Help me unlock cores (total noober)

famas

famas

famas

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Hello all

I'm a total newbie to any sort of overclocking so patients will be needed :)

I have a phenom 550BE and asus m4a785td-v evo, I'm trying to unlock some extra cores with the unleashing feature on the motherboard.

In the bios I've set advanced clock calibration to AUTO, set unleashing mode to ENABLED. this then gives me an option of how many cores I can use
x4
3x 0,1,2
3x 0,1,3

I set it to x4 then save and exit. the computer shuts down and after a second or two it comes on again but no signal is sent to teh monitor. I have to manually reset the system for it to start to post.

It starts to post as normaly then brings up a screen saying unleashing failed, pres f1 to enter bios or f2 to restore default settings. If I press f2 windows loads as normal.

Am I doing something wrong? I've heard I may need to increase vcore voltage but I'm unsure how to do this.

or

are the two locked cores duffers? And I wont be able to unlock them?


Also I have this memory
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-042-GS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517


Are these cpu-z readings correct for this memory? The memory says it should be 8-8-8-24 at 1600MZz, But cpu-z is reporting differently I think?

cpuz01k.jpg



cheers.
 
Ok did some research and some one suggested changing the CPU over voltage to 1.4000 and the HT link frequency to 1600MHz.

I tried doing that but its made no difference, still get the screen saying unleashing failed.
Is there any thing else I should try?
 
just had a look at unlocking,

You got the latest BIOS for your board?

Try upping the CPU/NB voltage from 1.2v to 1.35v

If no luck try upping the Vcore a bit more to 1.42xx

If no luck with unlocking both cores try unlocking just one to make it a tricore. If you add voltage and still nothing then sounds like the cores are nackered an you wont be able to unlock them. I'm no expert at this though hopefully some other guys have had the same issues, either way theres no guarantee of unlocking.

With the memory your running it at DDR-1333 if your RAM is DDR-1600 then put it to that in BIOS to get 800Mhz on CPU-Z. The RAM timings could be changed to the specified ones. Its not a bad thing running the RAM slower its just not getting the most out of the RAM and in some cases can be more stable to do so, but if its specified then it should be easily able to do that. Another thing with timmings you will have to set the RAM voltage aswell.

Good luck,

Kurt
 
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Think bios is up to date, I used the asus bios up date and it gave version 512 as the newest which is what im using.

yeah i knew there was no guarantee to unlock extra cores, just wanted to make sure I tried every thing befor giving up.

cheers for the info I'll give it a try, just one thing. I have an option CPU/NB frequency but this goes up in 100%. 200% 300%
I take it this is different from CPU/NB voltage?

What heading would I find the CPU/NB voltage under?


The RAM should run at 1600, What settings in the bios do I need to alter to get it running correctly.

thanks.
 
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cpu and nb voltage are two different things. Do you have the Motherboard user guide? It gives a description of each Bios option in there.
 
Yeah increase your CPU/NB it shouldn't go up by 100%! :S the setting should be near or next to the voltage increase for the Vcore.

once you find it increase it to around 1.35.

Looking at your mainboard your BIOS is actually not the newest i saw bioses that were version 604.

keep adding increments of voltage i'd say at 1.45 and 1.4 CPU/NB the cores are duds. Try unlocking one first of all the go for quad. Play around with your settings but dont increase voltages by crazy amounts at a time the most you wanna increase by is 0.02 even 0.01 volts can be the difference between stable and unstable.
 
Yeah found out the bios is well out dated there up in the 6xx now. I'll update the bios first.

For the CPU/NB voltage I've got a "VDDNB over voltage", Would this be it?

Also for the memory I've got a "memory clock mode"? which I can change to 800MHz
Is this the right setting for my RAM?

The Asus manual isn't very helpful.
 
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No, thats the stability of the voltages if i remember. It should just be called CPU/NB or NB volts add slight amount to one. If its the NB volts don't add too much on to it.

Yeah, change the RAM to run at 800Mhz.
 
Im probably being stupid but I cant see anyhitng to do with NB voltages.
heres a shot of the bios screen.
bios01.jpg



Also I changed the memory clock mode to 800MHz but it made my timing? 11-11-11-29
is this normaly/ok

thanks for your help.
 
Oh yeah, the setting is CPU VDDA Voltage which is basically another term for Northbridge voltage try changing that to 1.35.

Umm that sounds a bit slow you want to change them so its the standard 8-8-8-24 timings.

If it still doesn't unlock try adding +2 to the 2 cores that are disabled in the ACC function so its done manually, you won't need to change the standard 2 cores just the ones that are locked.
 
lol, still confused.com

any one know for sure :)

cheers.

oh and which values do I need to change to get the memory running at 8-8-8-24, when I set it to manual it brings up a list of about 20 different things?
 
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For memory timings see this article.

You only need to change CAS (tCL), tRCD, tRP and tRAS at first. Leave the rest to auto.

I am fairly certain about the VDDNB being the cpu-nb voltage (thats what I use) notice that on VDDA you do not have the option to change it to 1.35. I dont know what VDDA is though. Hence my uncertainty.

To be honest if you cannot get it to boot into quad with a few alterations then it does not look good. Once you have done enough fiddling to convince yourself that quad is not an option I would concentrate on seeing if you can get one of the tri core configurations to boot.

Good luck.
 
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nice one, cheers for that info eddyc.

I'm very slowly learning, there's a lot to take in :)

I'm pretty sure the two cores are duff on mine, just want to try all I can to give them a chance.
 
ok I've just entered the timming manually.

for the DRAM timming I have 4 options AUTO, DCT 0, DCT 1, and BOTH

I took it that DCT 0 and DCT 1 refered to each memory stick, I set it to both and had to input the timmings twice, once for each stick? is this correct?

so now,

DRAM frequency= 800MHz
DRAM timming= BOTH
TCL= 8
TRCD= 8
TRP= 8
TRAS= 24

this is what CPU-Z says, is this all correct?

cpuz01t.jpg


thanks.
 
Looks good to me.

You might also want to reduce the bank cycle time a bit but to be honest I have no idea what it does. And other than most people seem to have it around 20 something I know no more. I have mine set to 28....

If you are planning on doing some overclocking I would leave it as it is. And only fiddle with the less important settings after you have your stable overclock. It will most likely make almost no difference anyway. :rolleyes:

Oh also you might want to run memtest to check that your new timings / settings are all good with the memory.
 
No not had any luck, tried gradually increasing the vcore and vddnb to 1.4500 volts and adding +2 value to the extra cores, no joy at all. tried all settings with tri core as well.
after saving the bios the system shuts down, then restarts, loads the first Asus screen then I get a black screen saying unleashing failed.

I think the extra cores are dead but is there any thing else I can try?

I could give over clocking a try, Prepare yourselves for more questions :)

I have an aftermarket cooler, lowest i've seen core temps go is 15c normally around 17-18c underload around 30-35c

As I understand it you times your FSB by your CPU mulityplier?

So I have a 550be which is 3100MHz with a FSB of 200MHz, so I times 200 by 15.5 which gives me my 3100, Right?

So to get my CPU runnig at 3500MHz I would need to times 200 by 17.5 =3500

Is it simply a case of upping the PROCESSOR FREQUENCY MULITYPLIER a step at a time then checking the system stability. If all is ok you can try upping it some more, If the system becomes unstable is this why you would increase VCORE voltage?

Would it be possible to hit 3500MHz?
Whats a safe tempreture for my cpu to reach?

any help appreciated
 
Ahh sucks. I heard you need a certain batch number on the CPU anyways. They overclock pretty dam well though.

Yeah you got it man. As soon as your happy with your overclock you can add more to the HT link and NB if you want, normally these are more unstable. You won't need to add any volts to your NB when just overclocking the CPU though.

The higher overclock you get the more volts you are going to need, so when you add an increment and it still isn't stable add another and so on till stable. Watch them though you don't really want to be going over 1.500 for a 24/7 running PC as it reduces life by quite a bit (won't really matter if you upgrade your PC every 1-2 years or less though).

Just take it steady give a good stress test for each step in the overclock.

Last of all watch your temps and you will be fine. These AMD chips love to be less than 55c any higher than that and you will most probably find that there is instability.

Good luck with it,

Kurt
 
Ok, so I've had my first dabble at over clocking today. I started by just increasing the processor frequency multiplier a step at a time starting at 3200MHz.
AMD 550be for reference.

after each increase I ran prime95 for 20 mintues or so just to see if it chucked up any BSOD straight away.

I got it to 3500MHz, ran prime95 for 20 mins again with no problems. I then increased it to 3600MHz

Re booted and got a BSOD at windows login.

Keeping the multiplier at 3600MHz I increased the Vcore voltage gradually starting at 1.31200v

I had to increace the Vcore to 1.34375v befor it would stop bsod at login, and increase it further to 1.37500v for it not to crash as soon as I started prime95.

At 1.37500v I ran prime 95 for 10 mins or so then it came up with an error and one core stayed at 100% and the other went to 0% Is this a normal occurrence?

The last increase was to 1.38750v, It ran prime95 for an hour befor BSOD.

idle temps are 18-20c and 30-35c when prime95 is running.

I really just want to know if I'm going about this in the right way and whats a safe MAX Vcore voltage I can go to?

I know I should be running prime95 for at least 12-24hours but I'll do this at night.

If I can get it stable at 3600MHz I'll be pretty pleased considering this is my first ever attempt at overclocking.

cheers.


Edit*
Also what test should I be running in prime95? I've been using the blend test?
Is it better to use the small FFTs test or the in-place large FFTs test?
 
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