Hi I am a bit stuck with this . I have an asrock n68 cs ucc mobo( not great but it works) I have put in a phenom x4 960t black edition. I have read that you can unlock it to a 6 core . I enabled the unlock feature in the bios however it still shows up as 4 core Am I neglecting to do something or is it not possible Any advice appreciated Ta Baz
I recently had problems with this, until I enabled the unlock feature and then restarted the computer.
I have enabled the unlock option in the menu with no joy . Asrock tout the board as being able to unlock cores ?
As AoE said have you restarted after unlocking? Not to be patronising, but sometimes the simple things get overlooked. I know this from experience lol
It might not even unlock. There is no guarantee of unlocking cores or them being stable if they do unlock.
I thought all cores, always unlock, but whether or not they are defective/stable or not is a different issue. Could be wrong however, but the 960T I thought was designed as a hex core, which is the primary reason I bought one.
Tried the obvious stuff . I have to conclude it's either the mobo or the CPU ? . I'm going for the board !
Do you have any specific options regards the unlocking feature? My mobo has the automatic unlock ( switch on the mobo & bios option ), but it also has a manual option which lets me choose which cores to unlock & which to disable; handy feature since my CPU unlocks to quad core, but the 4th core is unstable. There was a thread just a few days ago discussing unlocking of extra cores; if something is sold as a quad core, don't just assume it is actually a hex core & the manufacturer decided it was a good idea to sell it for cheaper as a quad core for no reason, that would be idiotic business sense. The reason the extra cores are hidden is usually because one or more is defective & so it makes more sense to sell the CPU as a lower model ( vs throwing away an otherwise functional CPU that is equal to a lesser model once the extra cores are hidden ), or because early runs produced low yields of usable CPUs, thus many older models are sold as lesser models, and newer runs with higher yields get sold as full-fat versions ( or something like that, read a few articles once about the issue a while back ).
Thanks for the info , from what you have described , the CPU sounds at fault as I have enabled all the option
Technically its not a fault, the chips are badged as X4s and the other cores may/may not work. With mine i actually unlocked the addition cores from within windows first using the software bundled with my Gigabyte board then had to go into the BIOS and do the same for it to take effect. As mentioned check you BIOS revision as it may need an update to enable core unlocking also check the bundled tuning software as it may be the same.
this is the thing, I thought that these chips specifically the 960t thubus all unlocked to 6 but 4 of them would certainly work as opposed to the hidden 2 which might not. Overall I hope OP can unlock its a great chip for the price, excellent o/c talent and 6 cores for under £100 is excellent value for money. Mine right now,although overclocked a bit, spanks an i5 960 in cinebench, which is a £230 chip and close to beating an 243 opteron.
Some not all im afraid, AMD ship these with 4 cores they know work the other may work or may have been disabled for good reason not all chips are created equally which is why some clock really well but another of the same model may not. ill agree they are brilliant chips mine sat happily at 4Ghz with all six cores buzzing away im not benching currently fully due to other issues but geekbench is producing good numbers for the cost of the chip
