Not your average help unlocking cores question..

[Kaya]

Update: I got 3 cores active and stable, the same applies though. I have core #0 Locked Active,#1 Disabled, #3 & #4 active. I can still take my choice of which cores I want to use, stable with any core I choose. Just not all 4 at the same time. I suppose Im at the point now, where maybe I should just be happy with an X3.


Hey guys,

I have a phenom 550 and Im trying to get the cores stable on a Biostar A770E3. I should say, the cores are stable, but only when I have any 2 active. I say any 2 meaning that I can have cores 0 and 4, 0 and 3, 0 and 2, and 0 and 1 all stable as long as there are only 2 active.

The processor shows up in windows as X4 even tho 2 cores need to be disabled. It reads 160W and as a Deneb.Ive OCCT'd the heck out of all for cores running with core #0, but when I try for 3 or 4 cores active, freeze at windows every time.

I cant get into much of my overclocking settings when the cores are unlocked or it wont post, but Im running my CPU voltage @ 1.45v and the CPU Northbridge is also OCd to 1.2v. I have access to chip voltage, and memory voltage as well, but not my multiplier or it wont post.


Any thoughts?


-Kaya

 

[trents]

What is the TDP rating of your motherboard?

 

[Kaya]

What is the TDP rating of your motherboard?

Good thinking. The TDP on the V1 bios was not able to run the 160w chips, but the bios revision past the inital bios fixed the issue. The MB is able to run @ 160w. I suppose people that revert back to the origional bios may have an issue there. I, however, didnt roll back my bios.


Another little update. I was up late last night trying everything I could think of to get 4 cores stable. No luck. I tried ACC manual settings + and - all the way up to 4% both ways. I tried changing voltages, OCing northbridge, Underclocking, OCing memory, everything to no avail.

I found out that my Core1 is the unstable core oddly enough. It is one of the cores that are activated @ stock. Thats the strange part. Core0 is greyed out, and core1 is active @ stock. I can only get stable with an OC if core1 is disabled, and 0,2,3 are active. I was able to push the same overclock as before the core was unlocked. 3.85ghz.

I can also find stability without overclocking or underclocking anything. If I set ACC to auto, reboot, and then disable core1, it works flawlessly @ 3.1ghz with no adjustment to anything else. When I try to overclock with core1 active, it wont even post, but when there is no overclocking, all 4 cores show up, and It will crash right after windows loads.

Im unsure as to how core1 can be active and healthy when run as a dual core, but unstable when ran as a quad..... Maybe there is something I cant see going on? Maybe core1 is bad, and when I boot as dualcore it just shows me core1 and core0 when core#1 is not actually core#1.Then AMD just disabled the core and my bios doesnt understand that core1 is disabled, and reassigns the core1 slot to core2......... If that makes sense???


-Kaya

 

[Kaya]

Well I got it stable on 4 cores @ 3.4ghz.

Its funny because all you ever hear people talking about it UPPING the voltage to try to get stability. My solution was the exact opposite. I needed to LOWER the voltage to achieve stability. This seriously hinders my OCing ability, but I think a X4 @ 3.4 is better than an X3 @ 3.8.

VCore was set in bios to 1.265v. Voltage reads 1.2v after loading windows.

Hope this helps someone who thought their cores were defective. Maybe they arent defective, but just not up to specs. Surely they couldnt sell an x4 BE that couldnt hit stock voltages, or even an X3 that is semi stable at higher voltages. So they label it an X2 and were done with it........

Until I got a hold of it.....


-Kaya

 

[RGone]

The cores are defective if they do not run at default specifications. If you have to change the normal settings to something else then the situation is not able to run specs and is in someway defective.

 

[Kaya]

The cores are defective if they do not run at default specifications. If you have to change the normal settings to something else then the situation is not able to run specs and is in someway defective.

Yeah. Its core1 with the problems. I suppose I can be happy with a X4 965 running at stock clocks, undervolted. All things considered, I still ended up being one of the lucky people who have a successful unlock.



-Kaya

 

[storm-chaser]

Yeah the manual core unlocking features are great. I purchased a 970T (Zosma) a while back , and when I unlocked all cores and it would just bluescreen like crazy, so I hunted down the bad core and just disabled it . Guess you can classify it as a "Pentacore" X5 @ 4.2GHz. I recommend the new biostar boards, they have great overclocking features.