XP Pro issue with Amd Dual Core Processor

Hi guys, I'm running an Asus M2V motherboard with an AMD Athlon Dual Core 64x2 5200+ processor with Windows XP Professional operating system with SP3. When the machine was booted up for the first time everything was running sweet, Xp recognised it as dual processor system. After a couple of months of using the computer, i happened to notice one day, the processor driver's shown in Control Panel were rather old and i hadnt been able to get the AMD cool & Quiet thing to work so decided to update with the latest AMD drivers, all went well until i noticed later that my multimedia program which has the option to run in single or multiprocessor mode no longer picked up the system as a multi-processor system. Further investigation shows this is the case and XP is running in single processor mode even though BIOS is loading correctly and shows physical count as 1 logical count as 2 and XP is loading 2 drivers for the processor. Sent an email off to AMD who believe its not their driver as this driver is only to let the Cool & Quiet system operate with XP and it has to be a bug within XP, ive tried unistalling & reinstalling the processor drivers etc even tried runing the computer in Standard PC mode instead of ACPI incase it was conflict problem but to no avail. AMD suggested its a Kernal bug in XP so any suggestions other than format the drive and re-install XP. Just a quick note, im running a dual boot system on the pc in question with XP64bit on the other partition and it works fine, recognise's the processor as 2 processor's etc so i doubt its a Chipset problem with the motherboard????

 

hi there,

I have had this type of problem for two months now. I have XP Home SP 3 though. I will share with you some things that you might consider.

Is this computer a HP/Compaq? Is it a custom build?

My system is recognizing that it is a Dual Core, but is not utilizing the second. In Device Manager>Computer it is the "ACPI Muliprocessor PC". In Device Manager>Processor it has the two drivers installed and they are the most current.

Task Manager should have two graphs in performance tab, it doesn't. In AMD's CPUId, Power and CPUz all say it knows it is there but the other is not "enabled" or otherwise unable to use or gleen statistics and info from it.

I have a Compaq Presario SR1820NX and as you know it is an OEM image of mass produced system. In my case, they put on an OS that was configured for a single core. Since this OEM refuses to give thier customers the install CD to do a repair of the OS, we are left to our devices. They only want the customers to clean wipe and reinstall to factory spec. When they could create a utility that uses the D: recovey partition to do a HAL rebuild, or even just for this specific issue. It is more prevalant than you would think.

Anyway, I am about to instal Pro upgrade (not full) to try to see if I can get XP to utilize both cores. My other options are to use BartPE/Ubuntu Live CD to see if it does use both. If it does then I know it is XP and a SW issue. I sincerely doubt that it is HW related. I have read. reasearched and did about 6 to 7 forums. So, I am rather confident. I am not looking to do a complete reinstall of the OS, because I plan a migration next year to Win 7 with new mobo/RAM/CPU and I want lose from anything HP.

Don't bother doing anything else but trying to rebuild the HAL. If you have the install CD you should run its "repair" option. But, be very careful. The actual option yu want does appear where you think it is. It is just at the listing of the installed Windows partition. Please take a look at these sources for a better explaination:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=185301251
http://http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167100904

Also, this is what I am working on now. BartPE should at least tell me if the CPU core are both utilized and may well do a repair of the HAL. I tried to reinstall the drivers, haven't rebooted yet. I changed the enviroment variable NUM_PROC and in Boot.ini /numproc drop down (it only displays one core in the drop down).

http://http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#intro

I have scads of info in this area and can help you avoid many days and hours trying to do what I had already done. I even paid for help ffrom so called experts(all they have done so far is give me easily googled links)with no real solutiions yet. HP is absolutly no help as they know the issue and simply avoid dealing with it, because it is more prevalent in thier AMD systems. I have always did my own builds and upgrades and this is first and last bug OEM I will purchase. Back to mom and pop local shops.

BarJabba

 

I was looking back to write a report on my Dual Core issues. I had not received a email that an answer to my post was available. Sorry for responding at this very late time.

I did find a fix for it and I do have a good chip at this time. I had bought a new drive and installed XP Pro, which I purchased on eBay. My oeiginal is not working still and I could not find any in place (HAL) rebuild solutions. After I get the Pro up and running and loaded with my usual software, I may try one more thing and that is to do a "repair" with my new OS disk. I will then know if it would have worked then. I will be using the drive for some important archives that I am doing to save important texts and documents from our government and history. So, no real loss...just time.

I would do what I eventually did, because it is more "cleaner" in the long run. Good luck with any HP/Compaq computer that is off the shelf. I will never buy big OEM again. I had not bought before and I do not know why I did on this system. Man, what a way to learn a lesson.

Bar Jabba