[SOLVED] (resolved) i7 6700k only showing 2 cores and 4 threads, and overclock won't apply

[Lamppo]

Specs:
i7 6700k (4ghz)
ASUS ROG gtx 1080
40 gb RAM (32 corsair vengeance; 8 g.skill)
asus z170 motherboard
hyper 212 evo cooler
2 SSDs and 2 HDDs (128gb, 256gb, and two 1tb)



I recently upgraded from an i5 6600k to an i7 6700k. I had overclocked the i5 pretty heavily so the 'upgrade' actually took away some performance in gaming because I kept pushing off overclocking my i7. The other day, I finally got around to it because I had nothing else to do, but OpenHardwareMonitor and task manager showed the stock 4ghz speed rather than the 4.7ghz that I had overclocked it to. I fiddled around with every setting that was recommended when I looked up similar issues but nothing worked, it stayed at 4ghz. On top of this, I took a closer look at my monitor software and both the software and task manager said that I only had 2 active cores and 4 active threads, which of course should not be the case on the i7 6700k. I went into the BIOS once again to try to fix this issue instead, but BIOS says that active cores are at 4 and hyperthreading is enabled. I didn't trust it because I know what my computer is showing me, so I restored it to default settings, didn't work; I then set active cores down to 1, and then changed it back to 4, and that also didn't work. Any help would be appreciated on either issue because I literally have no idea why it is happening, my computer and BIOS are reading two separate things and not syncing up whatsoever.

 

[RodroX]

Hello and wlecome to the forum:

1. Im guessing you just took out the i5 and installed the i7 without setting BIOS back to default?, when siwtiching CPUs its always recommended to reset BIOS back to default prior to installing the new chip.

2. Im also guessing you didn't made a clean Windows installation?, Not that it should be need it, but is something to keep in mind in case everything else fail.

3. Have you even loocked at the motherboard manul to see if it have a dual bios function that may be messing with your settings?

4. Be carefull with openHWM, I would use hwinfo 64 portable instead.

 

[Lamppo]

Hello and wlecome to the forum:

1. Im guessing you just took out the i5 and installed the i7 without setting BIOS back to default?, when siwtiching CPUs its always recommended to reset BIOS back to default prior to installing the new chip.

2. Im also guessing you didn't made a clean Windows installation?, Not that it should be need it, but is something to keep in mind in case everything else fail.

3. Have you even loocked at the motherboard manul to see if it have a dual bios function that may be messing with your settings?

4. Be carefull with openHWM, I would use hwinfo 64 portable instead.

Hi thank you for the welcome,
I did reset BIOS back to default when I swapped the CPUs, that's something I thought about and looked up before doing anything so it shouldn't be an issue.
I didn't make a clean Windows installation, but if all else fails I suppose I'll look into it.
I'm not even aware of what a dual bios function is but I'll check that out as well, it'd be weird if that would be affecting it though because I edit the BIOS and then my PC says otherwise.
And i'll keep that in mind, I used the task manager performance tab as well to make sure that it wasn't just a fluke on that software.

 

[Lamppo]

Hello and wlecome to the forum:

1. Im guessing you just took out the i5 and installed the i7 without setting BIOS back to default?, when siwtiching CPUs its always recommended to reset BIOS back to default prior to installing the new chip.

2. Im also guessing you didn't made a clean Windows installation?, Not that it should be need it, but is something to keep in mind in case everything else fail.

3. Have you even loocked at the motherboard manul to see if it have a dual bios function that may be messing with your settings?

4. Be carefull with openHWM, I would use hwinfo 64 portable instead.

Nothing ended up working, so I resorted to resetting my windows fully. This solved the issue entirely, but I still don't know what caused it. Thank you for the help.

 

[RodroX]

Nothing ended up working, so I resorted to resetting my windows fully. This solved the issue entirely, but I still don't know what caused it. Thank you for the help.

Glad it help!, reinstalling Windows is often a heavy task for many users, but sometimes is also the easiest way to fix this strange hardware behaviors.

It could be a few things for example, a bad driver, a bad windows registry key value, etc.