AMD Athalon 64 X2 6000

[DCJPCo]

I just built a system around this processor. I am using a BioStar SLI
board, one of their TF series.
I am still running XP Pro, 32bit version.
2 gig ram-
..75 tb hd.
I notice several things:
1-the system takes longer to boot than my old system running a an AMD
Athalon 2GIG.
2-IE 7 now has problems accessing secure web sites, https:// etc.
3-Programs do not run appreciably faster.

I have checked the clock speed and each processor is running at 3 GIG.
My questions are:
1-Will Win XP Pro take advantage of the dual core processors?
2-If so, can I customize it?
3-Should I manually choose one processor for one application, another
for another etc.
4-Would upgrading to XP Pro 64bit help even though most of my
applications are 32bit?
5BTW I will not upgrade to Vista.
Thanks
George

 

[DL]

I'm assuming you installed only drivers from the hw manu, and not msupdate.

There are few apps designed to utilise a dual core
You should ensure 64bit drivers are avialable for your hw first; And then if
your apps dont support/take advantage of 64bit....?
It very much depends on what apps you run as to whether you would notice any
performance advantages
I wouldnt have though IE7 problems had anything to do with dual core.
I might be mistaken but I dont believe you can select a proccessor for a
specific app

Just my musings.

 

[DCJPCo]

I'm assuming you installed only drivers from the hw manu, and not msupdate.

There are few apps designed to utilise a dual core
You should ensure 64bit drivers are avialable for your hw first; And then if
your apps dont support/take advantage of 64bit....?
It very much depends on what apps you run as to whether you would notice any
performance advantages
I wouldnt have though IE7 problems had anything to do with dual core.
I might be mistaken but I dont believe you can select a proccessor for a
specific app

Just my musings.







- Show quoted text -

I am travelinig now and can not verify this, however I could swear
that I saw something that allowed you to assign either core 0 or 1 or
both to an applicaton.
All drivers are frm manu. I would think that I would not be able to
set up 64bit drivers with out a 64bit OS.
It is just strange that the new system, with enhanced processor and
memory (2 x 1 gig DDR2 vs 2 x 512mb DDR) would run the same as the old
system. Perhaps the hardware has outpaced the software. I am just
looking for ways to tweak my system.
Thanks
George

 

[Noozer]

I just built a system around this processor. I am using a BioStar SLI
I find boot time isn't really related so much to CPU speed as it is with
what you have starting up at boot. It's also possible that the BIOS IDE
settings are not what they should be, or the hard drive drivers haven't been
installed in XP.

Sounds like something during the installation went wrong and messed up some
software. If this is a fresh install, I'd format and try again while paying
more attention to what happens after installing each driver and bit of
software.

How much memory was in the old system? It almost sounds like you didn't
install your chipset drivers, or something similar, so the machine isn't
running at it's full potential.

Dual CPU machines don't run twice as fast as single CPU ones. If you only
run one single processor application on a dual CPU PC, it won't be much
faster than on a single CPU PC running the same clock speed... the only
increase in speed being that Windows itself can use the other processor for
some of it's tasks.

Something that may have happened is that when you installed, you had a live
internet connection running before installing a firewall/virus scanner. I've
seen a Windows PC get hit by Sasser less than 30 seconds after being
connected to the internet.

My only other idea about the lack of performance is what you have running in
the background on your PC.

Yes. XP Home does not support multiple CPUs though.

There is nothing to customize. Windows tries to make the best use of the
CPU's available.

Normally not possible in Windows. Once you start a program you can use the
Task Manager to assign a specific CPU, but Windows won't remember that
setting.

There are programs that will do this... I believe "CPU Control" is one such
utility.

64bit XP CANNOT use 32bit drivers! Before going to 64bit XP make sure that
you can get 64bit drivers for ALL of your hardware, and any you might buy in
the near future. There are less 64bit XP drivers out there right now than
there are Vista drivers.

I'd like to use Vista for a while, but the lack of drivers makes it
impossible. I refuse to toss perfectly functional hardware just to satisfy
my OS. At this point my next upgrade from XP is going to be to OpenSUSE
Linux.

 

[Bigdawg]

I built a new 775 dual and its faster then my AMD 64 bit but I also used
faster hardware.
1. go over the BIOS settings again and then once more to make sure they
are right
2. check the motherboard drivers. load off the cd or download them form
the Bio stars web site
3. what hard drive is it SATA or ATA. ATA 100 or 133 older hardware will
not necessary be faster on a new board.

 

[DCJPCo]

I will check the bios again.
I am using SATA and ATA133 and SCSI drives. The boot drive is
ATA133. My old system had dual channel 2x512meg 133 ddr, the new
system uses dual channel 2x1gig DDR2 6??. I loaded the motherboard
drivers as well as a driver from AMD. I am just dissapointed that
even if I am just using 1 of the 2 dual core processors, it is running
1 ghz faster than my old system. The AMD processor has an onboard
memory controller as well as 2x1meg. cache. My video card is also
much faster than the old card. It does not appear to be running any
faster than the old system.
I think I will implement a 64bit SuSe Linux load and see how this
does.
I ran a virus and spyware check, all is clean. I use CA virus scan
and MS Defender for spyware.

Thanks for the input.
George