AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE had a locked core, could this mean my CPU is faulty?

[shadowphantom]

So I purchased a new CPU a couple months ago, and didn't bother to mess with the Bios after installing it. Anyway, the CPU I purchased was an AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE, which, as I understand, is supposed to have all four cores unlocked from start, with no need to do anything yourself.

Anyway, some time had passed and about a month ago I was in my Bios messing around with some settings and noticed that under CPU Settings it showed something like this:

Core #0 - Unlocked
Core #1 - Unlocked
Core #2 - Unlocked
Core #3 - Locked

I started up my computer without making changes to check what my computer said, and sure enough, in task manager, it only showed three cores. I'm almost positive that I'd remembered seeing four cores in the task manage on multiple occasions before, but of course, couldn't be sure. So I'm not sure if it was always like this from when I installed the CPU, or if something changed it for the first month or two I had it installed.

Anyway, went back into Bios and changed it to Unlocked, and now all four cores show as unlocked and my computer seems to be running fine, but now I am unable to see the temperature readouts for each of my cores--which I understand is a side effect from unlocking cores, though I shouldn't be having that problem considering the 965 BE is supposed to come with all four cores unlocked AFAIK.

I'm not too concerned about the temperature thing really, but I'm just wondering if this would have any effect on my computer, or if it could mean that the CPU is faulty, or something along those lines.

I appreciate any help, thanks!

 

[twm]

I think the the X4 BE is supposed to have 6 cores, with 2 of them locked out. It almost sounds like you have an X3, with 1 of 4 cores locked out. My 970 BE showed 6 cores, with 2 locked out, when I first got it. But I think I may have over-cooked it, or something, when I enabled all 6 cores, and overclocked it, because now it only shows 4 cores. None are locked, though. It runs fine at 4GHz, with 1.5V to it, and 17V to the cooling fan.

 

[fimbles]

The phenom x4 965 (3.4ghz) is a quad core processor and does not need to be unlocked in any way.

Either your processor or motherboard has a fault, or you require a bios update.

As a side note the 970 is also quad core.

 

[herpaderp]

I think the the X4 BE is supposed to have 6 cores

No, that's the x4 960T, which I believe is the only Zosma (cut down Thuban) Phenom X4.

Try doing as fimbles said, update your motherboard's BIOS, and if that doesn't solve the problem of "unlocking" what should already be an unlocked core, then you probably have a faulty chip.

 

[Rabbit01]

The desktop I put together for my parents have a Phenom II X4 965 BE. Quad core. Running Win7 on that system and I have the All CPU Meter gadget running on the desktop to display temperature. Which displays the temp of each.