AMD Athlon II X3 460 Unlock 4th core

[Jolanpiep]

Hey guys,
I have a PC and I was wondering out if any of you could help me out with my problem? These are my stats:

Foxconn A88GMV
AMD Athlon II X3 460 Processor 3.40 GHz
8GB of RAM
ASUS R7 240 Series (A.K.A: R7240-2GD3-L)
( C: ) Samsung HD503HI
Thermaltake Berlin 630W

This is my problem:
My AMD Athlon II X3 460 won't unlock it's 4th core. I tried by going into BIOS and activating all cores but my computer just crashes and doesn't start unless I manually disable the 4th core.
These are my questions:

How do I unlock the 4th core? (If you need additional I didn't mention, please ask)

If I manage to get the 4th core activated, what will it be called? (e.g. AMD Phenom x4 ... , I want to know this because I want to look up the stats my processor would then have)

Thanks everyone! Jolan

 

[kanewolf]

You may have just gotten unlucky. That 4th core is sometimes disabled because it doesn't pass testing.

 

[Jolanpiep]

I really hope thats not the case, any other theories?

 

[Northtag]

I really hope thats not the case, any other theories?

Well, something's not up to scratch with the 4th core: try the lowest clock you can.

I have a Zosma myself: unlocking all 6 cores would lead to a crash no matter what I tried. It's happy with the 6th core unlocked but not the 5th. You win some, you lose some.

As for what it would be called, there is no 3.4GHz Propus so it's unclear what it would be: you might get some number that corresponds to some floated but never-released SKU, depending on your BIOS.

 

[Jolanpiep]

"As for what it would be called, there is no 3.4GHz Propus so it's unclear what it would be: you might get some number that corresponds to some floated but never-released SKU, depending on your BIOS."

I don't really understand what you're saying here, im not exactly a hardware wiz, im more of a software guy.

And by using the lowest clock i can, do you mean I should overclock and set it to lowest settings?

 

[Northtag]

"As for what it would be called, there is no 3.4GHz Propus so it's unclear what it would be: you might get some number that corresponds to some floated but never-released SKU, depending on your BIOS."

I don't really understand what you're saying here, im not exactly a hardware wiz, im more of a software guy.

If you had an Athlon II X3 450 (3 cores, 3.2GHz) and successfully unlocked the fourth, that would almost certainly get identified as an Athlon II X4 650 (same die, 4 cores, 3.2GHz). Since your Athlon II X3 460 runs at 3.4GHz and there never was an Athlon II X4 660 (the range topped out at the 650), should you unlock it successfully it's up in the air whether it would be identified by your motherboard as that or something else. Certainly some kind of X4.

And by using the lowest clock i can, do you mean I should overclock and set it to lowest settings?

If you mean underclocking it, yes. As low as your BIOS will allow (just change the multiplier down if you can).

 

[Jolanpiep]

What do you mean with the multiplier?

 

[bmacsys]

Your fourth core is bad as an earlier poster pointed out. That is why it was sold as a 3 core. I would just forget about trying to unlock it. You won't be able to get it stable. Many six core Thubans were sold as four cores and only had one bad core so they could run five good cores. I had a 960T like this. It unlocked a good fifth core and it was identified as a 1600T.

 

[Jolanpiep]

Why would a producer sell processors with a core that they know is unstable? That would a waste of money right?

 

[Mousemonkey]

You bought one, which kind of answers the question.

 

[Montblanchill]

Well its sold as an X3 for that reason, the 4th core did not pass QC and as such was disabled. Activating it probably invalidates any warranty or such so they're not accountable.

The reason they sell them is that despite part of the chip failing, they can still make some money back by classifying it as an X3, since all three of those cores passed QC.

 

[Jolanpiep]

So... most likely no fourth core for me? Than I'll pick the best advice as solution.

 

[Jolanpiep]

Because I need a better CPU, any recommendations? I need one that isn't too expensive.

 

[Northtag]

What do you mean with the multiplier?

In the BIOS, the chip clockspeed is set by the base clock times the multiplier. To get a lower clockspeed you can lower one or both of these, but changing the base clock is usually a bad idea since many other bits of the system won't like it very much. Your X3 460 is 17x 200MHz by default, so lower the 17x bit.

 

[Northtag]

Your fourth core is bad as an earlier poster pointed out. That is why it was sold as a 3 core. I would just forget about trying to unlock it. You won't be able to get it stable.

All we know for sure is that the fourth core won't run at the same frequency, timings and voltages as the other three. It's probably fubared, but it's just about possible that it'll function at lower frequencies. If it does, then Jolanpiep can then try "overclocking" it from that lower base.

Many six core Thubans were sold as four cores and only had one bad core so they could run five good cores. I had a 960T like this. It unlocked a good fifth core and it was identified as a 1600T.

Hey, snap! About one in ten thousand Steam PC users are on pentacores.