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Athlon II X3 - Unlock 4th Core?

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18 Oct 2010
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13
Can someone point me in the right direction?I am trying to attempt to unlock the 4th core of my Athlon II X3 450 on a Gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H.

I have found what I believe to be the relevant part of the BIOS, which is shown in this image. As highlighted, I have changed 'CPU Unlock' to enabled, then 'CPU Core Control' to manual, however listed below that I have CPU Core 0, 1 and 2 - no 4th (Core 3)...

Does this mean that my 4th core is not unlockable, or am I doing something wrong?
 
i think AMD stopped core unlocking in the 8 series chipsets.

This isn't the impression I am getting from various reviews:

http://www.itreviews.co.uk/hardware/h2429.htm said:
Gigabyte - GA-880GMA-UD2H review

The first task with the Gigabyte was to update the BIOS from a USB flash drive and after that we used the CPU unlock and CPU core control features in the BIOS to unlock the fourth core of our Phenom II X3 720 processor.
 
Yeah, although they are quad-core dies aren't they?

Quad core dies indeed, have you tried booting with those settings enabled?

The cores won't be unlocked until the firmware updates after you save and exit the bios it should update, and restart after a few seconds.

Then check how many cores you've got with CPU-Z or seomthing like it in windows :)


Good luck!
 
I agree - save and restart after changing those settings - should unlock any dormant (and functional) cores.

Good luck from me too! :)

gt
 
I have enabled those settings, saved to CMOS and rebooted, then going back into the BIOS I guess I was expecting to see a 4th core in that list (on the original image, but saying CPU Core 0-3), whether or not it was stable to use.

Since starting this thread I have found this however:
http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic said:
Re: GA-880GA-UD3H - unlock cores on Phenom II 555 BE

You're absolutely right about better binning, and luck of the draw, however, the issue here isn't so much unstable unlocked cores as it is inability to detect and unlock cores at all on 8xx boards. The BIOS incorrectly shows the unlock options as only Core 0 and Core 1, instead of Core 2 and Core 3 and does not unlock them, whereas other motherboards do.

Which doesn't seem to have come to a resolution...


Will see what Windows says when I get it installed, currently waiting on a replacement HDD as the one I got was DOA. Should be able to test at the weekend.
 
This isn't the impression I am getting from various reviews:

AMD put a stop to it with the SB850 southbridge but some of the vendors have added their own unlocking methods, it could be that Gigabyte's method is still a little buggy.
 
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In any of the cpu unlock options in the BIOS is there a "ALL cores" option, on mine i have set mine to All cores and its unlocked to a quad core (Phenom 2 555 to 955)
 
Depends on how well coded the application is :)

It's probably just for the sake of it :) it's a great feeling getting something like this for free :D
 
Nope, not had any luck so far. BIOS is still only giving me the ability to disable 2 of the 3 cores, rather than enable any additional ones, even after flashing to the latest version.

I live in hope and will update this thread if I get anywhere.
 
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