Unlocking Q

[sparkle_ftw]

I have an x2 550, unlocked both cores. How do I switch it back? I unlocked it too soon and now I can't tell the difference, also tf2 runs funny.

 

[someguy7]

What ever you did to unlock. Undo. Or restore BIOS to default.

 

[soshow2009]

What a strange trouble it is .Every hopes their PC can run as soon as possible .
I can't figure out why U don't hopt to .
Anyway,Did u see the battery on the mobo.take it out and put it back after 5mins.
It's the easiest way of restoring to default setting.
PS:be careful of getting out the battery.please don't hurt the mobo.

 

[sparkle_ftw]

Restored to default already, first thing I tried. Still a quad with b50 title. Whatever it is not that important.

 

[xsever]

You can reset the CMOS by removing the motherboard's battery. That will take you back to dual core for sure!

 

[welshmousepk]

what mobo are you using?

just return acc to off, or switch hybrid mode off.

 

[sparkle_ftw]

That doesn't work. ASrock a790gmh board. Starting to freeze randomly, no blue screen, just team fortress frozen indefinitely. Defective or voltage too low?

 

[xsever]

Did you try removing the battery then putting it back?

 

[welshmousepk]

raise the voltage a little.

you did run a stress test after unlocking tohugh right?

 

[djcoolmasterx]

There is a very good reason that those cores are disabled. As it costs them exactly the same to make as a Quad, AMD would sell it as a Quad unless those disabled cores are infact defective.

 

[someguy7]

Do what was stated already if you haven't already. When it "shows" as still a quad core is do you have 4 cores still running or is cpu-z or whatnot just still saying its the b50. I am not sure how the id of these cpus works at stock vs unlocked vs de-unlocked so to say.

From what I know about this a cleared default BIOS must return the cpu back to a dual core.

 

[sparkle_ftw]

I have not removed the battery just yet, cpu-z says quad.

 

[xsever]

Well then removing that battery than putting it back will do the job.

 

[warmon6]

When removing the battiey, most people recommend leaving it out like 5 minute

 

[welshmousepk]

@djcoolmaster: thats wrong. please stop posting stuff liek that. i have a 550 unlcoked to a quad. its not defective at all. AMD desable cores to fill a market gap. they cant sell quads if no one will buy them, so if they have people willing to buy duo's, they will make some money selling them that way. simple business practice, you can only sell when there is demand.

 

[djcoolmasterx]

As all these Duals start off as Quads. It is not at all cost effetive to make Quads then disable half of it. If they are not defective they could sell them as Quads for exactly the same price, completly undermining intel's dual core range. They don't do this however as these chips do not meet AMDs own quality standards. Meaning that during testing these cores were found to fail under certain conditions. You may never be able to reproduce these failures in real life applications but it can be indicative of the quality of the chip.

By all means try it if you have a 550 X2 but don't ever buy one expecting it to unlock into a fully functional Quad core. And if you do unlock remember to test it thoroughly so that you are sure it is completely stable otherwise you will probably run into problems like the OP's.

 

[sparkle_ftw]

Nah, it was just the voltage, it is cool now =)

But, if I ever go back to dual, I'll remove the battery.

 

[sparkle_ftw]

Nevermind. It froze again, so I switched it back to a dual core. Then it froze again. Although switching the voltage made seem like it happened less often, they appear to be completely random.
Either it is broken, or it is some other component, any suggestions on what it'd be? No bsod's, just frozen with temporary looping sound.

 

[welshmousepk]

are you new to OCing. freezing is common when you dont have the right voltage. start again form square one. make sure every change oyu make is followed bya stress test. if it crashes during the stredd test, up the voltage and try agian.

it sounds like you have no idea what you're doing. i dont mean to sound like an ass, but if you are just unlocking and OCing without making sure your hardware is stable, you will damage something.

 

[sparkle_ftw]

Yeah 7th computer, first real oc.

What is a good stress test?

 

[welshmousepk]

run prime95.

do a test for at least 3 hours. once youve found your max stable OC, be sure to leave the sress test running over night to be SURE its stable.

 

[Guest]

Hey I would like to test stability of my just unlocked be 550 with prime95. So what test should I run: Small FFTs, In-place large FFTs or blend? :O

 

[JDFan]

As all these Duals start off as Quads. It is not at all cost effetive to make Quads then disable half of it. If they are not defective they could sell them as Quads for exactly the same price, completly undermining intel's dual core range. They don't do this however as these chips do not meet AMDs own quality standards. Meaning that during testing these cores were found to fail under certain conditions. You may never be able to reproduce these failures in real life applications but it can be indicative of the quality of the chip.

By all means try it if you have a 550 X2 but don't ever buy one expecting it to unlock into a fully functional Quad core. And if you do unlock remember to test it thoroughly so that you are sure it is completely stable otherwise you will probably run into problems like the OP's.

While what you say is true to begin with you also have to realize that there are people on certain budgets that will pay certain prices for a system and if AMD does not provide a chip in that price range then they will lose sales and profit - so in order to fill demand for a low cost dual core they will at time lock 2 cores on perfectly good chips to fill the demand for those chips (as you said it costs them the same amount to do this as making a quad core BUT it also costs them less to do this and disable the 2 good cores than it would to retool the entire line and manufacture true dual cores and by doing this they fill the demand for the chip at the price point the low end buyer is willing to pay so they sell more chips and make more profit (better to sell a $100 chip than to lose a sale to your competitor because you want to sell that same chip at $160 which the low end consumer will not pay and will instead buy from your competitor.

ALso the percentage of 550's and 720's that are in fact true functional quads will increase with the life of the chip line as the manufacturing process is perfected and fewer errors arise in production - Sure there are always those defective core chips in the mix so you can not buy the chip expecting that it will be stable when unlocked but there definitely is the possibility Otherwise why would the MOBO manufacturers include the HYBRID option in the BIOS to be able to enable these cores if in fact there was Zero liklihood of them being stable ??

 

[theholylancer]

hmm what graphics card do you have and how well is it cooled? If prime do not turn up anything suspicious, then maybe the gfx is at fault, try prime first and if it breaks see if 3d mark vantage hangs or something.