phenom x2 550 be unlocked x3 advice and disscusion invited

hi,
ive been here a little old while now
-and-
have just recently built my sig rig, i finished the job today with an arctic freezer 7 cooler and a cit mars case.
(its been a pocket money build an as and when sorta thing)
so as i said its been a while coming,
up to yet - ive unlocked a 3rd core and that's pretty much it really
- no overclock cuz when i nudge up the multiplier i get bsod?!
from what ive read with a decent cooler like this i should be able to hit 3.6 or so....correct? as well as not overclocking i have also not changed the voltages at all as i am not at all familiar with this side of pc's do i need to increase voltages as i now have an extra core consuming power? when i try to unlock all 4 it wont post, maybe more voltage would allow this to unlock?
ive read dolks guide to phenoms and its sailed straight over the limit of my understanding-so-
does anyone fancy helping me get some extra performance out of my phenom 550 please? but its baby steps if you follow
wicked forum wicked folk on it so how about helping me make my rig wicked?
i want it like this sorta

im off to dl cpuz id as i know ill be asked to shortly 8)

popeyejohnson said:

hi,
i have also not changed the voltages at all as i am not at all familiar with this side of pc's do i need to increase voltages as i now have an extra core consuming power? when i try to unlock all 4 it wont post, maybe more voltage would allow this to unlock?

Click to expand...

As time went on the 550's had actual bad cores hidden/locked. That appears to be what is wrong with the fourth core when you try to use it. And it also seems to have a weak third core since it seems unable to withstand any overclock at all without raising the Vcore which you need to do to test and also if you intend to get any amount of an overclock.

cpuid screen
popeye

You need to change the background that you are using on your computer or the colors you have assigned to CPUz, since I cannot read a blue on black on black of the forum at all. Just about useless what is posted to my eyes. And it is a graphic image and cannot highlight the text even for better viewing.

Maybe some can read it. I cannot. Will not be assisting in this thread at all.

first video up on youtube on how to take screen tells me to use gif for smaller size + higher quality
cpuzid d/led 10 mins ago opened and took screen shot - i changed nothing AT ALL

but thanks anyway, but in that last post i felt you came off like a prick so much so im closing my account, i come to places like this to learn, not to have the folk look down on the lads we less knowledge....ive had good advice off you before i know you got it in you but thats pissy and feminin and it aint for me....go lord it over some other ****er

U can learn, I just wanted the other helpers to know I could not see so they would step up and give an assist.

@ popeye, you're CPU-z screenshots are a bit tricky to read but I'm using my iPhone to view them and can zoom right in so I can make out the settings you have assigned and everything looks ok, (but please change you're theme or whatever is causing the blue txt) you may want to manually put in you're CPU vcore to something around 1.425 and stress the third core using prime95 to see if it is a viable core and if it passes then you're laughing and let the games commence, if it fails then I'm afraid it has been locked fôr a reason and its back to a dual core I'm afraid as it will cause loads of problems if you leave it unlocked (corrupted os)

Just some basic info since I have a 550BE unlocked to a quad.

Stock voltage for the 550 I have is 1.35. All four cores will boot fine at that voltage but under load the vcore drops since my motherboard doesn't have Load Line Calibration. This lead to random instability under stress testing. I currently have my vcore set to 1.425 in the bios (stock for a quad of this line is 1.4 I believe) and cpuz reports it as 1.44 in Windows. I run my cpu at 3.6Ghz like this with very decent temps.

While I was getting to know this cpu, I learned that there are a couple things you can try to attempt to get your unlocked cores 100% stable.

Sometimes bumping up the cpuNB voltage a touch will bring you some stability on the unlocked cores.

If your motherboard has advanced ACC options (the ability to advance or ****** individual core timings in % under acc settings) you can sometimes gain a bit more stability with a borderline unlocked core too but it takes some experimenting. (The starred out word apparently is on the word filter list even though it's also a technical term :/ )

In the end you may just have a cpu with bum extra cores, but if you keep playing with it and learning from the information in these forums, you may just get what you are hoping for along with some nice learning experience.



Edit: after blowing up the cpuz screenshot, your vcore is way low. We have the same revision of 550 (rb-c2) and they are kind of power hungry compared to the c3 revisions. Bump your vcore up to 1.4 and see if you can get stability under stress testing with the 3rd core unlocked. You may end up running into temp limit problems with that cooler once you start overclocking but you need to make sure it can even handle the heat output under load from the cpu once it has 1.4 vcore running to it.

If you tried to type the word r*e*t*a*r*d it's on the "no no" filter list.

It might not be correct to say the stock voltage for the 550 is 1.35. If you were to purchase a number of the same model CPU you would find quite a variation in the factory default voltage setting. This is something I never realized but recently learned here on the forum.

ok then, ive read back what i said earlier in the thread, decided im a div, pm'd apologies out and deleted the offending post, the wife will be going out to work in an hour and a half at wich point im going to give this overclocking biz a try hopefuly without all the bsod's so sychronise watches and see you back here 6pm uk time,
attention!
fall....OUT!

When you tried to unlock the extra core, did you use ACC, or did you go into the advanced tab in BIOS and manually unlock the third core? If you used ACC, then it probably unlocked both locked cores, and one of them may be bad enough to cause your system to be on the edge of stability, even at stock frequency. I would run a stress test on it at stock frequency, and see if it can even be stable there.

You may have to enable ACC first before you can access the individual core control tool to disable individual cores.

i have an unleashing option that if i select my rig wont post - it just does a boot loop and tells me overclock failed so i have it set to manual and 1 core unlocked, in a moment i am going to reboot into bios and take some photos as im not at all sure when it comes to vcore ram timings and such, i will be back soon with pics
id do it right now but im transcoding taken 2 to watch tonight....any one know anything about 3d?

Sorry, can't help you with the 3D.

never mind trents, just got a new 47" lcd 3d job but having difficultys, but thats for another forum
bios pics-seems i can only do 3 per post so just a moment and ill post the rest

more bios porn 8)

lastly

so thats what i see in bios....no vcore i can see but from what ive read here and elsewhere the name of the setting is different for different manufactures?
ps my multipliers been turned up to 3.3 max i can go before bsoding while trancoding/stresstesting
so i suppose im asking which is vcore and what safe valu to apply?

vcore="CPU Overvoltage" in your bios. "Vcore" is our shorthand for voltage to the CPU (cores).