AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition to X4!

onipar

onipar

Member
So I finally did the core unlock on my Phenom II X3, and it worked. I now have the fourth core unlocked and I'm running the Stress test.

One thing I'm worried about is the temperature monitor, because I'm using Ubuntu, it was sort of a pain to get a working temp sensor.

I did the "LM-sensor detect" thing in the terminal. It seemed to work. I'm now running Xsensor while I stress test, but it is only detecting 3 of the 4 cores (could this be because I did the "sensor detect" before I unlocked the fourth core?).

Also, I've never done this before, so I don't know what a normal temp reading looks like, but for the three cores, it ranges in temps from 12 C to 41 C. The third is something like 31 C. Does this sound normal? I'm just not sure if the temp readings are accurate.

Any advice or help regarding getting accurate temp readings with Ubuntu 11.10 is greatly appreciated.
 
When you unlock the 4th core, the temperature readings stop working, as is proven by your lowest temperatures showing 12 degrees. You would have to be in a fully air conditioned room shivering if that was the case :P. You won't be producing any more heat than any other Phenom II quad, which won't produce a whole lot more than the 720 does anyway.
 
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Aastii said:
When you unlock the 4th core, the temperature readings stop working, as is proven by your lowest temperatures showing 12 degrees. You would have to be in a fully air conditioned room shivering if that was the case :P. You won't be producing any more heat than any other Phenom II quad, which won't produce a whole lot more than the 720 does anyway.
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Ha! Ohhhh, okay. i thought that seemed a bit off. So I went through all that trouble to get the sensors to detect for nothing? Oh well. Ya live, ya learn. :P

Related question: I'm planning on also overclocking. Not by a lot. Probably just to 3-3.2 GHz. Any advice since the temp readings don't work now?

Also, I do have an after market cooler, so I'm not too worried.
 
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Keep the voltages as low as you can whilst keeping the system stable. 3.2GHz isn't a huge overclock really, you are basically just making your CPU a Phenom II 955 at stock clocks
 
Aastii said:
Keep the voltages as low as you can whilst keeping the system stable. 3.2GHz isn't a huge overclock really, you are basically just making your CPU a Phenom II 955 at stock clocks
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Yeah, exactly. I'm not a gamer, and this system really is just being used for regular stuff, but I was keen on turning it into the Phenom II X4 955. Don't ask me why. I think I just liked the idea of getting extra performance for cheap. :D
 
StrangleHold said:
Dont know what cooler your using, but with the C2 720 you can get 3.6 pretty easy with 1.4V
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I don't have a very good one, just a basic cooler: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 120mm CPU Cooler

Not sure how effective it is, and I'd be worried to overclock too much without being able to keep an eye on temps... Any tips on how I might be able to get working temps again with the 4th core unlocked? Or should I just not go too far from 3.2-3.6 ghz and hope for the best?

EDIT: Also, how long should I stress test for the unlocked core? I've had it going a few hours so far with no problems.
 
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The Hyper 212 is a pretty good cooler. Like Aastii said unlocking cores kill the CPU onboard temp sensor. If you load PC Wizard it will show the motherbaord CPU temp sensor, it will show alittle higher temp then the CPU temp, so you can get a good idea what your temp is. Most of the time the motherboard CPU temp sensor will show around 10c higher then the CPU temp sensor, so you can just subtract around that.
 
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StrangleHold said:
The Hyper 212 is a pretty good cooler. Like Aastii said unlocking cores kill the CPU onboard temp sensor. If you load PC Wizard it will show the motherbaord CPU temp sensor, it will show alittle higher temp then the CPU temp, so you can get a good idea what your temp is. Most of the time the motherboard CPU temp sensor will show around 10c higher then the CPU temp sensor, so you can just subtract around that.
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Okay, thanks. Is PC Wizard a Linux program? I'll try to find it in the software center on Ubuntu.
 
Oh, and one more related question. After unlocking, this is what my processor comes up as: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 20

Why only 20?
 
Great. Sysinfo worked well enough. I don't have a motherboard temp on it, but it shows the Ghz, which is also what I was looking for.

I overclocked to 3.2 Ghz. When I started the stress test, it froze, so I went back to the bios and upped my voltage from 1.375 to 1.4, and now the stress test is humming away.

Still no way to monitor the temp, but it should be good I hope. :eek:
 
onipar said:
Oh, and one more related question. After unlocking, this is what my processor comes up as: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 20

Why only 20?
Click to expand...

The bios with it unlocked just has no idea what processor it is. Cant really remember what the boards I had with a 720 unlocked called it? lol. Causes no problems.
 
StrangleHold said:
The bios with it unlocked just has no idea what processor it is. Cant really remember what the boards I had with a 720 unlocked called it? lol. Causes no problems.
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Right on.

You know, the system froze again at those specs I wrote above. I don't really want to keep raising voltage, so instead I put the voltage back to factory settings and dropped the clock back down to 3.1 Ghz. Stress testing again, we'll see...

There was one little "bug" when signing in this time that bothered me. It looked like the screen had a bunch of short horizontal lines across is when I was typing the password. After I hit enter, it brought me back to the sign in screen without the little lines, then everything worked fine. not sure if this is a sign that the overclock won't be stable at 3.1 either...
 
StrangleHold said:
Could have a flacky core. Come cores were not bad, but just need more voltage then the other three.
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Could be. I stress tested the unlocked core for 5 hours with no problems. The problems started when I tried to overclock.

After the 3.2 ghz freeze, I dropped to 3.1 and had A freeze on that one with the stock voltage. Since it's late I dropped the GHz back to 2.8 for now.

What do you recommend? Should I start stress testing at 2.9GHZ and keep going until I get the freeze, and then start increasing voltage until it's stable? Or do you think I'm better off just leaving it at 2.8 GHz since it's having trouble running at stock voltage for such a small clock increase?

Thanks again for all the help.

I'm assuming it's okay to leave the core unlocked at 2.8 since the stress test went fine for 5-6 hours.
 
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Cool, cool. Thanks.

I was reading a bit about overclocking this specific CPU, and some sources stated having to put the voltage as high as 1.325V to 1.5V for a stable 3.7GHz, so I probably just wasn't putting the voltage high enough.

Just to be clear, the only things I touched in the bios were "CPU Clock Ratio" (multiplier) and the "CPU Voltage control." Is there anything else I should be tinkering with?
 
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SO I started doing the slow increase with stress tests as I mentioned earlier.

Something I did was I checked the temp (in the bios) before overclocking. It showed system -> 28 C, and Core -> 27 C.

Interestingly, when I opened the xsensor program on the desktop, it showed "temp 1" -> 28 C and "Temp 2" -> 27 C. Temp 3 still reads as the improbable 12 C, so I know that one isn't working. But I'm thinking those first two temps might be accurate.

My plan is to restart after the stress test runs a while, note those 2 temps, then check the temps in the bios again to see if they are still matching up. If so, I think those two are working...
 
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With the cooler 1.5V is kinda high. I would keep it around 1.450/1.475 at the highest. I could always get the 720 in general with 3 cores around 3.6/3.7 with 1.40. And with 4 cores 3.6 with 1.425. But all of them vary alittle. Really depend on how stable the disabled core is.
 
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