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Enable SMP in WinXP Pro?

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Dan Derrig

Member
Joined
Nov 8, 2005
My friend has an Athlon 64 dual core 3800+ and he only sees one cpu history graph under task manager, and under view the only option is display history for one CPU. It seems that SMP is disabled in WinXP Pro, do you have to enable it under control panel or something? A driver you need? Or does he need like a server OS? I thought winxp Pro supported SMP.
thanks,
Dan
 
I thought that Windows sometimes needs a new driver in order to reconize the second core on the AMD X2's? As far as I can remember your friends computer is still taking advantage of both cores windows is just not reconizing that it is there.

I would try updating windows and seeing if there is a new driver for your CPU for you to download.
 
Go into the Device Manager and see what the Computer driver is listed as. It should say something akin to 'ACPI Multiprocessor PC'. If it says uniprocessor you need to update the driver to multiprocessor, reboot, etc. After that you should have an SMP HAL loaded.
 
thanks everyone! however, how exactly does he update it? this doesnt seem to work. He tried windows update - what does he do? I only have a single CPU so I can't walk him through it.
thanks again,
dan
 
See this MSKB article on HALs: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=309283

Supposedly the detection and upgrade process is via PnP in XP/2k3, but I can't say I trust that function after all these years. Back in the 2k days the process was just to update the driver,dig up the HAL you wanted from the list (I recall needing the CD a few times, but then the last time I did this was just prior to SP2). Running Sysprep and rebooting will also force the OS to recheck the device nodes.
 
yeah, I already found that. IDK, I'm gonna go over there and do it for him. BTW, that comp in your sig - alpha processor? what is it? PM me, posting in a thread about SMP might be the wrong place.
thanks,
Dan
 
I had this problem twice and I used two different methods to solve it.
The first time I put in the WinXP CD and repaired the OS install. That solved the problem.
The second time I went to device manager, and under the Computer section, I updated the driver.
Check your device manager: does it show two cpus?
 
Have him set task manager to 1 graph PER cpu . . Well if he has not already set it that way :)
 
Dan Derrig said:
yeah, I already found that. IDK, I'm gonna go over there and do it for him. BTW, that comp in your sig - alpha processor? what is it? PM me, posting in a thread about SMP might be the wrong place.
thanks,
Dan

It's literally an old school HP Precision Architecture RISC (PA-RISC) 1.1 machine. HP gave dozens of workstations to my undergraduate university for use in the labs, they ran out of drives for them, and in turn donated one to me upon graduation. The machine will probably outlast me.

PA-RISC 1.1 was a damn good architecture for its time and evolved into PA-RISC 2.0 in the 90s. HP then started pulling back on PA-RISC R&D when Sun & IBM started beating them up on the high end RISC space with Sparcs & Power chips and joined with Intel to create the Itanium. That's part of the reason Itanium took so long to create and is such a strange system, you have hundreds of engineers working on it from Intel and HP, both used to very different types of architectures.

If you're bored, take a look at Wikipedia, as they have a decent summation of the chip and its history. The following link is to HP's architecture manual: http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/files/unprotected/parisc/pa1-1/acd.pdf
 
OOPS .. I missed you saying it is not allowing a graph for each cpu.Sorry ....OOPS..

Go to device manager, expand computer,there it will say uni processor or multi porocessor.

Right click on it and select update driver,Typically the driver you need is in XP already and it wil auto detect and you should be set.

If not go to the AMD site and instal the X2 drivers from it as well as be sure the bios he is using on the main board is correct because if it is not the rig will never see the second core..

Almost 99% of the time it is a incorrect bios though . .
 
thanks everyone! we updated the bios (which added support for 3800+ dual cores) and reinstalled XP Pro. Thanks
-Dan
 
I was going to say the bios too, that was what fixed my problem, but anyway I'm only posting to let you know that you only need the drivers from AMD if your going to be turning cool and quiet on.
 
Dude. I am not completely certain but I remember someone having a similar problem. You need to do two things as soon as you purchase an x2 processor.

Pre-requisite - make sure you have Service Pack 2.

1. Download the AMD Windows XP Dual Core Processor Drivers:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_9706,00.html

2. Download the Microsoft Windows XP Dual Core Fix (irrelevant to your problem but every little bit helps):
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=896256

Dom

Edit* This is also very strange because Windows XP detected both cores on my X2 4800+ without installing any patches or drivers. Are you sure you have Service Pack 2?
 
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