HELP WITH X2, CANT FIND "AFFINITY" or 2 CORES!

[knifemyglitter]

just got X2 4400+, works fine and its great. I was getting stuttering in BF2, but i did the hotfix and now it works smooth, but i cant find this "set affinity" anywhere. i looked under process in task manager, but no dice. Also, it only shows 1 core in task manager and i have installed the driver from the AMD website. any help would be great.

Kevin

 

[Markbnj]

Yeah, Windows doesn't know you have two cores. Couple of things... you have XP Pro? Sorry for the stupid question, gotta ask. If so, might need to flash your bios. Check the motherboard support page. If not, only XP Pro supports both cores. Well, some have said that MCE does too, but I don't know that for sure.

 

[RichUK]

if windows is not recognising it .. you have to go back a stage further and make sure the BIOS recognises it, two words BIOS update.

 

[stevty2889]

In the performance tab of taks manager..click view, cpu history, one graph per CPU. For setting affinity, go the the proccesses tab of task manager, right click on the program you want to set affinity for, and click set affinity, it should then let you check and uncheck cpu 0 and cpu 1. Does it show up as 2 cpu's in device manager?

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
Yeah, Windows doesn't know you have two cores. Couple of things... you have XP Pro? Sorry for the stupid question, gotta ask. If so, might need to flash your bios. Check the motherboard support page. If not, only XP Pro supports both cores. Well, some have said that MCE does too, but I don't know that for sure.

No, actualy XP home supports dual cores as well, and so does windows 2000.

 

[knifemyglitter]

yeah, i have xp pro, with sp2. Now BF2 doesnt work right, and it stutters again! what the hell. also, in task manager, it doesnt have 2 cores, not can i change affintiy. again, what SHOULD i do. Reformat? i dont know what else to do. If i choose to reformat, should i just buy windows 64 bit, or just use xp pro again. HELP!

 

[Markfw]

XP pro reformat would NOT be a waste of time, allways is good. Make sure you DO use the X2 driver as soon as the initial install is done, then patches, etc.. Then get back to us.

 

[knifemyglitter]

should i get windows 64 bit? or is that a dumb idea?

 

[Markbnj]

Either the bios isn't supporting both cores, in which case you have to flash it, or XP for some reason hasn't noticed the two cores. Is this a fresh install? There's a way to force it to redetect and reload the HAL in recovery console, but someone else will have to tell you how.

 

[knifemyglitter]

it is not a fresh install, and i have the most current MSI bios which does support dual core. HAL, whats that?

 

[MDE]

Go to Device Manager and expand Computer (right at the top). Open it up and update the driver, manually select ASPI Multiprocessor.

 

[knifemyglitter]

thats it, what about windows 64bit, is that a good buy? or wait it out for vista. (wil more games than farcry use 64 bit?)

 

[MDE]

The speed benefit right now from 64 bit games are negligible or nonexistant. It would be a lot better if ATI or Nvidia would put more work into their 64 bit drivers.

 

[Markbnj]

I have heard that 64 bit XP is blazing fast at the UI, and has a negligible impact on 32-bit software, including games. However, there are 64-bit drivers for most devices and video cards, and that last would result in _some_ small performance increase I would think.

The main reason I am not going 64-bit is that I don't want to be on the tail end of every device oem's driver priorities. 64-bit XP is not going to be MS's long term 64-bit operating system strategy. I smell an orphan .

Besides, with a 4400+ overclocked a little Windows is just about as fast as I can imagine it being.

 

[knifemyglitter]

HELP! now i just saw two cores working, but then after a restart, there is only one showing up in Task Manager! what the hell! is this a problem with MSI Nforce 4 mobos? i have the latest bios, and it DOES support x2. What should i do?

 

[n7]

Repeat after me:

XP Home does support dual-core!
XP Home does support dual-core!
XP Home does support dual-core!
XP Home does support dual-core!
XP Home does support dual-core!
XP Home does support dual-core!
XP Home does support dual-core!

Damn, i am tired of the misinformation you guys keep spreading around about XP Home

 

[RichUK]

So does xp home support dual core?

 

[Markbnj]

[Damn, i am tired of the misinformation you guys keep spreading around.]

Chill. Apparently you're right, but there were a lot of people out there saying the same thing when I bought my X2. Apparently this was the case before SP2: Home did not support both cores.

People hear a lot of different things, and are not necessarily trying to raise your blood pressure.

 

[kyp275]

If all else fails, you can always start from scratch. Personally that's what I do everytime when upgrading a major component like a CPU. If anything, a fresh install will make it a lot easier for you to find out what the problem is.

 

[knifemyglitter]

its ****** XP PRO with SP2, read the damn entries before posting, now what do i do!

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: knifemyglitter
its ****** XP PRO with SP2, read the damn entries before posting, now what do i do!

EDIT: dont be so angry

 

[knifemyglitter]

im only angry because its been brought up before in this posting that it IS pro, and it IS SP2. plus xp home does support dual core anyway.

 

[fatty4ksu]

It's getting ridicoulous that a 500 dollar processor has these silly problems.

:roll:

 

[Markbnj]

[its ****** XP PRO with SP2, read the damn entries before posting, now what do i do! ]

It would be a lot easier to help if you would be methodical. Did you try:

[Go to Device Manager and expand Computer (right at the top). Open it up and update the driver, manually select ASPI Multiprocessor. ]

It's tough to glean useful information from posts like:

[HELP! now i just saw two cores working, but then after a restart, there is only one showing up in Task Manager! what the hell! is this a problem with MSI Nforce 4 mobos? i have the latest bios, and it DOES support x2. What should i do?]

You don't say what you did that got the two cores detected.

 

[C1Pendragon]

Hey dudes.

I'm having a similiar problem but with World of Warcraft. I have XP PRO.

I installed everything fresh and I checked in Device Manager and updated the driver and it didn't find anything newer. It also recognizes that I have dual processors in Device Manager under the Processors Tab. and under my Task Manager it allows me to show one graph per CPU.

But after only a couple minutes of gameplay it just kills itself and makes a really annoying noise and freezes up. I also can't set Affinity for my wow.exe under the Processes tab in Task Manager.

Any Tips that haven't already been posted?

THX!