AMD Phenom II X2 550 no longer unlocks cores

[boommeistro]

When I first built my comp I installed ,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103680

CPU,
on mother board

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128392

on start up the 2 extra cores were unlockable and functioning. Deciding that having two extra cores on the stock heat sink was probably not a good idea I invested in the cooler master Hyper N520

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103057

. After installing the new heat sink I noticed that the unlocked cores no longer showed up when i checked on pc wizard and the side bar gadget that lets you monitor cores. When I checked the bios they show up as unlocked, but once i'm actually booted they don't appear to be unlocked performance wise or in diagnostics. The only signifigant difference I'm seeing is that the new heat sink had a 3 pin connector while the stock one had 4. It never been much of an issue but I'm starting to see it bottle neck and wanted to see if anyone here had a solution. I haven't tried switching back to the stock heat sink because the Hyper N520 requires the motherboard be taken off for installation/removal and is a bit of a pain. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The OS i'm running is Windows 7 ultimate 64-bit

 

[amdfangirl]

Get CPU-Z and screenshot it, then report back soldier!

 

[boommeistro]

It been awhile, but how do i attach images?

 

[amdfangirl]

wrap

[img][/img]

around the image URL

See this thread: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/32686-12-posting-images-styling-posts

 

[boommeistro]

.......Where do I get the image URL?

 

[amdfangirl]

Right click on a picture and select "copy image URL". Paste between the two tags.

 

[boommeistro]

Not getting a "copy URL" option. Do I need to open it with a certain type of program?

 

[djabhi003]

First Upload it to image sharing sites!
Like www.tinypic.com ...

Then Do as amdfangirl said!

 

[boommeistro]

If I did this right this first image should be the processor under normal circumstances unlocked.

This second image should be what it looks like when I try to unlock the cores.

When I first built and tried the Unlocking it displayed a similar screen but listed 4 cores, after the new heat sink it only showed as the first image, a few months ago when I tried CPU-Z It was still giving me the same as in image one, the change in name when i try to unlock is a slight improvement from the initial situation. I've been attemtping to unlock cores by going to the intelligent tweaker in bios and then changed EC Firmware Selection to hybrid and the ACC to auto. I've tried several variations of the settings there but have only gotten the 2 above results. Thanks for the patience on the image posting.

 

[jockey]

Shot 2 is showing it as an X4 B50. Try using AMD overdrives' status monitor, or CPUID HW monitor to see if all 4 cores are functioning. Could simply be a software glitch. My unlocked 555 occasionally shows different readings when functioning properly. If the problem persists, I have an unlockable 550 that I could play with and see if I get similar mis-reads.

 

[boommeistro]

Here's the Screen shots of CPUID and AMD overdrive

AMD overdrive seems to show that the cores are there but inactive

 

[HEXiT]

swapping out the hsf would not cause any cores to suddely go off line. either something you did in bios or windows has caused it.

 

[boommeistro]

Well that's all that happened, I removed the heat sink, removed the leftover thermal paste, reapplied new paste, and mounted the new heat sink. My first thought was that I may have inadvertently agreed to a bios update. I had heard there was disputes with AMD and mother board companies due to these unlocking features. But I still had all the same bios menus so I dismissed the idea. If it was like this when I first got the CPU I would have dismissed it as me just getting a batch that couldn't unlock, but It did unlock originally so something happened. Is there anything else I should check?

 

[boommeistro]

Came across, http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/unlock-phenom-ii,review-31556-3.html ,
I'm trying the acc all core combinations now to see if that re-unlocks the cores


Edit: Doesn't seem like any of the combinations worked.

 

[boommeistro]

Update; came across a few other forum pages where people have had the same issue. None seem to have some up with a definitive answer. It appears that some people unlock the cores sucesfully, then for some reason or other after a crash, reboot, or just being turned off, the cores disappear. It appears that I just has an unlucky coincidental core loss when i powered my system off to install the new heatsink. One theory was that the motherboards used only supported up to a certain wattage on the CPU, once unlocked the increased wattage demand would stop the cores from unlocking or cause the system to crash. Where would I find the max supported wattage for the CPU socket? ( I am doubtful this is the case, would't the system have crashed the instant I tried unlocking the cores?) Any way I figure it can't hurt to check.

 

[boommeistro]

Well no answers yet, it looks like I'm just going to have to pay out for a quad core.

 

[amdfangirl]

Wait a while, if you can.

Prices are dropping.

You can get a Phenom II X6 1035t for $125 on Newegg.

 

[boommeistro]

Yeah i was looking at the Phenom II x4 955 maybe even a 970. Bike just got jacked so I'm out of cash for awhile because of the new one. I'lll probably just wait for some epic steal on black friday. My roomie is telling me to hold out till bulldozer, I haven't really paid attention to the CPU news since i first built my system, is there any definitive date out yet?

 

[amdfangirl]

Bad News:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20110906133712_AMD_Reschedules_Launch_of_FX_Series_Chips_tctober_Changes_Launch_Lineup.html

 

[boommeistro]

Wow, that's actually sooner than I was hearing about around here. I was hearing dates around January 2012. If Bulldozer is coming out as soon as october, Then I can hold off on a CPU investment. I only hope they aren't too far out of my budget. Going to try one more thing before saving up for a bulldozer. Time to try the bios update. So is a bios update as easy as a download and run or do I need to flash it or something?

 

[amdfangirl]

You need to flash it.

Keep in mind these are only rumours. Take with a grain of salt.

 

[boommeistro]

To flash a bios update all i need to do is download the new bios, move it to a flash drive, and boot off of the flash drive right?

 

[boommeistro]

Finally figured it out. Some help from friends and other forums in conjunction to possibilitties being eliminated here and it came down to going into msconfig unchecking the number of processors under the advanced settings and restarting. After that all 4 cores were active and visible.