Brand new to AMD64, with problems..

Hi there, was checking websites like crazy for answers to my questions and given ALL the knowledge ive read in the last 15 mins on here, I figure this is prolly the best place to find info about my problems with my 2 day old system.

So as the heading states, Im a n00b in the biggest way to 64 bit setups. Im currently running winblows 7 64bit, and my system config is a PII 3Ghz 940 BE, MB is Asus M3A78-CM, Ram is Patriot 4G kit @ 1066 5-5-5-12, HD is WD 1T 7200 SATA2, VidCard is the onboard ATI HD3100 for now and onboard sound as well.

My first problem I spotted when I had XP Pro running, my L3 cache is nowhere to be found, It shows up in the BIOS but thats all I can get it to show up in. SiSoft Sandra detects it but Windows wont on XP Pro, Win7 32 OR 64 configs. I was going to start playing a bit with OC'ing after I got to know my board but if the major part of the CPU isnt even present, kinda hard to justify that. Suggestions please on this? One other thing, the Hyper Transport, how does one find the setting for that? and/or where??? checking on the AMD site is useless, same as the ASUS site, nothing, its all very frusterating at this point, any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

<<< my computer and me for the last 2 days.

How do you know the cache isn't present? What did you use to tell. I run 64 bit (and so do a million others, it is easy) and cpu-z tells me I have all the cache on my 720.

Use cpu-z like chance said, and make sure that your motherboard has been updated to the latest bios that supports your chip. I suggest you read through the stickies that are in place that should give you good information on what all those settings are, though you will likey find a bit better help in the motherboard part of the forum than here.

Its kinda hard to have something like that missing. The CPU wouldn't even run without it, unless it had specific instructions to ignore it.

If CPU-Z does not work for some odd reason try everast.

I use windows 7 64bit as well and I have no problems with any of these tools.

ASLayerAODsk,

Where in Windows were you expecting to view information about the CPU cache? In Control Panel>System ? I know of no where in the OS itself where that info will be displayed. System will give you the make and speed of the cpu and the amount of ram but not the cache. As others have said, third party utilities like CPU-z will and as you already know SiSoft Sandra will.

Well thanks to all for your input, you all certainly make sense. I dl'd AMD Overclock and decided that was enough of a telltale for me and it detected everything just fine and without hesitation, and yes I doubt the CPU could run without its most significant cache, I agree with that too. All the drivers and bios ARE up to date as much as the companies have released for.