Baffled at FX-8350 showing only two cores

Crevaan

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Hi everyone. I've been looking around these forums for a solution to my problem, but none of the solutions posted for similar problems have made any difference. I normally have no problems figuring things out on my own, but this one has me completely stumped, and so I finally decided to create an account to ask you good people for advice.

First, my setup:

AMD FX-8350 (stock, no OC-ing)
GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 rev3.0 (flashed to FC after ensuring Boot to Win7)
G.SKILL RipjawsX DDR3-1600 8GB x2
Rosewell Value 2 series 600W PSU
nVidia GTS 250 1GB
Western Digital WDC WD8000AARS SATA (800 GB)
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Raidmax Helios-VL Chassis
(that's all the important stuff; ask for anything I've missed)


I've just purchased the CPU, MBoard, RAM, and case from Newegg and received everything last week; the PSU, GPU, and HDD are from my previous build. I installed everything properly and passed POST with no problems, proceeded to install a fresh Win7 over the existing partition. Once that worked, I promptly flashed my BIOS to FC (from pre-installed FA). I should mention that all 8 cores were detected and individually monitored in the BIOS right from the start and still are. Once back in windows, I checked Task Manager and realized only 2 cores were showing, whereas Device Manager reads all 8. MSCONFIG's advanced boot tab only shows CPU0 and CPU1 as well. After some searching, I heard about the hotfixes Windows released for Piledriver architechtures, and so I installed SP1 and the hotfixes (no internet yet, Win Update is out of the question). Still only 2 cores. I've tried enabling CPU Unlock and disabling all power-saving options in the BIOS, disabling Cool n Quiet, enable High Performance mode, etc. Still nothing. Changed power settings in Windows to High Performance, updated CCC to newest and 'unparked' my cores; still shows only 2. HWiNFO detects 8 physical, 8 logical cores. GB's ET6 detects 8 cores, 2 threads. CPU-Z says 2 cores, 2 threads. Even tried manually setting cores to only 4 in the BIOS to see if that works; BIOS picks it up, nothing changes in Windows. Tried flashing BIOS to older FB, and nothing. And I've "loaded optimized defaults" a dozen times, inbetween each tweak/reboot; so much for a 'fail-safe fix'. Oddly, my CPU is only drawing 45W at any given moment (even when I tried playing Skyrim, abysmal performance; better performance on my old FX-5200, which is disheartening to say the least). I'd considered wattage being an issue, and using ThermalTake's online calculator, 582W is recommended (unplugged my DVD drives just in case, but still nothing) - even so, I'd hope a couple Watts over wouldn't disable more than half my cores. =\

And so here I am, wondering what the frack is going on, and whether or not I should be returning anything. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated. I came here first because I know there are a lot of talented people just from reading the dozens of related posts, and am confident someone here can help me. Thanks in advance for your help.

~Crevaan
 

Crevaan

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Thanks for the speedy reply.

It wasn't checked to begin with. I've also tried checking it, restart, unchecked, restart. Showed two cores the whole time.
 

cmi86

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+1 This exact response has led me to alot of best answers lol. I don't know what causes that option to be selected but it seems somewhat common.
 

Crevaan

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I must be the uncommon one; it was never checked and I've tried checking/un checking it.
 

Crevaan

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Thanks for the link. I had checked that one out; haven't tried removing and reinstalling the CPU yet. Interestingly, I've run into the 'hang after password' that seemed to fix it for them, but it hasn't done the trick for me yet.
 

Crevaan

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Haven't tried Prime95 yet; I'll dl it and try, report back here when done. (using my phone to use the net)

 

Crevaan

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Code:


Prime95 x64 only allows me to test for 2 cores; only 2 show on the CPU info. Tests running fine, both processors I can see are running under full load, avg temp 52C, avg 48 Watts. CPU fan doesn't seem to ever 'kick on' full aside from startup.
 

redeemer

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So you are sure your running the latest BIOS update? If so clear CMOS and load up default BIOS setting, in the BIOS check to see if all core are enabled. Once in windows check task manager again, also download CPU-Z.
 

Crevaan

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Yes, FC is the latest stable BIOS on GIGABYTE website for rev3. I just finished clearing CMOS, BIOS confirmed this;loaded defaults. (defaults re-enable all power-saving options and disable high-performance mode and 'core unlock', but I'm leaving default for now) All 8 cores shown in BIOS as before. Windows still shows only two. As stated above, and still now, CPU-Z x64 v1.64 shows 2 cores, 2 threads.
 

Crevaan

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So with nothing else left, I decided to reinstall windows again. Without SP1 or the hotfixes, suddenly all cores are showing. Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.