Unlocked Phenom X2 Graphics Corruption

zeromemory

I need help please.

After months of using my computer I finally decided to unlock the extra cores of my Phenom II x2 555BE. Was successfull in unlocking the extra cores, The only problem now is my graphics iis corrupted but only when playing videos or browsing the web.
Gaming seems to be fine athough sometimes graphics will be corrupted during cut-scenes.
Any ideas what causing the problem???
I Tried updating my gfx card drivers but still no change.

Here's my rig

AMD Phenom IIx2 555BE(unlocked) its now AMD Phenom IIx4 B55
Gigabyte GTX 460
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H
4GB OCZ PC3-10666
corsair 650w

any help before i go back to just 2 cores..

thanks

marco_polo

Probably not what you want to hear, but since the last thing you did was unlock the cores that should really be the first port of call for diagnostic purposes.

As often as not X2s are rejects that failed QC on one or two cores thus preventing them from beginning their life as true quad, only some batches are perfectly fully working X4s that have had two good cores disabled.

If so it is a highly likely cause of the instability.

zeromemory

marco_polo wrote: »

Probably not what you want to hear, but since the last thing you did was unlock the cores that should really be the first port of call for diagnostic purposes.

As often as not X2s are rejects that failed QC on one or two cores thus preventing them from beginning their life as true quad, only some batches are perfectly fully working X4s that have had two good cores disabled.

If so it is a highly likely cause of the instability.

SH^%*!!! After running prime95 for 24 hours without any errors, the result would be to go back to 2 cores...:mad:
Would running 2 cores in overlcoked mode have better performance than a quad core in terms of gaming / video editing????

Monotype

It really depends on how far you overclock them.

Do your problems disappear when you lock them again?

zeromemory

Monotype wrote: »

It really depends on how far you overclock them.

Do your problems disappear when you lock them again?

Yup, video playback corruption disappears when the extra cores are locked again
It just feel weird because everything is fine (text, sounds, gaming,etc) only problem is video playback and some graphics when browsing the internet.

:(

Monotype

That's unusual enough, given that it was prime stable. Maybe add a bit more voltage and see what happens.

marco_polo

zeromemory wrote: »

Yup, video playback corruption disappears when the extra cores are locked again
It just feel weird because everything is fine (text, sounds, gaming,etc) only problem is video playback and some graphics when browsing the internet.

:(

Can you unlock each core seperately? You might get lucky and find one of them is good.

Solitaire

Moved as this doesn't belong in HW Discussion and really merits it own thread. And yeah, using combinations of relocking one core, underclocking and overvolting is the way forward at this point. Albeit slow if you have to add real-life usage to the priming when testing it!

CrinkElite

I'm not sure about this but seeing as it only seems to be video playback that's causing problems, I'd imagine it's something to do with a configuration anomaly.

when you updated your gfx drivers, did you completely remove the previous one's or install over them.

My instinct tells me that that your chip is functioning correctly but some software is making incorrect assumptions based on the way your cpu is reporting it's self.

I do not claim to have any real knowledge of this hack or even the finer points of video playback but 24 hours of prime95 without errors suggests to me that you cpu is stable.
Shame to have to revert when your running that stable.

edit: as an experiment, try loading the game in which you're getting playback corruption, then load task manager and jump to the running process, right click and hit "..set affinity". Mark only cores 0 and 1 and see what happens. Then try the same thing with cores 2 & 3.

zeromemory

at work ATM.

Will try CrinkElite suggestion first thing in the morning.
If that don't work i'll up the voltage,
then as a last resort will try enlocking one core at a time.

Thanks for your help, will keep you updated..

zeromemory

Sup guys,

Just finished testing my set-up and here's the result.

Tried cranking up the voltage to give it some juice. Run Prime95 for 3 hours no errors. that couldn't be the problem

Next Tried CrinkElite suggestion run media player classic, set affinity and
all cores checked ---> corruption still there
checked cores 0,1 only --> corruption still there
checked cores 2,3 only --> problem gone :eek: how could it be that when the unlocked cores are checked problem was eliminated

Tried it from a different approach
Tried booting unbuntu and problem exist.
This got me thinking. Could it be a decoder/software problem.
Got a 720p file load it up ---> problem gone
Got a mkv file and loaded it up --->problem gone
It seems the file i was trying to watch was an avi file. So i tried loading other avi files and sure enough it has graphical corruption..

Problems not with core. But why did it comes only after unlocking the extra cores...


"Close but still far"

Solitaire

I'm guessing unlocking the cores is messing up something in the CPU's multimedia acceleration capability. Then again it might still be an issue with your codecs; try installing newer ones and check again. AVIs themselves are just containers; the video file itself could be almost any compressed non-HD format.

VenomIreland

This thread makes me wonder if the newest BIOS for my MoBo will fix the unlocking issue (doesn't always boot as unlocked if option is selected, it's perfectly stable when unlocked, but it boots sometimes as if the option was left at "off").

CrinkElite

If I'm not misunderstanding you, both your windows and ubuntu installs pre-date the alterations you made to your system.
This may be the source of your problems.

You might try burning the latest ubuntu live cd and running it as a live os to see how it handles the video playback.
It should allow you to rule the software/codec issue in or out.