How to try to unlock?

liezryou

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May 6, 2010
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I bought a athlon ii x3 445 rana, and i'm fairly certain is a deneb because it had "AC". Anyway, i have an ASUS m4a89gtd pro/usb3 mobo which has an autounlocking feature, but the mobo is really really buggy... just go read the forums, whenever i try to unlock with their unlocker i get the red DRAM-LED light on and nothing shows up on the monitor. So my question is how can i try to manually unlock to try to get that l3 or the fourth core? I'm not expecting it, i just wanna give it a shot before i close up my case and tie up all the cables, just because everyone who ordered from newegg is getting massive success in unlocks (CMOS resetting gets really annoying with the crappy single gpu setup they have on the mobo).
 

green300

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...Great spot for the battery isn't it..

Buggy board ? Is the bios up to date ? (My particular board didn't unlock until I updated to a newer version)

Make sure the core unlocker switch is disabled.

In the bios go to
CPU Configuration
Advanced Clock Calibration / select "all cores"
Unleashing Mode / select "enabled"
Active CPU Cores / should be set to "4 core operation"
exit and save.

If still no joy try upping vcore a couple of notches, some have said they needed more volts to unlock. ( I did not) If that doesn't help probably a bad core. If you do have an L3 try to lockup the bad core and keep the L3..

CPU Configuration
Advanced Clock Calibration / select "all cores"
Unleashing Mode / select "enabled"
Active CPU Cores / select "(core 0,1,2)" if that doesn't work try "(0,1,3)"

If that doesn't work could be a bad core and or L3.
 

liezryou

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Don't have any of those things in the BIOS, it is updated to the latest version. All i see in CPU Configuration is
Microcode Updation" "Secure Virtual Machine Mode" "Cool 'n' Quiet" "C1E Support" "ASUS Core Unlocker" "Cpu Core Activation [this is only to deactivate 2nd or 3rd core]"
I've tried using the bios core unlocker but same problem, doesn't boot.

Update: Sigh this motherboard... i feel like because i have the latest bios is why i cant unlock after reading some of the forum posts...
Update2: Did a little test, unlocked cores in bios auto then turned on ai oc tuner... well it booted up, but the red DRAM-LED light was still on and the bios said 3 cores were unlocked... Maybe the 4th core is defect/l3 is defect too but why would it show the DRAM-LED light and not let me into the BIOS?
 

green300

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Maybe the 4th core is defect/l3 is defect too but why would it show the DRAM-LED light and not let me into the BIOS?

Could be..

Is the system stable outside of trying to unlock ? ie. memtest,prime95,occt etc.

Have you tried the MemOK switch on your board ? (2.7 in your manual)

If your system is stable outside of trying to unlock, I don't think anything is wrong with your memory, I'm thinking the core is bad.

So your not able to choose which 3 cores you want to run? In the bios settings I suggested earlier leaving ACC and Unleashing enabled and selecting cores 0,1,2 or 0,1,3 might allow a good L3 to function while shutting down a bad core...
 

liezryou

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No thats the wierd part the memory is fine without the auto unlocker, i ran memtest, passed with no errors. The memOK button says whenever i press it after trying to unlock "Overclocking attempt failed, bios reset to defaults, please enter setup" or something. I am able to choose which cores, however it only shows 1,2,3 unless i turn the unlock on, which causes the DRAM-LED light to come on and no boot. There is no ACC and unleashing option in my bios cpu config, i can't find it anywhere. Yeah i guess it's just a bad core/l3, but it still bugs the hell out of me that it would show a DRAM error whenever i try to unlock, i emailed ASUS techies and let's see what they have to say.
 

liezryou

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No reply from ASUS :/, but doing a little bit of research i found a Beta BIOS which changes:
1. AGESA Code Update
2. SB850 MicroCode Update
3. Improved Memory Performance and Clocking
4. Support New Processors

So i'm wondering if anyone who knows what AGESA and SB850 means could tell me if they are related to core unlocking :X, and could updating to Beta BIOS have any negative side effects? :O... oh and why is BIOS 1003 labeled as a new release right next to 1602? (I have 1456 right now)... post for beta bios is here btw: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4407932&postcount=1