2 cores stuck at low clock frequency?

[SingularityRS]

Hey,

I recently got a new "budget gaming PC" as a gift for my birthday, however, have noticed some issues with it. I'm testing to see if this PC is faulty.

Specs:

AMD Athlon 860K @ 3.7GHz (4 CPUs)
8GB 1600MHz RAM
1tb 7200RPM hard drive
Nvidia GTX 750 Ti 2gb (MSI
OS: Windows 7 ultimate 64-bit SP1
Motherboard: Gigabyte F2A68HM-HD2

According to Speccy and some other programs: two of my cores are stuck at 1.7GHz (Cores 2 and 3) whereas core 0 and 1 are at their normal clock speed (3.7GHz). These cores don't rise above 1.7GHz even if I throw stuff at them via task manager "set affinity" feature.

I've disabled as many power saving options in BIOs as I possibly can and have made sure I'm on high performance power plan. Still no luck.

I'd like to add: When I check frequencies in BIOs, they're all at 3.7GHz.

Minimum/maximum processor state options from the power plan options have vanished, too.

 

[rvcjew]

Use HWinfo and click sensors at the top of it and then your core clocks there. I suggest the portable zip version. HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 - Download

 

[SingularityRS]

Reports the same clock speeds as what other monitoring softwares are saying (core 2 and 3 being at 1.7GHz while cores 0 and 1 at 3.7GHz)

 

[rvcjew]

That is indeed interesting, so you checked all advanced cpu core features in your bios and none of them are off auto? No cores are disabled? Try turning off turbo then rebooting and turning it back on. [SOLVED] Athlon x4 860k Has two cores running at half speed?

 

[SingularityRS]

There was a "CPU clock control" option which is on "automatic"

Turbo was off, so I turned it on with everything within the turbo options set to "auto" - still no change.

 

[rvcjew]

There was a "CPU clock control" option which is on "automatic"

Turbo was off, so I turned it on with everything within the turbo options set to "auto" - still no change.

I would clear your cmos as it sounds like your bios settings are not taking correctly everywhere I look it seems to have to do with turbo. Try changing it more than once in between reboots for it to stick also what bios version do you have atm?

 

[SingularityRS]

Alright, so I just enabled every power setting I could find (leaving turbo enabled). Then rebooted, now all cores are at 4GHz.

I guess something just got stuck?

 

[rvcjew]

Alright, so I just enabled every power setting I could find (leaving turbo enabled). Then rebooted, now all cores are at 4GHz.

I guess something just got stuck?

Yeah some times to have to give it swift kick in the pants to make settings stay lol. Do some testing and make sure it doesn't throttle back.

 

[SingularityRS]

Minimum/maximum processor state options have also returned. They vanished before. So far, it hasn't throttled back.

 

[rvcjew]

Minimum/maximum processor state options have also returned. They vanished before. So far, it hasn't throttled back.

Your probably good then.

 

[SingularityRS]

Starting to throttle now :S

 

[SingularityRS]

Closed the game I was playing and the throttling stopped, went back to 4GHz..

 

[SingularityRS]

Disabled turbo and it's at 3.7GHz atm - hasn't throttled with the game I play yet.

AMD overdrive reports thermal margin readings of around 27c - is this OK?

Also cooler is an Artic Alpine GT 64 Rev.2

 

[rvcjew]

Disabled turbo and it's at 3.7GHz atm - hasn't throttled with the game I play yet.

AMD overdrive reports thermal margin readings of around 27c - is this OK?

Also cooler is an Artic Alpine GT 64 Rev.2

As in it idles at 27c? That's pretty cold if that's the case.

 

[SingularityRS]

Noticed that clock speeds throttle down to 1.7GHz on max CPU load (100% on all cores). I tried a sony vegas render attempt and clock speeds are occasionally throttling down to 1.7GHz then up again.

Is there a way to stop this?