How do you unlock cores ONE-BY-ONE?

I have a 2nd Phenom II X2 555 that I'm playing with on an ASRock 780G SB710 board.
I can unlock all 4 cores and go into windows, but OCCT won't load... it errors out. OCCT does load if I run stock dual-core.

I decided to try Prime95 small FFT and I broke 3 hours stable and then manually stopped it.

Here are my questions:
1. How do you unlock cores one-by-one? I'm guessing you CAN'T. There is ACC by "per core" and I can't unlock with 2%, 2%, 2%, 2%. I have to run like 2%, 2%, 8-12%, forget the last one... but the 3rd core I have to mess with the %age to get the machine to POST.

Now, running 0% doesn't DISABLE the core b/c task manger will still show 4 cores.

Does anyone know of a way to unlock one core @ a time?? Or is it not possible. There's also another option in BIOS called CPU Active Core Control, and I tried playing with it but no idea how it works. When I enable it, it'll only show Core1 Active Control, unless I enable ACC, save, exit/reboot, then I'll see this...


CPU Active Core Control



I've tried messing with it, but still I see 4 cores in task manager.

Basically, can I unlock cores one-by-one, and has anyone really figured out how the %ages work, or is it really trial and error for hours upon hours of configurations.

My best bet is this: You core unlock the cores you can, and than use CPU Downcore to disable cores.

I don't think I've heard of a way to disable particular cores. If I'd had to guess, I'd say that the Downcore works as if it goes from 5->1 or 3->1 in your case.

I'd have to re-read the white sheets to remember how it works.

Its basically either stock dual core or acc enabled 4 cores. I thought there were ways to go tri core on a dual core chip if quad was unstable.

Anyway, what's downcore? The core active control? I tried before and I froze during windows 7 loadup screen...

Its basically either stock dual core or acc enabled 4 cores. I thought there were ways to go tri core on a dual core chip if quad was unstable.

Anyway, what's downcore? The core active control? I tried before and I froze during windows 7 loadup screen...

Contact Asus and see what they say.

Its a gigabyte bored and that wouldn't solve anything anyway.

Let me look more into tomorrow.

Dolk said:

Its a gigabyte bored and that wouldn't solve anything anyway.

Let me look more into tomorrow.

Click to expand...

No, it's not my gigabyte board. It's my ASRock 780G SB710 board that I use for messing around.

on my asus board you go to ACC enable it then go to activate cpu cores and press either core,0,1,2 for three cores or core,0,1,3
idk if the bios are the same htough hope this helps

g0dM@n said:

Its basically either stock dual core or acc enabled 4 cores. I thought there were ways to go tri core on a dual core chip if quad was unstable.

Anyway, what's downcore? The core active control? I tried before and I froze during windows 7 loadup screen...

Click to expand...

Many boards can unlock to an X3 but not all of them. I take it you have the latest BIOS ...?

My Asus would let me choose which to unlock but my Gigabyte board doesn't, it sounds like it has the same options as your Asrock.

A bit annoying for me cos my 550BE will run as a tri-core but not quad, it did on the Asus.

QuietIce said:

Many boards can unlock to an X3 but not all of them. I take it you have the latest BIOS ...?

Click to expand...

Yes, of course I do. Your assumption is correct.

Prunecandy said:

on my asus board you go to ACC enable it then go to activate cpu cores and press either core,0,1,2 for three cores or core,0,1,3
idk if the bios are the same htough hope this helps

Click to expand...

Wow, now that is something I'd LOVE!

stowenrat said:

My Asus would let me choose which to unlock but my Gigabyte board doesn't, it sounds like it has the same options as your Asrock.

A bit annoying for me cos my 550BE will run as a tri-core but not quad, it did on the Asus.

Click to expand...

DARN!!! So it depends on the board manufacturer... well, I guess that's good news and bad news... good news it's possible, yet bad news since most people can't do it!

I have 2 Gigabyte boards that have successfully locked dual-cores in them. First is the one in my sig, the Gigabyte 790XT with a 555 @ X4, and the second is a 5000+ AM2+ 2.2ghz that fully unlocks to quad on my Gigabyte GA-MA785GM-US2H.

I checked the BIOS on both Gigabyte boards and they both didn't seem to have an option of unlocking cores separately.

I have one more board, a Biostar, that I can check to see what options it has. The only other board is an ECS Black and for some reason ECS doesn't support ACC so I can't use that one either...

My Biostar board has an option for Force Tri Core but I don't know if you can choose which core to put into the Tri Core. I run as a quad.

coonmanx said:

My Biostar board has an option for Force Tri Core but I don't know if you can choose which core to put into the Tri Core. I run as a quad.

Click to expand...

Interesting... I should try one of my biostar boards then...

You are too greedy,U ACTUALLY try to get 4 cores out of a dual core cpu,I think u get at most 3 cores.

I easily got 4 cores.

Thomas73 said:

You are too greedy,U ACTUALLY try to get 4 cores out of a dual core cpu,I think u get at most 3 cores.

Click to expand...

You can actually get a quad core out of it but it just depends on if you have a good chip or not since these are theoretically quad cores made into duals.

Exactly. I got lucky. My quad is solid. Only had to raise the CPU-NB voltage up to 1.22.

coonmanx said:

Exactly. I got lucky. My quad is solid. Only had to raise the CPU-NB voltage up to 1.22.

Click to expand...

Oh wow... I didn't know CPU-NB helped that much.
So even for stock clocks, in order to unlock you had to up the CPU-NB?

No I unlocked fine, but then noticed that it was hanging sometimes while booting. I made the adjustment and since then have had no problems.

coonmanx said:

No I unlocked fine, but then noticed that it was hanging sometimes while booting. I made the adjustment and since then have had no problems.

Click to expand...

NO WAY!!
I'm gonna have to test my other X2 555 again then. I got sick of not knowing how to really tweak it b/c mine was a bit unstable in windows... so I was going to sell it b/c I don't have much time playing around with CPUs anymore, but I'll give it ONE MORE SHOT based on what you explained.

What's REALLY FUNNY is that last night before I went to bed, I raised the CPU-NB on a 5000+ X2 chip I have (unlocked to quad!!). It's stock 2.2ghz and ran 2.75ghz with OCCT stable, but was failing in OCCT: Linpack... last night I upped the CPU-NB +0.1v and I've stabilized a decent overclock.

Since you also gained stability from that, I feel confident enough to give it a shot, so I'll have to set some time for that.

Thanks!