Can't unlock Phenom II X3 720 to X4 anymore?

[Espionage724]

I used to be able to unlock my X3 to a X4 easily on my Biostar A880G+ motherboard (just as simple as enabling ACC and having it on auto).

Now when I try to enable it, it sometimes works, sometimes it doesn't. When it does work, it usually only turns on after 1 boot whereas the next boot will leave me unable to POST until I restart the computer twice (afterwards, BIOS says that ACC has failed).

Is it possible I damaged my CPU in some way recently? Recently I ran my CPU at 1.5V and 1.55V but this was only for a day, and it was with X3 I believe, and I also ran at these voltages in the past too for a short period of time.

I'm just confused as to why ACC would unlock it once, and then fail next boot, even if no settings in BIOS are changed...

 

[rolli59]

Most likely you found the reason why it had a deactivated core in the first place.

 

[silverliquicity]

I wouldn't normally recommend a BIOS update but in this case i would. that's a bit of a strange problem.

Il do some research as im interested myself and il post back.

 

[Espionage724]

Most likely you found the reason why it had a deactivated core in the first place.

it's worked fine though since July last year without any problems. All of a sudden now though it's giving me problems :/

 

[Motopsychojdn]

I agree with Rolli here,
my x3 435 unlocks fine (old rig,still own though), used to hold a 3.5GHz overclock and slowly over time frazzled, only takes 3.2GHz now,
you are probably onto something with the voltages being a possible cause as well
Moto

 

[rolli59]

AMD did not produce them as X3, they where produced to become X4 but somewhere in the quality control they found a flaw that made them into X3!

 

[Motopsychojdn]

One of the best damage limitation moves by a company ever hehe
Moto

 

[newt183]

This is rather strange... i would do what silverliquicity suggested and upgrade your bios version. If that doesn't work, then its your cpu.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

My money says bios update won't make a difference but feel free to try...
Moto

 

[Espionage724]

I'll try a BIOS update a little bit later. I did reset CMOS though, but that didn't make a difference

I tried setting a lower clock speed and voltage on the CPU as well prior to trying to unlock, and it would still fail

 

[rolli59]

My money says bios update won't make a difference but feel free to try...
Moto

Agreed, worked fine on the current BIOS for a while!

 

[Espionage724]

Just did a BIOS update.. and it appears I can unlock properly now 😀, I can reboot and still be in X4 too And I have a cool looking BIOS screen now

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Suprised but happy to hear its resolved your problem
Moto

 

[Espionage724]

Best answer selected by espionage724.

 

[Espionage724]

Hmm, so it turns out it wasn't actually the BIOS update. After rebooting after changing every setting, I found out it was the settings I was using on the HyperTransport.

By default, it was on Auto for both speed and link width. If I try setting it at 2.0Ghz and x16 (which I thought it defaulted to anyway), I can sometimes boot, but if I shut down, I can't reboot without having ACC fail.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey