Unlocking CPU Cores

I am new to this feature and have never used it before....

I have an AMD Bulldozer 4100 and an MSI 990FXA-GD80.

What are the dangers of unlocking cores on CPUs if any?

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

I am new to this feature and have never used it before....

I have an AMD Bulldozer 4100 and an MSI 990FXA-GD80.

What are the dangers of unlocking cores on CPUs if any?

unlocking speed or getting disabled cores to work?

I thought the Bulldozer was sold with 8 cores and nothing else? I could be wrong mind you. Not really followed it much.

Unlocking disabled cores, no risk, it will work or don't work. I gave someone a hand to build a computer a few weeks back, they got a Phenom II x2 chip and we unlocked the other two cores and it works fine, but I do know of others who tried and they may get a extra core or just the original two.

If they do get extra cores it don't mean that the machine will be stable.

If you mean overclocking which makes the chip run faster than what it is set at, then there is always a risk. I tend not to overclock to be honest.

CPUs these days are made to have some tolerance, so they should overclock ok, but make sure you got a decent heatsink.

i posted this above and forgot to sign in lol

No i just want to unlock cores.

i know that some if not all of the dual cores Phenom was quad cores where the other two cores did not pass all the tests and the two cores was disabled, the same with the tri-core ones as well. It was then possible to enable the disabled cores.

as I said above they may or may not work, but will not do any damage. i presume then that your chip may have 8 cores, but four are switched off.

give it a try as long as you know how to reset the bios, just in case the machine don't boot.