EVGA 780i only sees two cores of Q6600

Subject says it... I've had this build running for a couple months now. Just primed it heavily recently... then ran it for the next week or so... come in from work the other day and it's just locked. Btw- it was seeing all four cores before.

Kill power, fired it back up, POSTs just fine, I can get into BIOS, tries to load XP... then nothing... no XP splash screen, no nothing.

Thought it might be something to do with the latest P07 bios for the board... I was always getting weird temp readings in bios, so I flashed back to P06.

After that I just noticed that on POST the machine is only reporting 2 CPUs. Not 4 CPUs as expected. When I go into bios there is a place to enable or disable specific cpu cores... there is an option for Core 2 & Core 3 but it is Disabled... I can't even move the bios selection onto those options to change them.

The only way I can get Windows to load is by disabling Core 1, which does have the option available for me to Disable it, leaving only a single core (Core 0).

I guess I'm not really expecting someone to have a definitive answer here... but what do you guys think? The board and cpu were both brand new... and I really can't believe that I've killed half the cpu. It's been topped with a TRUE and hasn't seen over ~1.4v. Very strange indeed... I don't know what else to do except swap out the cpu.

Try reseating the heatsink, and also check to make sure the CPUID Max Val option in the BIOS is set to Disabled.

To re-seat I've got to pull the board... will try that tomorrow... and if that doesn't work I'll be ready to pull another one of my quads and try it.

I believe the CPUID Max Val option is set to whatever bios Defaults loads. That's not an option I recall touching.

Even after loading bios Defaults and rebooting... still only sees two cores instead of four, so I don't believe I'm looking at an errant bios setting. Will double check though.

Thanks for the suggestion.

it happened on mine when i first tried to set it up, remember H? it saw my X3210 with only just 1 core under Vista!!!! when I installed it w/ XP Pro, it's been running fine for the pass few weeks! I think you were running XP already, I would say try to reinstall XP and see again??

p.s. yes, I still don't like the 780i at all!!!

The problem with mine is... it's not a Windows issue, it's a BIOS issue.

When the machine POSTs it says "Core 2 Quad Q6600: 2 CPUs"... or something to that effect. It should say 4 CPUs.

I remember there's a setting in the BIOS that will allow you to either Enable or Disable each of the core.

harlam357 said:

When I go into bios there is a place to enable or disable specific cpu cores... there is an option for Core 2 & Core 3 but it is Disabled... I can't even move the bios selection onto those options to change them.

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Meaning... the cores are there but the option to enable or disable cores 2 & 3 are just completely disabled (light gray color, not available to change their status from disabled to enabled).

I believe I've either got a short somewhere, or either the cpu or board has been damaged. I guess I won't really known until I play cpu swap.

Picture is worth... well, you know...



Confirmed, it's the board... the picture was taken with a different Q6600 socketed. The one that was in this board I moved to one of my EP35-DS4 boards and it's reporting all four cores as expected.

Guess it's time to call up EVGA and get an RMA.

Oh well... yeah, I guess I can't RMA it... see I bought this board here on OCF, and like a dumb@ss I registered it with EVGA.

I had the same problem bro, Except I could RMA at the time.

Got my new board back and everything has been fine for 7 months.

Sorry to hear.

Does it work with just a dual core?

I know that might sound stupid but if it's usable for just two cores then maybe you can sell it off to someone for fairly cheap without totally eating the previous cost of buying it.

harlam357 said:

Oh well... yeah, I guess I can't RMA it... see I bought this board here on OCF, and like a dumb@ss I registered it with EVGA.

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So if you registered the board, you cannot RMA? I'm cunfused

I thought by registering the board, it means you can RMA, not the opposite

Unless of course the registration of the board has a time frame in which you have a certain amount of time. After that you're SOL?

P-nut said:

I had the same problem bro, Except I could RMA at the time.

Got my new board back and everything has been fine for 7 months.

Sorry to hear.

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Thanks for your confirmation that this isn't an issolated incident. I wonder what the problem is? Something in the socket itself not allowing the cpu/board to communicate with the other 2 cores... or possibly something in the northbridge burnt out. I've read that some of these 780i board have terrible contact between the NB and its stock heatsink.

suineg said:

Does it work with just a dual core?

I know that might sound stupid but if it's usable for just two cores then maybe you can sell it off to someone for fairly cheap without totally eating the previous cost of buying it.

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Not sure... I only have one Intel DC in the house and it's my main. I will tear into just about any other rig to swap parts and test, but that one I tend to leave alone as much as possible. I'd rather just buy a cheap Intel DC or find one on the classys and test with that, which is what I'm probably going to do.

Nebulous said:

So if you registered the board, you cannot RMA? I'm cunfused

I thought by registering the board, it means you can RMA, not the opposite

Unless of course the registration of the board has a time frame in which you have a certain amount of time. After that you're SOL?

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The warranty docs on EVGA.com state that the warranty is valid to the original purchaser only. Even though I bought the board brand new, I mean NIB in the original shrink wrap, it's still purchased second hand and not through an authorized retailer. This has turned out not to be worth the ~$40 I saved on the board by buying it on the classys.

To be honest Nebulous, I thought the same thing... if I register the board (which can only be registered once on EVGA.com) then I receive the warranty. But, when I received the e-mail after requesting RMA they are now asking for the original invoice, which of course I don't have.

I still need to call them and see what they'll do... all I have is a For Sale thread, a PayPal receipt, and my word. You never know, maybe that will be enough.

Ahhh. How about contacting the original purchaser of the board you got it from? Hopefully they'll have the original sales reciept/invoice and help you.

This is the same thing DFI pulls with their products

Good luck, hope you get it worked out. It'll be shame if you can't get the board repaired/replaced.

Already did... haven't heard back from him yet.

I fear this is going to turn into a slightly expensive lesson... that I won't repeat again.