Phenom II core locking

[joshua_8291]

Hi I bought a Phenom II X2 555 Black edition two days ago along with an ASUS M4A88T-M-LE Motherboard and 1 x 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz Kingston memory for a replacement PC. I run with BIOS ver 0304 with which I was successfully able to unlock and run windows. CPU-Z reported correctly 4 cores. I run windows XP 64 bit and just to test how things are for a few minutes, I played UT for a some 10 mins. Then I wanted to check my CPU core Temp, it did not show as expected!! I checked that CPU showed 48° C in Asus PC Probe with 4 cores idling. This was with stock heatsink fan. I decided to install the Cooler Master Hyper Tx3 which I had purchased on the same day. Before I could do this, I wanted to see thermal performance with the new heatsink fan. SO I decided to lock the 2 extra cores. I disabled Unleashing and the ACC in bios and saved it. Rebooted. It still shows Phenom II X4 and did not revert to Callisto core in CPU-Z inside windows. How do I do it?

 

[simon12]

Try resetting the bios.

 

[megamanx00]

Yup, reset the CMOS. You should have a jumper on your board to do that or you can just remove the small round battery for a minute and then put it back. Anyway, the thermal diodes on those two cores could have been defective which is why it wasn't sold as an X4.

 

[joshua_8291]

Try resetting the bios.

Hi,
Thanks for the reply! I was able to successfully lock it today morning by getting into BIOS, CPU Config and I turned off manually the extra cores while I had Unleashing enabled. I saved BIOS, rebooted. Then again went into BIOS, disabled ACC altogether, saved and rebooted. It seems to have locked the extra cores!! Also with the cores locked, I read CPU Core temps in speedfan which shows the cores idling at around 38 (I live in south India where room temperatures reach 40°C in the months between April and July. But for some reason, the socket sensor on my ASUS board seems to read ~49°C at idling. May be the sensor isn't giving proper voltages. But I am happy things are back to normal!! And the good thing is I am lucky to have a working quad core Phenom for which I paid only $90!! Need to change the HSF, unlock cores and overclock it and find my sweet spot for everyday use!! Wish me luck guys!!