GA-880GA-UD3H - unlock cores on Phenom II 555 BE

[Dark Mantis]

dieg0

I think that it is probably down to the fact that Gigabyte motherboards always have been more robustly built and I expect that also goes for the BIOS settings too. The Asus boards probably have a lower threshold that allows the extra cores to be sensed whereas the Gigabyte boards look for a more stable and solid threshold before "seeing" them.

[dieg0]

dieg0

I think that it is probably down to the fact that Gigabyte motherboards always have been more robustly built and I expect that also goes for the BIOS settings too. The Asus boards probably have a lower threshold that allows the extra cores to be sensed whereas the Gigabyte boards look for a more stable and solid threshold before "seeing" them.

Hi Dark Mantis, I agree! but it is a bitch of fat, but to tell you the truth in the 7xx series gigabyte is the best unlock the nuclei, so that makes me think! It will not be that there is something wrong with the programming of the black edition release, or by having unlocked multipliers or any other difference of 555 or 555be? Nor do I know too Amd! I always had intel, but I'm not far from disappointed with AMD and its performance. No one is my humble opinion.

[Dark Mantis]

No, I understand. I have had AMD CPUs in the past and been quite happy with them but that was years ago and I have had Intel for my last few personal systems. A bit out of touch with the more modern AMD chips.

[Harro]

Hello all

I started following this thread a few days ago. I have a phenom x2 555 BE and a gigabyte GA-880GMA-ud2h. I am unable to see the third and fourth cores in the bios - which, i believe, is the crux of this thread. I have tried updating the bios from F5 to F6, but this has yielded nothing at all.

I am in Cape Town, South Africa, however I ordered the parts off of newegg in America (around August 2010).

Does anyone have any suggestions or 'tricks' that I can try (besides updating the bios), while your correspondences with Gigabyte go on?

[dieg0]

Hello all

I started following this thread a few days ago. I have a phenom x2 555 BE and a gigabyte GA-880GMA-ud2h. I am unable to see the third and fourth cores in the bios - which, i believe, is the crux of this thread. I have tried updating the bios from F5 to F6, but this has yielded nothing at all.

I am in Cape Town, South Africa, however I ordered the parts off of newegg in America (around August 2010).

Does anyone have any suggestions or 'tricks' that I can try (besides updating the bios), while your correspondences with Gigabyte go on?

Hi, I guess you've tried raising the vcore a bit, if you can sample the chip in another board to unlock the 7 series gigabyte with ACC or a Asus number 7 or 8, and to tell us.

[proxy]

Try also underclocking the CPU, by lowering the Multiplier and/or the FSB as well to see if that helps.

I'd just like to point out that if the cores can't be unlocked on the GA-880GA-UD3H it will not show up in the list of cores when 'manual' is selected from the Core Unlocker.  It seems that it's not that the board can't see the cores, it's that it doesn't see them as unlockable.  I was initially confused by this as well.

I've since tested three 555 BEs on the rev 2.0 board I originally posted about and it has successfully unlocked both extra cores on one, only one core on the other, and none on the last one.  The one that couldn't be unlocked on the 880GA did unlock on an Asus M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 but that was only after down clocking to about 2.7-2.8GHz and upping the VCore to 1.4125V.

I'm going to point out that this thread should be for those with an issue of not being able to unlock cores for a CPU that is known to be unlockable on another motherboard.  Not for those who have no idea if their CPU has any cores that can be unlocked.  Initially I didn't really qualify under said criteria until getting my hands on a pair of Asus boards to compare and contrast.

I think that DM et al may be right, and that Gigabyte just has stricter thresholds for unlocking a core.

Yes I was hopping that even the 64GB cache would have made a bigger difference than it did, as it was the difference between the SATA2 and SATA3 drives is negligable. Still I am hoping to test them out on a new P67 board shortly and will be able to see if Gigabyte has made a better job of implimenting the Marvell chip now with more experience to call on.

Yeah, there was similar sentiment with the WD Green EADS 32MB and EARS 64MB caches, no real improvement.  I am curious now about benching these on the Asus board to see how they fare.

[Dark Mantis]

Shortly I will be doing a review of the Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD5 and after the initial build and trials of the board want to try my Western Digital Black SATA3 drives in RAID0 on there and see how they fare. Hopefully we might see some better figures this time round.

[b_force]

Ah yes, I was planning to send my motherboard 

Running for weeks now with the (old) MSI 785.
Rock stable with unlocked cores!!

The Gigabyte board is in my HTPC now (= overkill)

Will I keep it this way?
I think not, the Gigabyte board has far more and better options.
The BIOS is also way better and the same for the sensors (voltage, temp etc).

I think I'll just send the Gigabyte board back to the tech staff.
See what they can find and I'll see it from there.

[proxy]

Posted by: b_force
I think I'll just send the Gigabyte board back to the tech staff.
See what they can find and I'll see it from there.

I'd be very curious to know what happens if and when you do send that board in b_force, please do keep us updated.

It's perplexing to me the way Gigabyte has handled this whole issue.  I mean saying you're not going to offer support for this issue is one thing, but the way in which some support staff chose to respond leaves me at a loss.  The inaccurate and inapplicable excuses stemming from ignorance or lethargy, to responses consisting of outright hostility and disdain for customers is just baffling.

Having recently dealt with Asus support I can tell you the difference was stark, night and day stuff.  In the last month I've also dealt with Hitachi, OCZ (twice), Corsair, and Logitech, and I can tell you they went above an beyond their support policies for resolutions, and in the one situation when they couldn't (an OCZ issue) they did everything feasibly in their power to do, and offered their regrets that they couldn't do more.

It's been said here before about Gigabyte, excellent products with spotty to horrid support.  Their Customer Service department is shooting Gigabyte in the foot, IMO, and doing a dis-service to the hard working and talented engineers, testers, developers etc. in the rest of the company.

[Dark Mantis]

It's been said here before about Gigabyte, excellent products with spotty to horrid support.  Their Customer Service department is shooting Gigabyte in the foot, IMO, and doing a dis-service to the hard working and talented engineers, testers, developers etc. in the rest of the company.

This has been pointed out many times before and I must admit to being one of the protagonists. However in their defence I think they (the support staff) are understaffed and overworked which doesn't help in the provision of a good after sales service. I really feel that the company could provide more staff on the support side.

[plastick]

Do you have any new information regarding unlock core?!  Thank... 

[absic]

Sorry, but this is one of those situations where Gigabyte do not seem to accept there is a problem, despite the evidence presented to them.

Gigabyte say that, as they can unlock their test chips, the problem isn't with the boards or the BIOS but with the AMD CPU's even though users have successfully unlocked the CPU on motherboards produced by rival companies and provided them with evidence of this.

I think this is one of those situations where Gigabyte are burying their heads in the sand, hoping it will just go away.

[plastick]

Hm, ok... Bye Gigabyte...    Buy sandy bridge... Motherboard - Asus, Graphic - Asus, case - Asus... 

[dieg0]

Hm, ok... Bye Gigabyte...    Buy sandy bridge... Motherboard - Asus, Graphic - Asus, case - Asus... 

You are right, to buy Asus or OCZ or any other brand, I bought a power supply and I liked a Gigabyte but with my experience 880ga and service technician to fix your problem with the lock and how little and poor responses , I bought an OCZ! Hospital not release deceive the problem is you and your bad programming (the 880 chip has nothing to do as I have said, blaming AMD for its provision) that I know to the other manufacturers like ASUS is also the AMD will provide, right?
Is nonsense from gigabyte to us customers! And so they have no desire to fix it and it is a shame!

[sideburns]

Small update:

The latest F6 bios for the GA-880GMA-UD2h all revisions seems to note

'Note: Remove boot PXE ROM & unlock CPU core function, please use previous BIOS version for full functionality.'

So you can have AM3+ support or core unlock : /  Also ironically the page for this board still advertises core unlock.

 additonal update:

Following proxy's guide I can now get my machine to post as a phenom x4 b55, but it only posts so far : / there goes my todo list for the weekend.