AMD Phenom II X3 -> X4 users, Unite!

[topjimmy]

I don't know. I'm sure I would have to back down the timings, which may interfere with my fsb OC that is setting the proc at 2.6. Our setups are damn near identical.

Later
JimC

 

[jrenna]

I have the AMD Phenom X3 710 with the Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-UD4H motherboard. When I set AAC to "auto" it recognized 4 cores in the BIOS and in Windows Vista Home Premium, however, my system did not seem stable at all. When I rebooted, I received an error message "EES is turned off. Please use EES application to turn it on again. Press any key to continue". Could not reboot any more after that except in safe mode. I set it back to 3 cores and system is fine. Is there something else I should be changing in the BIOS besides setting AAC to auto?

CPU Batch number is 0906.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: topjimmy
I am planning on upgrading to this set up, not sure if it will be worth doing it.

Here is my current setup
AMD Opteron 160@2.6mghz
2g OCZ ram (limited my OC) ddr

On a dfi LP-UT.

I thought about just getting two more gigs of ram, about $60 ,

The new set up is about $240

Biostar MB, PhenII 720, 4g of OCZ reaper ddr2 Worth the upgrade or maybe just wait until ddr3 is more mainstream and there are more MBs to support it?

Later
JimC

I think it's a very good upgrade, especially considering you should be able to recoup a good chunk of your expense by selling off your old Opty, mobo and RAM.

OTOH, if you are satisfied with your current setup, there's no point in "upgrading", unless you just have the itch.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: jrenna
I have the AMD Phenom X3 710 with the Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-UD4H motherboard. When I set AAC to "auto" it recognized 4 cores in the BIOS and in Windows Vista Home Premium, however, my system did not seem stable at all. When I rebooted, I received an error message "EES is turned off. Please use EES application to turn it on again. Press any key to continue". Could not reboot any more after that except in safe mode. I set it back to 3 cores and system is fine. Is there something else I should be changing in the BIOS besides setting AAC to auto?

CPU Batch number is 0906.

Hmm, sounds like your 4th core is just unstable. You could try giving the Vcore a little more juice.

The "4th core unlock" is the exception, not the rule.

 

[topjimmy]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: topjimmy
I am planning on upgrading to this set up, not sure if it will be worth doing it.

Here is my current setup
AMD Opteron 160@2.6mghz
2g OCZ ram (limited my OC) ddr

On a dfi LP-UT.

I thought about just getting two more gigs of ram, about $60 ,

The new set up is about $240

Biostar MB, PhenII 720, 4g of OCZ reaper ddr2 Worth the upgrade or maybe just wait until ddr3 is more mainstream and there are more MBs to support it?

Later
JimC

I think it's a very good upgrade, especially considering you should be able to recoup a good chunk of your expense by selling off your old Opty, mobo and RAM.

OTOH, if you are satisfied with your current setup, there's no point in "upgrading", unless you just have the itch.

I need more ram at least. I'm trying to run VMW Workstation and 2 gigs just won't cut what I'm trying to do.

What do you think the opty, MB and ram are worth $100 or so?

Later
JimC

 

[lilila001]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle
Updated... seems like we have a new batch working, 0906.

My X3 710, CACZC AC 0906BPMW, with Biostar TA790GX XE failed.

When enablling ACC, have to clear CMOS to boot.

 

[topjimmy]

Ok so I'm going to take the plunge. I'm going to get the x3 720, 4g of gskill ram. I have a 4870 1g card so on board video not important. Which of the newegg (or other site) combo deals do you think would give me the best OC? I seriously considered the Foxconn until I read a few reviews, to bad it looked like it would have been perfect.

Anyone think there is a clear winner?

Later
JimC

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: lilila001

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle
Updated... seems like we have a new batch working, 0906.

My X3 710, CACZC AC 0906BPMW, with Biostar TA790GX XE failed.

When enablling ACC, have to clear CMOS to boot.

What BIOS?

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: topjimmy
Ok so I'm going to take the plunge. I'm going to get the x3 720, 4g of gskill ram. I have a 4870 1g card so on board video not important. Which of the newegg (or other site) combo deals do you think would give me the best OC? I seriously considered the Foxconn until I read a few reviews, to bad it looked like it would have been perfect.

Anyone think there is a clear winner?

Later
JimC

What reviews are you referring to? Newegg? There's almost always going to be some negatives. I've had good success with Biostar's "T-Series", and, even better, "T-Force" motherboards, other folks like Asus, Asrock, Foxconn, DFI. Personally, I can't see myself buying another Gigabyte for a long time, as I came across 3 consecutive bad 780g motherboards from them, and their customer service was horrible. However, other folks like Gigabyte. MSI always seems fraught with problems, but they have their backers, too. It's always going to be a little bit of a crapshoot.

 

[topjimmy]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: topjimmy
Ok so I'm going to take the plunge. I'm going to get the x3 720, 4g of gskill ram. I have a 4870 1g card so on board video not important. Which of the newegg (or other site) combo deals do you think would give me the best OC? I seriously considered the Foxconn until I read a few reviews, to bad it looked like it would have been perfect.

Anyone think there is a clear winner?

Later
JimC

What reviews are you reviewing to? Newegg? There's almost always going to be some negatives. I've had good success with Biostar's "T-Series", and, even better, "T-Force" motherboards, other folks like Asus, Asrock, Foxconn, DFI. Personally, I can't see myself buying another Gigabyte for a long time, as I came across 3 consecutive bad 780g motherboards from them, and their customer service was horrible. However, other folks like Gigabyte. MSI always seems fraught with problems, but they have their backers, too. It's always going to be a little bit of a crapshoot.

Tech site reviews and problems reported on forums. I really don't consider the egg reviews that much I built a cheap pc for my mother with an MSI board and it was a PITA. I see you have the Biostar board, do you like it? Any problems or concerns? I like my DFI board. Good quality, never had a problem. My PC before that was an Epox board that I liked also. I don't think I have ever used a Biostar. I normally would not limit myself to a combo deal.

Later
JimC

Later
JimC

 

[AstroManLuca]

Installed my new mobo/CPU combo last night. Biostar TA790GX 128M with a Phenom II X3 720. Unfortunately, by the time I thought to look at the CPU to find out what revision it was, I had already taken apart my computer. I probably could have just written down everything from the CPU but I guess I was too excited and by now, I just don't care enough to take the thing apart and put it back together.

Anyway, the bad part is that when I set ACC from "Off" to "Auto," it wouldn't post. I had to clear the CMOS, which is not an easy thing to do on this motherboard (lots of hand-aerobics). So I will probably just live with the three cores. Though if there's some other step I'm missing, I'm all ears. For now I'm just interested in getting everything set up and then testing the stability. I've already overclocked it to 3.1 GHz (from 2.8). Core Temp still reports CPU temps in the low 20s, which is basically the ambient temperature, even when it's been running (albeit without much of a CPU load) for a while. Seems crazy low... could that be right? I want to try getting it to 3.5-3.6 or so, once I am able to close up my case again and focus on overclocking rather than migrating data (right now I have a SATA drive sitting outside of my case and I'm transferring data).

As for motherboard reliability, I've never had one die on me or be anything less than reliable. The only time I was unhappy was with an old S754 MSI board that required you to enable SATA RAID in order for the SATA ports to even be usable (even if you weren't actually going to use RAID). That took me a while to figure out... I kept trying to install Windows and it kept failing. But once I got it working, it was fine. I've also owned two Biostars (including this one) and a DFI, and all have been good. My brother and some of my friends haven't been so lucky. My brother had two DOA Gigabytes in a row, and one other guy I knew had a Gigabyte die on him. My brother is now using an Asus and it's been reliable.

I really think mobos are a crapshoot. They're all built in those giant Taiwanese factories. Do you really think one of them is going to be better than the other? Some may be designed better, but I doubt there's much difference in reliability.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: topjimmy

Tech site reviews and problems reported on forums. I really don't consider the egg reviews that much I built a cheap pc for my mother with an MSI board and it was a PITA. I see you have the Biostar board, do you like it? Any problems or concerns? I like my DFI board. Good quality, never had a problem. My PC before that was an Epox board that I liked also. I don't think I have ever used a Biostar. I normally would not limit myself to a combo deal.

Later
JimC

You brought a tear to my eye by mentioning Epox... damn, those were the days.

No problems with my Biostar TA790GX 128m - but of course I've only had for a couple of months. I've used a bunch of Biostars over the years, initially for budgete builds, and more recently for more enthusiast-oriented rigs. The only problem I ever had was one wound up with dead USB headers - that one was an "open box" purchase from Newegg, so I kind of set myself up for that one.

The couple of reviews I had read on the Foxconn A7DA were pretty positive, and had that not been something like $30 more than my Biostar at the time, I probably would have gotten it.

When I got my Biostar, one of the 1st things I did was apply small ramsinks to the MOSFETS. They get very hot, and the ramsinks help a lot in that regard.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
Installed my new mobo/CPU combo last night. Biostar TA790GX 128M with a Phenom II X3 720. Unfortunately, by the time I thought to look at the CPU to find out what revision it was, I had already taken apart my computer. I probably could have just written down everything from the CPU but I guess I was too excited and by now, I just don't care enough to take the thing apart and put it back together.

Anyway, the bad part is that when I set ACC from "Off" to "Auto," it wouldn't post. I had to clear the CMOS, which is not an easy thing to do on this motherboard (lots of hand-aerobics). So I will probably just live with the three cores. Though if there's some other step I'm missing, I'm all ears. For now I'm just interested in getting everything set up and then testing the stability. I've already overclocked it to 3.1 GHz (from 2.8). Core Temp still reports CPU temps in the low 20s, which is basically the ambient temperature, even when it's been running (albeit without much of a CPU load) for a while. Seems crazy low... could that be right? I want to try getting it to 3.5-3.6 or so, once I am able to close up my case again and focus on overclocking rather than migrating data (right now I have a SATA drive sitting outside of my case and I'm transferring data).

What BIOS are you running? If the 4th core is operational, setting ACC to "Auto" is all you should need to do.

It's certainly possible that, with an open case and good airflow, your CPU temp is only slightly above ambient w/o a load. Right now mine's at 29C.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca
Installed my new mobo/CPU combo last night. Biostar TA790GX 128M with a Phenom II X3 720. Unfortunately, by the time I thought to look at the CPU to find out what revision it was, I had already taken apart my computer. I probably could have just written down everything from the CPU but I guess I was too excited and by now, I just don't care enough to take the thing apart and put it back together.

Anyway, the bad part is that when I set ACC from "Off" to "Auto," it wouldn't post. I had to clear the CMOS, which is not an easy thing to do on this motherboard (lots of hand-aerobics). So I will probably just live with the three cores. Though if there's some other step I'm missing, I'm all ears. For now I'm just interested in getting everything set up and then testing the stability. I've already overclocked it to 3.1 GHz (from 2.8). Core Temp still reports CPU temps in the low 20s, which is basically the ambient temperature, even when it's been running (albeit without much of a CPU load) for a while. Seems crazy low... could that be right? I want to try getting it to 3.5-3.6 or so, once I am able to close up my case again and focus on overclocking rather than migrating data (right now I have a SATA drive sitting outside of my case and I'm transferring data).

What BIOS are you running? If the 4th core is operational, setting ACC to "Auto" is all you should need to do.

It's certainly possible that, with an open case and good airflow, your CPU temp is only slightly above ambient w/o a load. Right now mine's at 29C.

I'm guessing I simply have a dead fourth core. Not sure on the BIOS version (will check when I get home) but all I did was set ACC to Auto and then it wouldn't post. Seems pretty clear.

Tell me more about cooling the MOSFETs. Are they those four black things indicated here?

ta790gx_mosfets.jpg

Can I just order some MOSFET heatsinks from Frozen CPU or something and install them? Do I need adhesive thermal paste? Seems like a pretty simple but worthwhile mod, but what is the actual effect? Does it help achieve higher overclocks or does it simply keep the overall board temperature lower?

 

[lilila001]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Originally posted by: lilila001

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle
Updated... seems like we have a new batch working, 0906.

My X3 710, CACZC AC 0906BPMW, with Biostar TA790GX XE failed.

When enablling ACC, have to clear CMOS to boot.

What BIOS?

The BIOS shipped with the board. It's actually the newest BIOS: A78CM113.BST,2009-01-13.

 

[jjmIII]

Mine goes into a reboot cycle if I set to Auto.

Curious though...is 32C at full load (dual Orthos) normal?
I'm using CoreTemp .99.4, and running as a tri-core.

Seems cold. I even have the OC on 'Auto V6' (aka 220bus).

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: AstroManLuca

I'm guessing I simply have a dead fourth core. Not sure on the BIOS version (will check when I get home) but all I did was set ACC to Auto and then it wouldn't post. Seems pretty clear.

Tell me more about cooling the MOSFETs. Are they those four black things indicated here?

ta790gx_mosfets.jpg

Can I just order some MOSFET heatsinks from Frozen CPU or something and install them? Do I need adhesive thermal paste? Seems like a pretty simple but worthwhile mod, but what is the actual effect? Does it help achieve higher overclocks or does it simply keep the overall board temperature lower?

Here is a good thread - perhaps the definitive thread - regarding our motherboard, MOSFET cooling, etc. http://www.rebelshavenforum.co...et_topic;f=45;t=000164. Page 7 has a good shot of the MOSFETs.

I used a few RAMsinks left over from a Zalman VF900 installation, and thermal tape. The RAMsinks get warm, as opposed to the bare MOSFETS, which got hot to the touch. Using Everest, the "Motherboard Temp" sensor showed as ~ 3C cooler after the RAMsink installation. I have no idea where the sensor is located, and was surprised to see the measurement.

 

[Denithor]

Xbitlabs managed to activate the fourth core on their PhII X3 720 (linkage) and overclock to 3.67GHz with all four cores active.

They made this comment:

In reality, CPUs may act differently during fourth core activation. Some samples simply won?t turn on in quad-core mode, some will start but will fail POST, some will fail only under significant computational load. We were lucky to get our hands on the best Phenom II X3 720 CPU that works just fine in quad-core mode and of course, we couldn?t miss this great opportunity to run even more tests.

The fourth core in Phenom II X3 processors can be activated very easily without any hardware modifications. All CPU computational cores will get automatically activated when you enable Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) in the mainboard BIOS Setup.

So it looks like if you turn on the ACC mode & your system fails to boot you've got an X3 processor with a defective fourth core.

 

[GrimmRimmer]

Mine's been working solid for about a week.

Here are my stats: 710, CACZC AC 0904DPEW, Biostar TA790GX 128M (AM2+, 790GX/SB750) Stock speed/voltage, BIOS 1/13/2009

 

[Smoove910]

Finally upgraded my old mobo to the Biostar TA790GX XE board. Specs are as follows:

unlocked X3 720BE, CACZC AC 0904EPMW, Biostar TA790GX XE (AM2+, 790GX/SB750) 3.5GHZ 1.45vcore. BIOS is A78CM113.BST (shipped with MOBO)

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Thanks guys, I've updated the list.

 

[dafoomie]

Unlocked X3 720BE, CACZC AC 0904EPMW, Biostar Tforce TA790GX 128M.

Had to increase the voltage on the northbridge to resolve errors in Prime95 with large FFT's, I think its just an issue with my memory though.

Stable at 3.4ghz, 1.36v. Doesn't want to go to 3.5ghz without a significant voltage increase.

 

[Summer]

Unlocked X3 720BE, 0904EPMW, ASRock AOD790GX/128M, stable 4th core 3.5@ 1.4375v

 

[soonerproud]

ASRock A780GXE/128M AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G ATX does not support ACC. Only SB chipsets 710 or 750 support this option so anything with a 700 chipset can not unlock a X3.

Edit: I know this thread is about listing what is known to work, but it should be amended to list what does not work too so people have a reference point to start from in excluding certain mainboards.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: soonerproud
ASRock A780GXE/128M AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G ATX does not support ACC. Only SB chipsets 710 or 750 support this option so anything with a 700 chipset can not unlock a X3.

Edit: I know this thread is about listing what is known to work, but it should be amended to list what does not work too so people have a reference point to start from in excluding certain mainboards.

I agree, hence the subtitle of "success/unsuccess".

List updated.