Windows XP Pro and Hyper-Threading

[garytn9988]

Question:
If Wondows XP Pro recognizes an active Hyper-Threading system when it's
installed, should there be two CPU windows in Task Manager to reflect the
two recognized CPU's?

In Device Manager under the processor object, two CPU's are listed "Intel(R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz" but only one CPU window in task Manager.


Thanks for any help

Gary

 

[Guest]

Gary,

Yes Task Manager should show two CPU windows. When I
added a second physical processor to my system I recall
that I had to select a HAL that supported SMP. I do not
recall the specifics but perhaps someone else recalls that.

So with the 2 physical procesors Task Manager showed two
CPU windows, when I enabled HyperThreading (in the BIOS)
Task Manager showed four CPU windows.

 

[Phillips]

Yup,
2 in Device Manager, 2 in Windows task Manager/Performance.
You might have to reinstall or repair XP.
Michael

 

[garytn9988]

Question:
What do I need to do once I'm in the repair mode?

When I select the "R" for repair during the install, it takes me to the
Recovery Console c:\windows.


Thanks

 

[Phillips]

Google says: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

 

[garytn9988]

I attempted to perform the steps in article number 299340, "How to force a
Harware Abstraction Layer during an upgrade or an installation of Windows
XP". When I performed the F5 function to bring up the list of computer
types, the only options listed were "Standard PC" & "Other".

Question:
How do I get the other options to select from?

I attempted to perform the steps in article number 315341 "performing an
inplace upgrade" but when the system rebooted and started to copy files, I
got some sort of Manifest Parse error: Invalid at the top level of the
document. and continued to get caught in that loop of rebooting and erroring
out at the same spot.

Anyway I'm in the process of re-installing again! It shouldn't be this
difficult to install properly the first time.

Any help would be great!

Thanks


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315341

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;299340

 

[Phillips]

Guess it's "down arrow" - you can see only 2 options so you have to scroll
(down). The whole point is that the options are there but you cannot see
them - not sure if it's "down arrow" that scrolls. Here are all your options
(pasted from
http://www.theeldergeek.com/clean_installation_of_windows_xp.htm):
a.. ACPI Multiprocessor PC

b.. ACPI Uniprocessor PC

c.. Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC

d.. Compaq SystemPro Multiprocessor or 100% Compatible PC

e.. MPS Uniprocessor PC

f.. MPS Multiprocessor PC

g.. Standard PC

h.. Standard PC with C-Step i486

i.. Other


Be sure what exactly your motherboard is capable of before picking one -
albeit it's weird that XP misses the correct hal.dll.
Make sure that Hyper Threading and ACPI support are enabled in BIOS. There
are some arguments if early Intel HT's (Northwood) should be installed as
Mutliprocessor, Uniprocessor (w/HT), or ACPI. The specs are confusing at
best and do not expect to get what they read.
Michael

 

[garytn9988]

Thanks for all your suggestions, after about the third or fourth time of
re-installing, the OS finally picked up the correct computer type. Now I see
my one physical CPU as two, both in device manager and task manager
(Finally).

This sure was a painful install to get the Hyper-Threading recognized, or
maybe it was just me.

Thanks for all you help!

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

glad you got it working...seems like a lot of trouble for a "feature" that
yields little or no benefit. You are aware that unless you are using
software written to take advantage of HT, you are actually getting a 10-15%
performance DECREASE by having HT enabled?
You ARE a good little consumer, falling for Intel's marketing.

Bobby

 

[garytn9988]

I wanted to see how difficult it was to have the OS recognize a
Hyper-Threaded enabled system on the install process. Well, I guess I found
my anwser, it was not very straight forward even with hardware that is
capable and advertized as Hyper-Threading ready.

 

[Phillips]

Actually, XP does not work correctly with HT - not to mention Intel did not
implement it fully either. That's due to market pressure for early release
dates etc.
I remember reading once on an obscure, geeky, overclocker site a procedure
to actually make XP work better with HT but it seemed to tedious an with no
great gains for most applications.
Michael

 

[garytn9988]

Would it cause any adverse effects to disable Hyper-Threading in the BIOS
once the OS has already been installed with the feature enable and
recognized by the OS?

Gary

 

[Phillips]

No, once the 'correct' combination of hal*.dll and ntos*.* (* =whatever they
are) are installed, you can disable HT in BIOS. You will notice that you
have only one processor window in Windows Task Manager/Performance.

You can switch in BIOS between HT/non-HT and XP will detect the change.
I can overclock higher with HT disabled in BIOS. At identical BIOS settings,
but with HT enabled, XP spits a "thread was not freed up" or so BSOD while
loading.

*** Watch your CPU temperature***, though. Without HT, my air cooled
[email protected] GHz runs 13C hotter at idle (HT=34C - nonHT=47C). I'm still
working on this one.
Michael