Help w/ new computer, please!

[Tinweasel]

I just recently bought a new computer from components and built it myself. It's been running stable, so I decided to try overclocking and playing around with settings in general to try and increase performance (not that there's been any problems thus far). I have a Phenom II x4 965 Black Edition processor and an ASUS M4A87TD motherboard - I can post any other system stats if needed.

The first thing I did was flip the Core Unlocker switch on my mobo (shut down, w/ power off) and when first booting, it showed in the initial boot screen that 4 cores were operating. When it got to the point where it usually starts to load up Win7 Home Premium 64, the screen went black and hung - not a monitor problem, and not a graphics card problem so far as I could tell. The computer did not progress any further in startup from this point.

I shut everything down, did a new cold boot, and this time the initial boot screen displayed that 3 cores were operating. Win7 started up fine and everything seems to be running without hiccups - tried a few games, etc. I can't say I noticed any overall change or increase in performance, but my main concern right now is the number of cores reporting as operating.

I shut everything down through Win7, turned off power to the system, returned the mobo Core Unlocker switch to default and then flipped it back to "unlock" again. Booting up this time, again no problems, but it still shows 3 cores as operating. From reading through a few posts here, I checked the Device Manager, and that also only shows 3 "cores" as operating in the Processor subcategory.

Do I have a defective CPU after all this? Is it a limitation of the mobo or something else that this is the "best" I can get? Am I missing something blindingly obvious? Any help would be appreciated!


I should add that I am completely new to this sort of thing, upgrading from a 10 y/o computer and putting out the money for a "quality" system that I assembled myself this time. The computer went together with but a single easily-solved hitch, and this is the first stab I've taken at playing with BIOS or settings or anything with a computer, short of upgrading memory, PSU, etc. on my old one.

[Edit] Oh, and the CPU temp. seems to be sitting at around 36*° C and the mobo at 31° C. It's also running w/ a 750W Corsair PSU, dunno if that's important? [/Edit]

[TBS]

Have you tried using the reset jumper on the motherboard?

[SubakuGaara]

go to msconfig. under boot, advanced options, set number of processors to 4. close it and see if that fixes things in windows.

[Octopus Rex]

Just a small note regarding those temps Tinweasel: yep, they are fine, those are not the issue. PSU will be fine too - flipping the over clock switch won't change that.

[Tinweasel]

Well, I originally tried going into MSConfig and the maximum number of available processors it showed was 3 - this was after I flipped the Core Unlocker switch on the motherboard.

Today, I flipped the switch back to the default setting and after I started the computer up again and went into MSConfig, I was able to select up to 4 available processors. Weird. I set it to 4 and rebooted, and it's been showing 4 cores as operating in the Processor section of the Device Manager ever since. Dunno if I should flip the switch again or use the key option in the boot menu, or just leave well enough alone. (I.e., does the Core Unlocker switch on the mobo enable additional features or is it a quick way of adjusting the registered number of processors that the computer will recognize?)


Thanks for the feedback on the temperatures, too. I broke 41°C according to the temp. monitor software I was running yesterday, but I think that's as high as the CPU got, even though it was 85°F in the house. I'm assuming 41°C is a manageable number? (I read on the AMD site that under 50° is recommended.)

I'm running 3 120mm fans blowing into the case at 2K rpm each, and the two stock Antec case fans blowing out at low speed. Should I adjust anything, or am I correct in my assumption that things should be okay? (I'm assuming overall temperatures will probably ramp upwards if I start overclocking, but I need to read up on all that stuff first.)

[Tinweasel]

Well, my computer HAD been running with apparently all four cores active - I've got a new problem now...

When I start/cold start/restart my computer now, it shows the POST screen and the Win7 startup screen; it then goes to a completely black screen with only the mouse pointer where normally it would be the desktop. There's nothing there - no start menu, no taskbar, no icons, no nothing. I can't open anything, click on anything, or do anything. If it weren't for the de facto browser (and a few other things) built into the system prior to switching over to the OS, I wouldn't even be typing this.

A quick search of the 'Net reveals that the "black screen of death" is pretty common and running a patch in Win Explorer is often a quick fix - I can't so much as get that far, not even booting from the Win7 installation DVD (where the best I can do is a command prompt - no OS). Trying to load from an old Restore Point failed miserably as well, giving me a missing directory error on a secondary HD (that directory's not there because it was wiped and it's just an old file storage HD now, besides.)

Any suggestions?

[Mokino]

Ctrl+alt+del doesn't bring up the task manager? If so you can run things from the file menu.

Also try windows key+e

[Tinweasel]

Other than the default mouse pointer being onscreen and the fact that it all comes after the Win7 splash screen, the black screen my computer remains stuck on bears no resemblance to anything at all and keypresses and mouse clicks do nothing.

[Tinweasel]

Well, a definite positive update!

Following the black screen problems of my last post, I managed to use System Repair off the Win7 disk to get past that to the point where after the Win7 splash screen it would go to my desktop... where I was not able to run any programs and everything would crap out to a blue screen within a minute or so.


I took it to service at MicroCenter where I bought all the components from - since it was still under warranty, they said they would check it out free of charge and swap out any parts if it turned out to be hardware-related. I got it back after a week (a little over what the clueless counter guy had told me, but still...) and was told it was working. Well, it was, to the point where I could back up files and reinstall Win7, but that was about it. After a couple failed wipe+install attempts, I was back to square one again with blue screen crashes.

I took it back to service at MicroCenter where it was now out of the first 30 days warranty, the same tech said he would work on it and had an 'Aha!' moment when I gave him some of the blue screen messages I had typed up. He said he wouldn't be able to work on it until later in the week (points for honesty), but felt it was the HD or possibly the memory, which they would replace without complaint. Turns out it was a defective DDR3 mem stick!

I didn't even have to pay for diagnostic testing, the tech guy called me a few times with updates (bonus points for customer service), and they reinstalled Win7 for me as well as swapped out for two brand new memory sticks! It's now running *knocks on wood* fine, the only downside being that I need to reinstall everything. Fair tradeoff for the work put into it, I'd say.


Thanks for the help, folks!

[oneredpanther]

I might be missing something here, but if you bought an x4 965 then why on earth would you try and unlock cores that are already active by default?

Unless you meant that you actually got an x2 555 (for example) and tried to quad-core it, I can't understand why you would attempt the above.

[Tinweasel]

Because while an x4 processor has 4 cores, there is a primary one and the others only are activated (if at all) based on need and load. By unlocking them to operate full-time, you're theoretically quadrupling(?) your processing power without overclocking or any of that fanciness. Flipped a switch on my motherboard and all 4 are running independently doing their thing, and the mobo comes with software I loaded to control the load and relative assignment of duty on the fly.

That's my understanding, anyways, and all 4 cores seem to be doing their thing without error - and faster since unlocking all 4.

[FriendlyFire]

You said it: based on need and load. If you need them, they'll turn on. You aren't gaining anything by forcing them on by default - if your processor is sufficiently taxed that the active core is too loaded, it'll clock up the remaining cores to even the load. You will never be able to be as efficient as a machine. It knows when it needs more cores and it'll switch them on by itself. If it doesn't, it's because it doesn't need them.

Seriously. The only thing you're doing with that is wasting power and producing needless heat.