2 of my 4 Cores are Running at Half Speed

[DonnyTechMaster]

Not sure why this is happening, but 2 of my 4 cores (cores 2 & 3) are running at half the speed of my primary cores. Is this normal?

Also, I've noticed that my Clock speed isn't running at max speed even though I changed my power options to High Performance.

Thanks for any help in advance 😀

 

[geofelt]

More correctly, you have two cores and 4 threads.
AMD architecture has processing units that share resources between two threads.
I have not seen this task manager before, but I assume windows 10 is somehow able to separate out activity.
If your app uses the resources that have one copy that must be shared, I might expect this behavior.
I do not know how they calculate maximum speed of 4.19Ghz, but 2.77GHz is 66% of 4.19.

 

[DonnyTechMaster]

More correctly, you have two cores and 4 threads.
AMD architecture has processing units that share resources between two threads.
I have not seen this task manager before, but I assume windows 10 is somehow able to separate out activity.
If your app uses the resources that have one copy that must be shared, I might expect this behavior.
I do not know how they calculate maximum speed of 4.19Ghz, but 2.77GHz is 66% of 4.19.

Yeah sorry I misspoke. I'm aware that my CPU uses 2 physical cores and 4 logical processors, but would that cause this kind of behavior? And yes, this is Windows 10's updated Task Manager.

P.S. I also forgot to mention that my CPU is overclocked from 3.4Ghz to 4.2Ghz, and all of the power saving features in the BIOS have been disabled. That shouldn't matter, but I suppose it's worth noting.

 

[rtware923]

The task manager cpu clock speed is not always accurate...(Especially with overclocks my i5 at 4.5Ghz reads 5.9Ghz) Try using CPU-Z to check that. As far as the load it could just be that the program isnt optimized to use that many threads at once. What programs are running?

 

[atomicWAR]

clearly your overclock is not recognizing properly. have you checked you speeds with cpu-z? if you get a low reading there then your cores aren't hitting your targeted overclock for what ever reason. As for cores 2 and 3 running half speed thats not the case. two threads are at full tilt and the other two are running at approx. 33% load. Why that is happening is anybody's guess at this point. try running handbreak or another well threaded app to see if you can hit 100% on all 4 threads.

 

[atomicWAR]

it is not uncommon for task manager to have errors as mentioned but i you look on the far right you do max out at 4.19 ghz. mine says 4.16 ghz for speed on my i7 3930k @4.2 and 3.2ghz for max which is stock speeds (basically reversed from yours). again check cpu-z and see what you get.

 

[DonnyTechMaster]

clearly your overclock is not recognizing properly. have you checked you speeds with cpu-z? if you get a low reading there then your cores aren't hitting your targeted overclock for what ever reason. As for cores 2 and 3 running half speed thats not the case. two threads are at full tilt and the other two are running at approx. 33% load. Why that is happening is anybody's guess at this point. try running handbreak or another well threaded app to see if you can hit 100% on all 4 threads.

Here are my results with CPU-Z

 

[atomicWAR]

clearly your overclock is not recognizing properly. have you checked you speeds with cpu-z? if you get a low reading there then your cores aren't hitting your targeted overclock for what ever reason. As for cores 2 and 3 running half speed thats not the case. two threads are at full tilt and the other two are running at approx. 33% load. Why that is happening is anybody's guess at this point. try running handbreak or another well threaded app to see if you can hit 100% on all 4 threads.

Here are my results with CPU-Z

Now that is oddball. Sorry it took me so long to replay, I woke up sick in the middle of the night and been giving my temperpedic some extra love today. So clearly something is up by your cpu-z post. I have honestly never seen a core by any manufacturer behave quite like that. Maybe you have a bad/defective module or possibly the motherboard is the issue giving it the wrong multiplier. You said you made sure everything in regards to power saving was off in bios. I would give you bios another look just in case. It's possible a setting is missed somewhere. Also try putting a stock clock on the chip and see if you still get the same clock difference anomaly and LMK the results. I'll do some research in the mean time to see if I can help more and will post what I find.

 

[DonnyTechMaster]

clearly your overclock is not recognizing properly. have you checked you speeds with cpu-z? if you get a low reading there then your cores aren't hitting your targeted overclock for what ever reason. As for cores 2 and 3 running half speed thats not the case. two threads are at full tilt and the other two are running at approx. 33% load. Why that is happening is anybody's guess at this point. try running handbreak or another well threaded app to see if you can hit 100% on all 4 threads.

Here are my results with CPU-Z

Now that is oddball. Sorry it took me so long to replay, I woke up sick in the middle of the night and been giving my temperpedic some extra love today. So clearly something is up by your cpu-z post. I have honestly never seen a core by any manufacturer behave quite like that. Maybe you have a bad/defective module or possibly the motherboard is the issue giving it the wrong multiplier. You said you made sure everything in regards to power saving was off in bios. I would give you bios another look just in case. It's possible a setting is missed somewhere. Also try putting a stock clock on the chip and see if you still get the same clock difference anomaly and LMK the results. I'll do some research in the mean time to see if I can help more and will post what I find.

Looks like I'm getting the same problem after reverting to the stock clock setting of 3.4Ghz. Not sure what's going on.

 

[DonnyTechMaster]

For anyone who has this same problem in the future, I managed to solve it by Removing my CMOS battery, waiting a minute, reconnecting it to the motherboard, and choosing "load optimized defaults" upon boot. It seems that while I was overclocking, some of my settings did not save correctly and got corrupted. A simple CMOS reset was all it took to fix it. Hope this helps 😀

 

[atomicWAR]

glad you found a fix!! I don't know why I didn't mention resetting CMOS, I should have. Regardless glad you were able to resolve the issue.

 

[DonnyTechMaster]

glad you found a fix!! I don't know why I didn't mention resetting CMOS, I should have. Regardless glad you were able to resolve the issue.

Thanks for your help along the way, definitely helped me narrow it down 😀

 

[8350rocks]

More correctly, you have two cores and 4 threads.
AMD architecture has processing units that share resources between two threads.
I have not seen this task manager before, but I assume windows 10 is somehow able to separate out activity.
If your app uses the resources that have one copy that must be shared, I might expect this behavior.
I do not know how they calculate maximum speed of 4.19Ghz, but 2.77GHz is 66% of 4.19.

Yeah sorry I misspoke. I'm aware that my CPU uses 2 physical cores and 4 logical processors, but would that cause this kind of behavior? And yes, this is Windows 10's updated Task Manager.

P.S. I also forgot to mention that my CPU is overclocked from 3.4Ghz to 4.2Ghz, and all of the power saving features in the BIOS have been disabled. That shouldn't matter, but I suppose it's worth noting.

Disable all the "C states" in your BIOS as well, if you have not already...those are also capable of allowing a down clock for thermal throttling.

What you may do, and I would advise, is invest in a cooling solution beyond the stock one if you are using the stock cooler. CM 212 EVO is perfectly serviceable for such a processor for $20-25.