Results of running Prime95 stress test has me questioning the intelligence to OC

I've had Windows 10 running quite well now for a little over a week. The increased RAM certainly has things being able to have many things running at once, but when playing games like Starcraft 2 or Cities Skylines, the cpu is still not working all that fast.

I would like to try unlocking that fourth core now. I've looked into things as much as I can on my own and now have just a few questions here.
According to this site, http://www.cpu-world.com/info/AMD/Unlocking_cores_and_L3.html, it appears my cpu was a base Deneb core with potential of a 4thcore and L3Cache.
Also, my motherboard is a chipset southbridge710, so it should have the Advanced clock calibration setting in bios.

The only thing making me hesitate is the various forum posts found when searching of people saying when they set the ACC to auto it black screens them and won't POST. I've never had to reset CMOS before, and it seems a bit daunting.

So my question are:

1. How likely is it to be forced to reset CMOS when attempting this? I mean, it is a regular feature of the Mobo so you would think it shouldn't screw things up that bad.

2. Aside from resetting CMOS, is there any worse problems that could arise? Like, frying the MoBo or Cpu. I don't have a different cpu to use if I run into such a problem, and near as I can tell the AM3 socket cpu's just aren't sold anywhere anymore.

Please let me know your thoughts on this, answers or correct me on anything I might understand wrongly.
Thank you.

LB19 said:

So my question are:

1. How likely is it to be forced to reset CMOS when attempting this? I mean, it is a regular feature of the Mobo so you would think it shouldn't screw things up that bad.

2. Aside from resetting CMOS, is there any worse problems that could arise? Like, frying the MoBo or Cpu. I don't have a different cpu to use if I run into such a problem, and near as I can tell the AM3 socket cpu's just aren't sold anywhere anymore.

Please let me know your thoughts on this, answers or correct me on anything I might understand wrongly.

Click to expand...

1. Any type of overclocking runs the likelihood of needing a CMOS reset. You shouldn't let this scare you any more than a BSOD. It's just your rig telling you it doesn't like a setting and can't function properly. A CMOS reset is simply resetting to factory defaults. Take good notes so you can know how to get back to where you are. If you have profiles in your BIOS it's a really good idea to save to one now. Resetting a CMOS is no where near as risky as Flashing a BIOS.

2. It is incredibly unlikely to fry your Mobo or CPU from attempting to unlock a core. Generally a failed attempt will require a CMOS reset and upon a clean boot resetting your overclock settings from step one and your back to where you left off. As far as replacements I'm not sure where you are from but ebay has hundreds of AM3 CPU's available. Yes they are not new and likely have been beaten up a bit but "sometimes" you can find some good deals. (BBW there are a LOT of phonies out there too.) Great AM3 motherboards on the other hand are getting difficult to find but AM3+ are very easy and backwards compatible so no worries there either.

My thoughts, take notes on your current stable settings and give it a try. If it fails reset CMOS, boot up clean, then re-enter your current settings. No harm in trying. IMO the minimal risk is worth the reward.

Blaylock said:

Take good notes so you can know how to get back to where you are. If you have profiles in your BIOS it's a really good idea to save to one now. Resetting a CMOS is no where near as risky as Flashing a BIOS.

Click to expand...

I actually attached wires to the CMOS Reset jumpers after my BIOS flash failed b/c I would have had to take out the GPU everytime otherwise I'm not quite sure whether the flash or the resets did delete my OC profiles, but I'd think the CMOS reset would delete them too, so have pen & paper handy.

On a side note: I may be overcautious but when I expect to see many BSODs I like to do the overclocking on a different OS (preferably on a different drive) so I won't have to trouble shoot a corrupted windows installation in case it doesn't like the BSODs (never happend though).

Bios flash deletes profiles...resets don't do that.

You don't need to be a paranoid android and I erclock on a different os. Bud, you are ambient overclocking, that typically doesn't Bork anything...particularly if you have half a clue, which you have covered easily.