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Dual Core Support in Windows XP SP3

Anonymous
2012-04-18T04:21:46+00:00

I have a Windows XP SP3 machine that is currently showing only one core in the Task Manager. The processor is an Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7400 @ 2.80GHz. I thought this issue was supposed to have been resolved with SP3, but I guess not.

The computer was built with a clean install of Windows Home edition, then upgraded to SP3.

I have searched the net and done all of the recommended steps -

Make sure the box in msconfig is unchecked

check the BIOS settings for MaxCPUid

etc.

However nothing works, and it appears the version of Windows running is indeed a single core only version based on the desription in the Device Manager.

Question - how do I get this machine to accept dual cores?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-04-18T05:38:03+00:00

    Hmmm,  If you've searched the web and tried everything and nothing works, then nothing probably ever will.

    A quick 20-second search on my part brought up the following article that describes a "hot-fix" from Microsoft for a very similar-sounding problem.  I can only assume that you've already tried it, but in case you haven't,  here it is:

    "The number of physical hyperthreading-enabled processors or the number of physical multicore processors is incorrectly reported in Windows XP"

       < http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936235>

    HTH,

       JW

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-01-01T01:04:21+00:00

    Try going to intel.com/support/downloads/drivers.Locate the intel update

    utility,it'll scan any pc with updates,that run intel hardware.The chipset installation

    update is first.Microsoft has/had a fix for multiple processors kb896256

    but SP3 should include it.

    Also,at intel.com/downloads,locate the processor ID utility,it'll show how its

    running

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-01-01T00:08:32+00:00

    I have a Windows XP SP3 machine that is currently showing only one core in the Task Manager. The processor is an Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7400 @ 2.80GHz. I thought this issue was supposed to have been resolved with SP3, but I guess not.

    The computer was built with a clean install of Windows Home edition, then upgraded to SP3.

    I have searched the net and done all of the recommended steps -

    Make sure the box in msconfig is unchecked

    check the BIOS settings for MaxCPUid

    etc.

    However nothing works, and it appears the version of Windows running is indeed a single core only version based on the desription in the Device Manager.

    Question - how do I get this machine to accept dual cores?

    what kind of motherboard is your computer using, Grumpy Moose?

    that's the most important part because there should have been a BIOS option in the BIOS setup that enables "dual core" CPU support.  if that's turned off in the BIOS, then the Core2 Duo will only operate with only 1 CPU core with Windows XP.

    also, Windows XP originally did NOT have "multi-core" CPU support until SP2 was released.  You needed an XP CD that already had SP2 or SP3 integrated or slipstreamed on there and should have installed the correct HAL (hardware abstraction layer) DLL and NT Kernel EXE files (like ntkrnlmp.exe) for multi-processor support since XP should treat multicore CPUs as if they were multiprocessor-like CPUs.

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