place.  
5. With that done, restart your PC.  

If you have a CPU with integrated graphics or a spare GPU, you could remove your current graphics card from your PC and uninstall MSI Afterburner using the integrated graphics or the spare GPU. This will fix your problem without you having to go through safe mode. 

Is Overclocking Safe? 

Generally, overclocking is seen as a controversial topic among PC enthusiasts and gamers. Some specifically buy PC components with overclocking in mind, while others stay in their hand due to the potential risks associated with it. And some significant risks are involved with overclocking your hardware, especially the CPU.  

While overclocking makes your processor run faster, it also consumes more power, which produces more heat, and if your PC doesn’t have adequate cooling measures installed, it may cause permanent damage to your CPU. Moreover, running the CPU at higher clock speeds for long periods can reduce its lifespan and decrease stability.

On the other hand, overclocking a GPU is considered a safe activity as there’s not much risk involved, even if you make a mistake when changing its values. You can revert these changes quite quickly, as mentioned in this article. While overclocking will reduce the lifespan of your GPU, it will also increase its performance, and you don’t need to install additional cooling solutions for the GPU.

Final Thoughts 

Overclocking can be difficult, and you might make a mistake or two during it. Still, if you follow the instructions in this article correctly, you can safely return your PC to its default settings. To give a brief overview, we discussed stopping CPU overclocking from Windows and BIOS/UEFI. Then we discussed how to disable overclocking on your GPU using MSI Afterburner. Lastly, we discussed different ways of checking your current GPU/CPU clock speeds with software like GPU–Z and CPU–Z and how overclocking can be dangerous to a PC. 

Other articles

• How To Lower CPU Temperature 

• How To Overclock RAM? Everything To Know