Phenom II 2x Black Edition 555 on a MSI 785GM-P45 motherboard

I am new to the site and would appreciate it if some one can answer a question for me. I have a phenom 555 running on a MSI 785GM- P 45 motherboard. I bought the cpu with 2 cores locked. It took a while to unlock the other 2 one minute it would see them another it wouldn't. I used liveupdate 5.0 or maybe it was amds unlocking program, don't really remember. Any way is it possible the other 2 cores where locked by amd for a reason? Or are they still good to unlock and use? Also, if they are unstable or damaged, will it damaged my board by unlocking them. Also given the MSI and cpu I have can any one recommend overclock settings. Please email me directly @ [email protected] Thank you all for your time and efforts.

Sincerely,

jljamros40

No, you cannot hurt the motherboard by unlocking cores, even if they prove not to be stable. The only way to know if they are stable is to stress test them with a program made for this. Nearly all of us here use Prime95 for this purpose. If you run the Prime95 blend test for 20 minutes or so at stock frequencies you should know whether or not the unlocked cores are stable.

Cores are locked for a reason (usually) at the factory. Usually, they are locked because they simply are not viable. At other times they may be out of spec for say, power consumption, and will still be viable but may make the processor run a tad hotter than it normally would with the same amount of cores. I also suspect there are times when AMD may lock them for marketing reasons.

Finally, we cannot give you plug and play bios numbers for overclocking. You will need to be willing to experiment with your own hardware combination to see what it likes and doesn't like. This is especially true with MSI motherboards as most of us stay away from those. They have not proven to be very overclock friendly. The power phase components on the MSI boards are not very rugged.

Trents,
Thank you for your time, it is greatly appreciated! Is Prime95 freeware? What would be a good motherboard and cpu combination for my next build in your opinion? I have a Micro Center near by that I usually go to for parts. and I have an matx case.

I think if i had a matx case, I would be looking at an Intel cpu and mobo that does not heat up much. Maybe not nearly as much as getting a 6 or 8 core FX processor from AMD and getting some real g00dy out of it by overclocking to 4.5Ghz and maybe even a little beyond to let FX flex its' muscles.
RGone...ster.