It's my old dual P3 server rearing it's ugly head. This time the problem is Windows XP.
I got a bit sick of W2K that it came with, so I decided to install XP on it just for ease of use.
However, this is where the problem starts. Windows XP only displays one CPU graph in task manager (yes, it's set to 'one graph per CPU'). This confuses me - it's a clean install (so no HAL problems presumably) and it's XP Pro SP2, the latest version.
I've run two tests - first I installed a prerelease of W2K3 that I still have just to test, and only one CPU appeared there as well. Second test was CPU-Z, which only shows 1 CPU on both W2K3 and XP.
Both CPUs are detected OK and are sitting fine (it's not a hardware problem, is what I'm trying to say).
um maybe im seeing this another way but, maybe its time to upgrade.
a $300 walmart special w/ a 3ghz celeron would give you way more performance than that and all youd have to do is add a scsi card if you wanted.
and if you wanted something better than that you could do a homebuilt with a pentium d or low end a64x2/core2 for $5-600, with about 6-8x the cpu throughput.
i am running a dual pIII 1.26ghz server as well. Here is what i have found:
If you look in device manager, under computer, make sure it says ACPI multiprocessor PC. If not, force/have disk the driver. I have had this issue with XP as well and for me this solved it.
It certainly should have detected them both...I have a dual P3 server and w2k3 loaded fine. But, as said, you can go into device manager and load the multi-cpu driver [whatever it's called, I forget]
You can also, when loading windows, instead of pressing F6, hit F5 and tell it to load the correct HAL.
If ACPI is not enabled in the BIOS, why is it that W2K sees both CPUs just fine?
Also, as far as I understand, aren't HAL problems for when you upgrade from single- to dual-core? I'm installing fresh, which I guess tells me that the installer isn't seeing both CPUs, which points to what Wusy is saying about ACPI not being enabled in the BIOS.
Does W2K have it's own means of multiprocessor detection to XP/2K3?
If ACPI is not enabled in the BIOS, why is it that W2K sees both CPUs just fine?
Also, as far as I understand, aren't HAL problems for when you upgrade from single- to dual-core? I'm installing fresh, which I guess tells me that the installer isn't seeing both CPUs, which points to what Wusy is saying about ACPI not being enabled in the BIOS.
Does W2K have it's own means of multiprocessor detection to XP/2K3?
@ Troynova - Yeah it's XP Pro (SP2, if it helps)
Win2K detects ACPI a little differently than XP:
Win2K:
Quote :
Determining the ACPI Configuration
The information found in these tables is compared to the entries found in the Txtsetup.sif file. The following assumptions are made and actions performed based on this information:
If the system BIOS is on the bad BIOS list, the ACPI HAL is not installed. If the BIOS is not on the bad BIOS list, and the date of the BIOS is later than 1/1/99, it is assumed to be a good BIOS and the ACPI HAL is applied. If the date is earlier than 1/1/99, the table information is checked against the good BIOS list. If the BIOS is present, the ACPI HAL is installed.
A BIOS appears on the bad BIOS list because it is known to cause system instability if the ACPI HAL is used. This instability can range in severity from hardware not acting correctly to system hangs and data loss. For this reason, it is never a good idea to override the assumptions made by this list. This also applies to systems that are not detected as ACPI compliant. If the table header information is inaccurate, it can be assumed that the device configuration information contained in these tables is equally questionable. Should you encounter any of the instabilities associated with overriding the default ACPI settings, Microsoft cannot assist you in any manner short of a complete reinstallation of the operating system. An upgrade installation cannot fix the damage done by a bad or incomplete ACPI BIOS. Nonetheless, should you need to override these settings, you can do so using the following information:
Two entries named ACPIEnable and ACPIBiosDate appear in the [ACPIOptions] section. The ACPIBiosDate entry supplies the date after which a BIOS is considered good. The default setting for this entry is 1/1/1999. The ACPIBiosDate entry is of little use in forcing an ACPI installation. The three possible values for the ACPIEnable entry determine the ACPI detection and installation behavior: • 0: ACPI is disabled at installation regardless of the system BIOS
• 1: ACPI is enabled at installation if an ACPI BIOS is present
• 2: ACPI is enabled based on the GoodACPIBios list and ACPIBiosDate
The default setting is 2.
ACPI Configuration Settings
The information in these tables is compared with the entries in the Txtsetup.sif file. The following assumptions are made and actions are performed based on this comparison: • If the system BIOS is on the "bad BIOS" list, the ACPI HAL is not installed.
• If the BIOS is not on the "bad BIOS" list, and the date of the BIOS is later than January 1, 1999, the BIOS is assumed to be a good BIOS and the ACPI HAL is installed.
• If the date is earlier than January 1, 1999, the table information is checked against the "good BIOS" list. If the BIOS is present, the ACPI HAL is installed.
A BIOS appears on the "bad BIOS" list if that BIOS is known to cause system instability when the ACPI HAL is used. This instability can range in severity from poor hardware performance to system lack of response and data loss. For this reason, it is never a good idea to override the assumptions made by this list.
This principle also applies to systems that are not detected as ACPI-compliant. If the table header information is inaccurate, you can assume that the device configuration information that is contained in these tables is equally questionable. If you encounter any of the instabilities that are associated with overriding the default ACPI settings, Microsoft cannot assist you in any way short of a complete reinstallation of the operating system. An upgrade installation cannot fix the damage that is done by a bad or incomplete ACPI BIOS. However, if you must override these settings, use the following information.
Two entries, ACPIBiosDate and ACPIEnable, appear in the [ACPIOptions] section.
The ACPIBiosDate entry supplies the date after which a BIOS is considered to be good. The default setting for this entry is January 1, 1999. The ACPIBiosDate entry is of little use in forcing an ACPI installation.
Three possible values for the ACPIEnable entry determine the ACPI detection and installation behavior: • 0: ACPI is disabled at installation, regardless of the system BIOS.
• 1: ACPI is enabled at installation if an ACPI BIOS is present
• 2: ACPI is enabled on the basis of the GoodACPIBios list and the ACPIBiosDate.
The default setting is 2.
Usually rebooting 3-4 times, with a little while of uptime sorts out the last config tweaks XP needs to enable dual core, on my Opteron.
Dual and suspend doesn't work on initial boot for instance
