Dual-core processors not showing up in Task Manager

[Anthony]

I have a dual-core Intel E8400 CPU. About a month ago I had to reinstall
WinXP Professional on my computer, including SP3. Since then, when I go
into Task Manager, the performance tab only shows ONE graph for my CPU
usage history instead of two and no matter what I tried I can't get it to
show two graphs. Oddly, when I go into the menu View>CPU History the only
option available is "One Graph per CPU", which is the option when you have 2
processors/cores.
Though I would like 2 graphs, that is not my major concern. My concern is
whether both of my cores are working. Could this be an indication that only
one of my cores is working? When I go into my BIOS, it is indicating that
both cores are "Enabled". Also, Intel has a utility you can run that is
gives some stats on your cores. That utility is identifying two cores. So,
I am thinking this may be just a software "glitch" with Task Manager, but I
want to run this by someone to see what they think. Also, advice on how I
may be able to fix this.
Thanks.

 

[smlunatick]

I have a dual-core Intel E8400 CPU.   About a month ago I had to reinstall
WinXP Professional on my computer,  including SP3.   Since then, whenI go
into Task Manager,   the performance tab only shows ONE graph for my CPU
usage history instead of two and no matter what I tried I can't get it to
show two graphs.  Oddly,  when I go into the menu View>CPU History the only
option available is "One Graph per CPU",  which is the option when you have 2
processors/cores.
Though I would like 2 graphs,  that is not my major concern.  My concern is
whether both of my cores are working.   Could this be an indication that only
one of my cores is working?   When I go into my BIOS,  it is indicating that
both cores are "Enabled".   Also, Intel has a utility you can run that is
gives some stats on your cores.  That utility is identifying two cores.  So,
 I am thinking this may be just a software "glitch" with Task Manager, but I
want to run this by someone to see what they think.  Also,  advice onhow I
may be able to fix this.
Thanks.

Install the correct chipset drivers for your motherboard.

 

[Anthony]

Hmm. Hadn't thought of that. When I reinstalled my OS I didn't reinstall
my chipset drivers. Didn't think the two were related. I will try that and
get back to you with the results. Thanks for your advice.

 

[Ian D]

Hmm. Hadn't thought of that. When I reinstalled my OS I didn't
reinstall
my chipset drivers. Didn't think the two were related. I will try that
and
get back to you with the results. Thanks for your advice.

Also, check in Device Manager to make sure the computer
is listed as an ACPI Multiprocessor PC. A good tool for
viewing your CPU, RAM, MB, and GPU details is CPU-Z,
from cpuid.com. The latest version is 1.52.2, which added
the display of GPU info.

 

[Anthony]

Ian, good catch. My device manager is NOT listing the computer as an ACPI
Multiprocessor PC. Also, under the processors section of the device
manager, there is only ONE CPU listed, whereas with my laptop (another
multiprocessor computer of mine) it lists two processors. So, does this
mean the OS is NOT using both processors/cores even though the BIOS
recognizes two and the Intel utility recognizes two processors?

 

[Ian D]

Ian, good catch. My device manager is NOT listing the computer as an
ACPI
Multiprocessor PC. Also, under the processors section of the device
manager, there is only ONE CPU listed, whereas with my laptop (another
multiprocessor computer of mine) it lists two processors. So, does this
mean the OS is NOT using both processors/cores even though the BIOS
recognizes two and the Intel utility recognizes two processors?

If your CPU is seen in Device Manager as a single processor
PC, it means that XP did not detect the dual cores during the
install, and the hardware abstraction layer, HAL, is wrong.
This is the hardware environment base the OS install is built
on, and only effective corrective action is to do a reinstall.
You could try a repair install. It might work. Before reinstalling
XP, make sure the ACPI settings are correct in your BIOS.

The Intel utility only reads the code on the CPU chip itself to
determine the chip's specs and build. The CPU-Z utility
that I referred to is an excellent resource, and I recommend
that you get it. On the cpuid site there's another useful
download, HWMonitor, which gives a quick reading of
your system's voltages, temperatures, fan speeds, and CPU
power usage.

 

[smlunatick]

If your CPU is seen in Device Manager as a single processor
PC, it means that XP did not detect the dual cores during the
install, and the hardware abstraction layer, HAL, is wrong.
This is the hardware environment base the OS install is built
on, and only effective corrective action is to do a reinstall.
You could try a repair install.  It might work.  Before reinstalling
XP, make sure the ACPI settings are correct in your BIOS.

The Intel utility only reads the code on the CPU chip itself to
determine the chip's specs and build.  The CPU-Z utility
that I referred to is an excellent resource, and I recommend
that you get it.  On the cpuid site there's another useful
download, HWMonitor, which gives a quick reading of
your system's voltages, temperatures, fan speeds, and CPU
power usage.

Usually, by installing the chipset drivers, these would give the
details on the motherboard components. It may also give the correct
ACPI and multi-core access.

 

[Paul]

Ian, good catch. My device manager is NOT listing the computer as an ACPI
Multiprocessor PC. Also, under the processors section of the device
manager, there is only ONE CPU listed, whereas with my laptop (another
multiprocessor computer of mine) it lists two processors. So, does this
mean the OS is NOT using both processors/cores even though the BIOS
recognizes two and the Intel utility recognizes two processors?

You can change from ACPI Uniprocessor to ACPI Multiprocessor, by updating
the driver in Device Manager. Some HAL changes are easy, and some HAL
changes are hard. Moving between single and multiple core is one of
the easy ones.

Paul

 

[Ian D]

If your CPU is seen in Device Manager as a single processor
PC, it means that XP did not detect the dual cores during the
install, and the hardware abstraction layer, HAL, is wrong.
This is the hardware environment base the OS install is built
on, and only effective corrective action is to do a reinstall.
You could try a repair install. It might work. Before reinstalling
XP, make sure the ACPI settings are correct in your BIOS.

The Intel utility only reads the code on the CPU chip itself to
determine the chip's specs and build. The CPU-Z utility
that I referred to is an excellent resource, and I recommend
that you get it. On the cpuid site there's another useful
download, HWMonitor, which gives a quick reading of
your system's voltages, temperatures, fan speeds, and CPU
power usage.

Usually, by installing the chipset drivers, these would give the
details on the motherboard components. It may also give the correct
ACPI and multi-core access.


The chipset driver is installed after XP is installed. The CPU
configuration is detected by XP during the install, and determines
whether a uniprocessor or multiprocessor HAL and kernel will be
installed. It's the foundation of the XP installation, and can only
be changed by a reinstallation, or maybe, a repair install.

XP Home can detect single core, multicore, or HT CPU configurations,
but not muti-socket CPU configurations. Only XP Pro can also detect
multi-socket CPU configurations.

 

[Ian D]

You can change from ACPI Uniprocessor to ACPI Multiprocessor, by updating
the driver in Device Manager. Some HAL changes are easy, and some HAL
changes are hard. Moving between single and multiple core is one of
the easy ones.

Paul

That is interesting. I remember that back when people were
upgrading from P4s to P4Ds, XP wasn't seeing the second
core, causing some consternation. The only viable options
given were to do a repair install or full install. Sometimes repair
installs worked, but most required full installs. Or, if someone
installed XP with ACPI disabled in BIOS, the same action
needed to be taken to restore ACPI. There was no indication
that a mere driver update would do the trick. There are no
drivers to update to except the 3 existing XP drivers; one
HAL dll, and two kernel exe's. Is a refresh of those drivers
capable of changing the HAL's ACPI CPU designation?

 

[Paul]

That is interesting. I remember that back when people were
upgrading from P4s to P4Ds, XP wasn't seeing the second
core, causing some consternation. The only viable options
given were to do a repair install or full install. Sometimes repair
installs worked, but most required full installs. Or, if someone
installed XP with ACPI disabled in BIOS, the same action
needed to be taken to restore ACPI. There was no indication
that a mere driver update would do the trick. There are no
drivers to update to except the 3 existing XP drivers; one
HAL dll, and two kernel exe's. Is a refresh of those drivers
capable of changing the HAL's ACPI CPU designation?

I just tried it on my P4 3GHz machine, which is running Win2K.
Win2K offers you the ability to shoot yourself in the foot,
by selecting the wrong HAL, like Standard PC, while WinXP
seems to be more restrictive in what is listed in the Update
Driver list. I used the Update Driver function.

In any case, I tried Hyperthreading disabled and enabled, and
the ACPI Multiprocessor was happy with both of them. I changed
the HAL to ACPI Uniprocessor after HT was disabled in the BIOS,
and that seemed to work OK. I was able to change back to the
Multiprocessor HAL, even with HT disabled (I forgot to enable
it). I also tried changing the MPS setting from 1.1 to 1.4, and
on the test machine, it made no difference. (The CMOS battery
was dead on the machine, so all my settings were lost. Part
of the fun, was trying to remember the correct settings.)

ACPI Multiprocessor ACPI Uniprocessor
HAL.dll HAL.dll
KERNEL32.dll
NTDLL.dll
NTKMLPA.exe NTKMLPA.exe
NTOSKML.exe NTOSKML.exe
WIN32k.sys
WINSRV.dll

And that is something else Anthony can check. On some older
machines, changing between MPS 1.1 and MPS 1.4 in the BIOS,
affects the number of graphs displayed in Task Manager. That
helped someone with an Opteron dual core. I expect though,
that Anthony's motherboard is a bit newer, and so less
likely to have the MPS issue.

Paul

 

[Anthony]

Ian, I wanted to get back to you about what has occured since last time. I
went into my BIOS and apparently there is a setting that telling the OS the
computer has multiple processors. That setting was disabled. After enabling
it, my processors under device manager is now listing both cores. However,
task manager is still only displaying once graph for the CPUs. I installed
CPU-Z as you suggested and it seems to be saying I only have 1 core. It
lists the stats(speed, voltage, etc) of only core #0.
My question is: Is CPU-Z only displaying one core because the OS is only
recognizing one core, or is one core (core #1) not working/broken?

I am hoping when I get WIN7 in a couple months, that will clear this up.
Waiting on WIN 7 is why I haven't taken the step of reinstalling XP. I hope
installing WIN 7 will clear this up.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Anthony]

I just tried it on my P4 3GHz machine, which is running Win2K.
Win2K offers you the ability to shoot yourself in the foot,
by selecting the wrong HAL, like Standard PC, while WinXP
seems to be more restrictive in what is listed in the Update
Driver list. I used the Update Driver function.

In any case, I tried Hyperthreading disabled and enabled, and
the ACPI Multiprocessor was happy with both of them. I changed
the HAL to ACPI Uniprocessor after HT was disabled in the BIOS,
and that seemed to work OK. I was able to change back to the
Multiprocessor HAL, even with HT disabled (I forgot to enable
it). I also tried changing the MPS setting from 1.1 to 1.4, and
on the test machine, it made no difference. (The CMOS battery
was dead on the machine, so all my settings were lost. Part
of the fun, was trying to remember the correct settings.)

ACPI Multiprocessor ACPI Uniprocessor
HAL.dll HAL.dll
KERNEL32.dll
NTDLL.dll
NTKMLPA.exe NTKMLPA.exe
NTOSKML.exe NTOSKML.exe
WIN32k.sys
WINSRV.dll

And that is something else Anthony can check. On some older
machines, changing between MPS 1.1 and MPS 1.4 in the BIOS,
affects the number of graphs displayed in Task Manager. That
helped someone with an Opteron dual core. I expect though,
that Anthony's motherboard is a bit newer, and so less
likely to have the MPS issue.

Paul

Paul, I wanted to update you what I have done since I last wrote. My MPS
setting in the BIOS was disabled - don't know how that happened. I enabled
it. So now my processors are BOTH showing up in device manager. However,
my "computer" under device manager is still saying "ACPI (spelled out) PC".
I tried doing an "update" to the HAL and the only two options it brings up
are "ACPI PC" and "Standard PC". I even did a HD search for the HAL.inf
(dated 8/14/2001, which is basic XP before SP2) and tried installing that but
still only gave me the "ACPI PC" and "Standard PC" options. On another
multi-core computer I have, the HAL.dll version info is saying SP3 (dated
sometime in 2008) so I wonder if I need a newer hal.dll to make this work. I
have a newer hal.dll on my HD (since I installed SP3) but I don't have a
newer hal.inf (which is what device manage needs to update the drivers) so I
don't know how to update the hal. I don't want to just copy over the pre-SP2
hal.dll with the newer hal.dll because of registry entries that may by
looking for a certain version of hal. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Paul]

Paul, I wanted to update you what I have done since I last wrote. My MPS
setting in the BIOS was disabled - don't know how that happened. I enabled
it. So now my processors are BOTH showing up in device manager. However,
my "computer" under device manager is still saying "ACPI (spelled out) PC".
I tried doing an "update" to the HAL and the only two options it brings up
are "ACPI PC" and "Standard PC". I even did a HD search for the HAL.inf
(dated 8/14/2001, which is basic XP before SP2) and tried installing that but
still only gave me the "ACPI PC" and "Standard PC" options. On another
multi-core computer I have, the HAL.dll version info is saying SP3 (dated
sometime in 2008) so I wonder if I need a newer hal.dll to make this work. I
have a newer hal.dll on my HD (since I installed SP3) but I don't have a
newer hal.inf (which is what device manage needs to update the drivers) so I
don't know how to update the hal. I don't want to just copy over the pre-SP2
hal.dll with the newer hal.dll because of registry entries that may by
looking for a certain version of hal. Any advice would be appreciated.

All I can offer, is that "ACPI Multiprocessor" <--> "ACPI Uniprocessor"
is an easy transition, due to the similarities.

The "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC" one, could be
without APIC support (just PIC support). Perhaps that means interrupts
cannot be arbitrarily routed to either core, but are stuck to one core.
(I got that, from the HAL definitions in the article here.)

http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=2000.msg485128

You may want to fire up a search engine, giving the names of the two
HALs as a search term. This is what I used as a search:

hal Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC multiprocessor

The fact that you have two graphs in Task Manager, must be counted
as a good sign, and perhaps a good reason to quit while you're ahead

This article contains a table of current HAL and "update driver" options
that should be available. The "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC,"
one doesn't have a lot of options (and Standard PC would force you to use
the power switch - you'd lose soft off if you used that HAL). So Microsoft
doesn't offer to do this one for you.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309283

If you're going to try the transition from

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC <---> ACPI Multiprocessor

as described in the last entry here,

http://www.hardware.info/en-US/news/ym2cmZqYwp2a/Problems_updating_to_a_dualcore_CPU_Not_anymore/

I'd want a full backup first

This is a virustotal.com report, for the halu.exe program.

http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/...ca0e1cb9e2bf601f497517c1099a04944e-1253217124

There is a screenshot of the program here.

http://www.tweakwindows.nl/tutorials/windows/5938

*******

There is a manual method described here for the transition
you want to make. So keep looking, and you're bound
to find a recipe somewhere.

http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=101539.0;all

Paul

 

[Anthony]

All I can offer, is that "ACPI Multiprocessor" <--> "ACPI Uniprocessor"
is an easy transition, due to the similarities.

The "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC" one, could be
without APIC support (just PIC support). Perhaps that means interrupts
cannot be arbitrarily routed to either core, but are stuck to one core.
(I got that, from the HAL definitions in the article here.)

http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=2000.msg485128

You may want to fire up a search engine, giving the names of the two
HALs as a search term. This is what I used as a search:

hal Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC multiprocessor

The fact that you have two graphs in Task Manager, must be counted
as a good sign, and perhaps a good reason to quit while you're ahead

This article contains a table of current HAL and "update driver" options
that should be available. The "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC,"
one doesn't have a lot of options (and Standard PC would force you to use
the power switch - you'd lose soft off if you used that HAL). So Microsoft
doesn't offer to do this one for you.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309283

If you're going to try the transition from

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC <---> ACPI Multiprocessor

as described in the last entry here,

http://www.hardware.info/en-US/news/ym2cmZqYwp2a/Problems_updating_to_a_dualcore_CPU_Not_anymore/

I'd want a full backup first

This is a virustotal.com report, for the halu.exe program.

http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/...ca0e1cb9e2bf601f497517c1099a04944e-1253217124

There is a screenshot of the program here.

http://www.tweakwindows.nl/tutorials/windows/5938

*******

There is a manual method described here for the transition
you want to make. So keep looking, and you're bound
to find a recipe somewhere.

http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=101539.0;all

Paul

Paul, I tried the method mentioned in the "forum.msi.com.tw" and it worked.
I am now showing two graphs in task manager and the device manager is
showing "ACPI Multiprocesor PC". So thanks for your help.