Question Unlocking the 4th core on an old AMD Triple Core CPU ?

[innervatedInfrastructure]

Hey everyone,

I'm running a small community service project where I take old computers out of e-waste and from donations from the local community so I fix them up, upgrade them and install a fresh OS, and donate them back to the community to help those in need.

Recently recieved a system with a Athlon II X3 455 CPU, Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2P (rev. 3.0) motherboard, 2x4GB DDR3-1333, Nvidia nForce integrated graphics, 500GB WD Blue HDD, and DVD/CD drive. Will be putting in a SSD shortly.

I've been trying to unlock the 4th core to squeeze a little extra performance out of the system (and leave it overnight to run a stress test to make sure it's stable) but the BIOS doesn't seem to have Advanced Core Calibration options. CPU Unlock is enabled, and I can enable or disable Core 0, Core 1, and Core 2 but there is no option for Core 3. I looked on the Gigabyte website to see if there is any BIOS update but there is only one BIOS version available for rev 3.0, which I updated to anyway and which made no difference. Yes, I looked through all options in the BIOS one by one and couldn't find it. Tried googling and it seems other people have successfully unlocked with this board.
Can I unlock the 4th core with this board, or is that not possible? Not too important, because the system will be donated anyway, and I'm sure 3 cores are still adequate for basic web browsing and Linux Mint, but I was just curious.

Side note: this system fails to boot every OTHER time I try to start it, it just hangs forever while the fans spin. yet the next time I try to boot it it works perfectly fine. Any idea how/why? Never seen that before.

-Mod Edit

 

[COLGeek]

Those cores were generally locked because of some defect. Even if unlocked, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. You'll still have a relatively slow, under-performing CPU, by current comparison.

 

[innervatedInfrastructure]

Ok, i'll just leave it the way it is, thanks

 

[CountMike]

Ok, i'll just leave it the way it is, thanks

Try with higher voltage for CPU.

 

[dontlistentome]

I unlocked a 445. It was easy though, I remember that it was so simple to do that I had no problems. The issue was it was unstable. It would work fine then at some random time the computer would crash. So I went back to triple core mode. If it's not the motherboard then I think it's the CPU that's not capable of it. Those CPUs were not guaranteed to be able to have a fourth core unlocked. It could be that your 455 just can't do it. For what it's worth, when I did have my 445 working with four cores it was not noticeably faster at much of anything. I remember being disappointed about that.

 

[CountMike]

I unlocked a 445. It was easy though, I remember that it was so simple to do that I had no problems. The issue was it was unstable. It would work fine then at some random time the computer would crash. So I went back to triple core mode. If it's not the motherboard then I think it's the CPU that's not capable of it. Those CPUs were not guaranteed to be able to have a fourth core unlocked. It could be that your 455 just can't do it. For what it's worth, when I did have my 445 working with four cores it was not noticeably faster at much of anything. I remember being disappointed about that.

Most SW at that time was single threaded, only help from more cores was for multitasking.

 

[rons105]

The motherboard I had at the time made unlocking the 4th core easy.
But as above, it was unstable. So back to 3 cores.

I think AMD gets the binning right.
Any dud CPUs just get the bad bits blocked off, and sold cheaper and under a different part number.
Still so today. No CPU wasted!

Current 8000 series with an 'F' on the end - graphics disabled, ie the same thing. A dud, but get it out the door anyway.