CPUz says my phenom ii x4 955 BE only has 2 cores

[slevin kelevra]

Ok first of all i just got a phenom ii x4 955 BE from a buddy of mine on the cheap, so i installed it because my m4a78 plus supports it and i have a AMD 6870 to go with it, After installing it a post message popped up saying new CPU inserted please hit F1 to go into bios and setup so i did looked everything over and it looked great mobo reads it fine i loaded up default settings and saved and quit.

Booted up windows 7 64 bit (not a fresh install) and windows system information reads it as it should, but my cpu gadget didnt it was only showing 2 cores and it running at it stock speed of 3.2ghz so i loaded up CPUz to make sure the gadget wasnt malfunctioning to find out it was right ( ) windows 7 is only reading 2 of the 4 cores on the CPU, now ive looked over other forums for answers and the closest thing i got was do a fresh install of windows 7 after formmating so i did and lost over 600gb of stuff i didnt want to loose because i dont have time to back everything up because i work on this pc everyday.

So after booting up the Fresh copy of windows 7 I load up bios and everything looks fine once again and then boot up my OS to find that its the same windows 7 64 bit is still reading only 2 cores, and please dont respond with go into MSCONFIG and boot and turn on the cores because that has nothing to do with it that is just for booting not for anything else! and performance task mgr has only 2 grids so im positive windows 7 is only reading 2 of the 4 cores out there,

Now the only thing i could think of it flashing my bios, BUT the bios i have now supports the CPU and i dont want to risk flashing it again and not get results so please if anyone has had this problem please help me out because im already pulling out my hair on this one Thanks in advanced

 

[ram1009]

First of all, maybe this is why you got it "on the cheap". I have two of these and both BIOSs have the ability to activate & deactivate each core separately. All you've said about your BIOS is that everything looks OK.

 

[slevin kelevra]

Thanks for the quit response BTW but i said it looks ok because the bios states it is a phenom ii x4 955 and all the credentials of a phenom ii x4 955 even the multiplyer unlock, if the bios couldn't read it im pretty sure correct me if i am wrong then the bios wouldn't give me any information on it all and i got it on the cheap because my friend now has a Fx cpu and no longer needs the 955,

here is my system specs FYI

MB: ASUS m4a78 plus
CPU: AMD phenom ii x4 955 BE
RAM: 5gb ddr2 kingston 800mhz
PSU: Diablotek 550w
GPU: HD 4850 512mb (Current) waiting to install the 6870 to avoid bottlenecking
HDD: 1tb seagate baracuda 7200rpm

now i am willing to flash the bios again but im not certain that is the problem here due to the mobo reading it but not the OS

 

[esrever]

check for a bio update. Generally something like this is an option in the bios.