Recommendations on a budget build for Dad?

Can't you take out the bad ram and try again? There's nothing stopping you, really.

Enable firmware to hybrid, save, enable ACC, save, and see if it worked.
 
Deluded said:
Can't you take out the bad ram and try again? There's nothing stopping you, really.

Enable firmware to hybrid, save, enable ACC, save, and see if it worked.
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Yeah, this was a few days ago, and the RAM has been RMA'd. I'm waiting on the replacement DIMMs to get here from Newegg. Are you saying you think it was just the RAM that caused the weird shutdown/behaviour? I notice you included a "save" between each setting change. I did both settings at once. Would that have caused the craziness? I wouldn't want ID10T error to screw up my parents' motherboard/CPU/RAM.
 
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TheQuestian said:
Yeah, this was a few days ago, and the RAM has been RMA'd. I'm waiting on the replacement DIMMs to get here from Newegg. Are you saying you think it was just the RAM that caused the weird shutdown/behaviour? I notice you included a "save" between each setting change. I did both settings at once. Would that have caused the craziness? I wouldn't want ID10T error to screw up my parents' motherboard/CPU/RAM.
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No, lol. Trying to unlock cores won't destroy your parents computers. Trust me on this, I've owned a 550 X2 before and I unlocked one additional core with no problems (to be fair, I was using a 790x mobo). Yes, I mention saving, because it's what you need to do anyway. Enabling everything at once will probably make it work, but it would also probably cause it to fall into an endless boot loop -- nothing a CMOS reset can't fix.

Enable Hybrid, save, reboot, enable ACC, save, reboot, and see if it worked.
 
Any thoughts on what might have caused the shutdown last time? I changed the settings you mentioned, and then hit F10. I waited a few seconds, while the firmware message flashed, and then the tower just shutdown completely. It was unresponsive to anything until I cleared the CMOS. Once it did come back up, it was very finicky and every few hours I'd get a BSOD. Just wondering what you think it might have been, so I can try to avoid that happening again. The new memory should be here in the next two days, so we'll see if my confidence is back up by then. LOL.
 
TheQuestian said:
Any thoughts on what might have caused the shutdown last time? I changed the settings you mentioned, and then hit F10. I waited a few seconds, while the firmware message flashed, and then the tower just shutdown completely. It was unresponsive to anything until I cleared the CMOS. Once it did come back up, it was very finicky and every few hours I'd get a BSOD. Just wondering what you think it might have been, so I can try to avoid that happening again. The new memory should be here in the next two days, so we'll see if my confidence is back up by then. LOL.
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I'm not quite sure what happened to cause it go like that. It could be faulty cores (I mean, AMD DID lock those cores for a reason) so it could be faulty cores playing havoc. I know that on my old 550X2 I would just get an endless boot loop if I enabled all four cores. I could sit in the BIOS and admire the 4 core prowess for as long as I wanted, but as soon as I want to actually use it, BSOD. :p

Since you mentioned that the 800-chipset mobo from Gigabyte can unlock the additional cores, could you look into it and see if you have to do anything different in order to enable the extra cores? I know on 800-chipset Asus motherboard you have to push a button on the motherboard called 'Core Unlocker' in order to unlock the cores. Perhaps this is also the case for the gigaybyte, seeing how 800-chipset does not have the core unlocker natively built in?
 
MrWizard6600 said:
your from /b/ arn't you.
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Heh, not sure what that is, but if you must know, I'm a graphic designer, and I frequent a graphic design forum called Threadless. A lot of users there post comments/threads while at work, from their mobile devices, etc., and it seems to result in a non-stop stream of interactions. I'm not saying it's right, but that's how they operate around there. But out of curiosity, what is /b/?
 
TheQuestian said:
H. But out of curiosity, what is /b/?
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You don't want to know. Some things are better left alone.

Threadless? Like the site that does sells those awesome shirts? If so, cool. Have a few dozen of those shirts hanging in my closet now :)
 
So, does anyone else have any thoughts on the unlocking situation? I absolutely want to try it again, but I'd like to understand why the shutdown/BSOD stuff happened last time.
 
I've already given you my opinion. It is possible that faulty cores to cause BSOD or endless boot.
 
Thanks, I do appreciate it. I would have thought that clearing the CMOS would have solved the problem, I guess. Shouldn't that "turn off" the faulty cores? Maybe it was just a coincidence that no problems showed up until after the unlock, and then after the unlock, real problems with the RAM started to present themselves? It sorta makes me nervous that I could never get the problems to stop.
 
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No, faulty core does not damage the rams. The rams were already damaged to begin with, you just noticed it during the unlocking. You lose nothing from unlocking to begin with; if it is faulty, then disable the faulty core. If you cannot get into BIOS, then reset CMOS fixes the problem,
 
TheQuestian said:
Thanks, I do appreciate it. I would have thought that clearing the CMOS would have solved the problem, I guess. Shouldn't that "turn off" the faulty cores? Maybe it was just a coincidence that no problems showed up until after the unlock, and then after the unlock, real problems with the RAM started to present themselves? It sorta makes me nervous that I could never get the problems to stop.
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Not necessarily. Probably not a coincidence.
 
After clearing the CMOS, I was able to get the computer back on, and I could get into the BIOS. After that, I reset the ACC settings, etc., and the chip booted as a "Phenom II X2 555" again. But maybe I did permanent damage you're saying, Danny? To the motherboard? The firmware? All I know is that several different BSOD's (one of which was MEMORY_MANAGEMENT) started shortly thereafter. Maybe I'm not doing something correctly, because I see a lot of people mention unlocking "only 3" cores, etc. But from what I've seen, I only know how to unlock all four, or none. How do you unlock one core at a time?
 
When you enable ACC and restart, there should be another option in the ACC that says : Core Disabler or something to that effect. Then you're given a option to disable core #3 or core #2.
 
Deluded said:
When you enable ACC and restart, there should be another option in the ACC that says : Core Disabler or something to that effect. Then you're given a option to disable core #3 or core #2.
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Ah, thanks Deluded! As soon as the RAM gets here (jeez, get here, already), I think I'll have another go. :D
 
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