BIOS - Cannot change ANY CPU settings (Trying to enable ALL cores)

[Madvillain]

Sup all. I've just recently discovered that my computer is not detecting all 4 cores of my CPU. I'm not sure why I never noticed this in the past but I didn't.

A lot of forums online say to reinstall windows, but this IS fresh install.

I installed and ran CPUID and that also only detects 1 core.

As the title states, the BIOS won't give me ANY options to change the CPU settings.. Maybe I need to enable permission to change them? If so I'm not sure how. The CPU info is all highlighted in grey. Cannot edit any of it.

Should I update the BIOS? Reset the BIOS by taking the battery out for 30 seconds?


Hardware and system info screen shot below.

 

[Cloakedsphere]

Ive noticed on CPUZ That I also get 1 core showing up on it. Dont know if its a bug with CPUZ? Or maybe mine is just shut off aswell. Im running AMD phenom 2 X4 955 black ed. Its discontinued since I got it about a year or so ago.

EDIT: Ok I just updated CPUZ to the latest software (( mine was from about 5 months ago )) And it shows 4 cores now? Weird.

 

[Skagnatti]

Hey fellas. Try this:

Press Windows Key + R then type msconfig.
In this window click the Boot tab. In here at the middle left click Advanced Options.
In Advanced Options, uncheck the box 'Number of Processors'. (hopefully it is checked)
Click Apply.
Reboot
Run CPU-Z

Come back with how that goes!

 

[Madvillain]

Hey fellas. Try this:

Press Windows Key + R then type msconfig.
In this window click the Boot tab. In here at the middle left click Advanced Options.
In Advanced Options, uncheck the box 'Number of Processors'. (hopefully it is checked)
Click Apply.
Reboot
Run CPU-Z

Come back with how that goes!

Done. To make things simple heres a cropped screen shot of Task manager (now displaying 4 cpu graphs instead of one large graph), CPU-Z and msconfig/advanced. Is it all normal? Should I or do I need to adjust any other values?

 

[Skagnatti]

Werd! I'd say you straight, dawg. Unless you want to do some overclocking. However on a 'consumer based' rig you might not get much out of it given the BIOS is kinda locked down by design.

Now you rollin'.

 

[Madvillain]

Werd! I'd say you straight, dawg. Unless you want to do some overclocking. However on a 'consumer based' rig you might not get much out of it given the BIOS is kinda locked down by design.

Now you rollin'.

Holla Holla get a dolla. Nothing on my computer is stock BESIDES the MoBo and the CPU. I'm OK with the CPU for now.. My knowledge of software and hardware maintenance has grown tremendously in the last year so now I am interested in changing the rest, that being the Mobo and CPU.




One more question. Are the cores auto assigned to apps OR for example could I set 2 cores SOLELY to Hl2.exe and steam (DoDS) for significant improvement performance and load-time wise... or would this not show any difference.

 

[shadows5631]

One more question. Are the cores auto assigned to apps OR for example could I set 2 cores SOLELY to Hl2.exe and steam (DoDS) for significant improvement performance and load-time wise... or would this not show any difference.

In the Task Manager under Processes, you can right click a process and hit Set Affinity to choose what cores it will use. Most things use all the cores available by default, so you would actually lose performance.

 

[Madvillain]

^ Thank you. I wasn't sure if there would be any performance increase and didn't know that the programs typically use all cores combined.

 

[Madvillain]

UPDATE: Since activating all 4 cores EVERYTHING including games has increased dramatically performance wise.. But I now have a few problems that I've never experienced before.


Every so often I hear that "dun dun" noise like you just plugged in or unplugged a mouse, headset, or keyboard, or any new hardware while the PC is running.

When this happens my keyboard becomes useless and unresponsive completely. Sometimes for like 3 or 4 minutes. Unplugging it and plugging it in does nothing.
At times the mouse becomes unresponsive as well. I've never encountered this issue before. Happens on front and back USB slots. What could be happening? Is it related or could it be related to activating the cores? I've tried using a second keyboard that I know to work and it happened with that as well.


EDIT: I uninstalled and reinstalled the keyboard in device manager. I'll update on if it now works.




Also, I reset my BIOS by removing and inserting the battery last night due to a blue screen that I had also never encountered before setting my processor to use all 4 cores. I also thought I may have changed a setting accidentally so I wanted the settings on my MB stock.

 

[Skagnatti]

Going to reply on your statements out of order.

Also, I reset my BIOS by removing and inserting the battery last night due to a blue screen that I had also never encountered before setting my processor to use all 4 cores. I also thought I may have changed a setting accidentally so I wanted the settings on my MB stock.

Interesting. Knowing what the actual error was on the BSOD can help to pinpoint what might be causing that. I have seen some BSODs that are actually a fake alert or malware looking like the real thing and makes you go :confused1:. Running a malware scan in safe mode could eliminate that possibility. Also you can reset to default values in the BIOS by pressing F5 while in the BIOS you have on that machine, I believe.

Every so often I hear that "dun dun" noise like you just plugged in or unplugged a mouse, headset, or keyboard, or any new hardware while the PC is running.

When this happens my keyboard becomes useless and unresponsive completely. Sometimes for like 3 or 4 minutes. Unplugging it and plugging it in does nothing.
At times the mouse becomes unresponsive as well. I've never encountered this issue before. Happens on front and back USB slots. What could be happening? Is it related or could it be related to activating the cores? I've tried using a second keyboard that I know to work and it happened with that as well.

Disregard this>>>>The likelihood of BOTH your peripherals physically having issues at the same time is very unlikely, but have you tested another mouse and keyboard? I don't think that is really the issue but you neva know. <<<< Disregard that.

HP has some troubleshooting for USB connections HERE. It is just a strange coincidence that it is ocurring now. You could try running for a few days with the 4 cores 'on' then try reverting back to the way it was and if the problem goes away. That is the odd thing about the way manufacturers configure low-level settings on some of their PCs.

How did uninstall/reinstall go? Are you still using the stock HP keyboard and mouse?

 

[Madvillain]

Going to reply on your statements out of order.



Interesting. Knowing what the actual error was on the BSOD can help to pinpoint what might be causing that. I have seen some BSODs that are actually a fake alert or malware looking like the real thing and makes you go :confused1:. Running a malware scan in safe mode could eliminate that possibility. Also you can reset to default values in the BIOS by pressing F5 while in the BIOS you have on that machine, I believe.


The likelihood of BOTH your peripherals physically having issues at the same time is very unlikely, but have you tested another mouse and keyboard? I don't think that is really the issue but you neva know.

How did uninstall/reinstall go? Are you still using the stock HP keyboard and mouse?

So far after uninstalling and reinstalling my keyboard it's working. I'm not 100% yet as this happened every 5 hours or so. This is an old gigaware keyboard that my sister was using but I found it far better than the flat key HP KB.

I'm using the razer deathadder mouse with drivers installed.


-The BSOD error was recorded and dumped to my windows/minidump folder.. I'm debugging as soon as the Microsoft toolkit finishes downloading. and I hope to get an answer. It's deff a legit blue screen. Log was dumped last night at the time it crashed. 2 logs.



Also I thank you for all of your assistance, you and shadow both. In my time of learning it's greatly appreciated.

 

[Skagnatti]

Anytime, man. Good luck with it and keep us posted.

 

[Madvillain]

 Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck 3B, {c0000005, fffff880079aa269, fffff880061ecee0, 0}

TRIAGER: Could not open triage file : C:Program Files (x86)Windows Kits8.0Debuggersx64triagemodclass.ini, error 2
[B]Probably caused by : danew.sys[/B] ( danew+1269 )

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

kd> !analyze



*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck 1E, {0, 0, 0, 0}

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for danew.sys
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for danew.sys
TRIAGER: Could not open triage file : C:Program Files (x86)Windows Kits8.0Debuggersx64triagemodclass.ini, error 2[B]
Probably caused by : danew.sys ( danew+6da )[/B]

^ The log that I debugged.


I discovered that danew.sys is a component of my razer drivers.. Hmm.. This would make sense. Al though unrelated to my cores being enabled I guess it's just a coincidence that this started right after I changed them.. I suppose I should remove these drivers and find older or newer ones eh? I got these off the razer site.

 

[Skagnatti]

Fo sho! You are not the only one out there to get BSODs from razer drivers.