xp home and 800fsb ("dual processor")

[Ian Ferrin]

I didn't realize when I bought my shiny new 800fsb 2.6p4 system that this p4
installs as 2 chips in device manager (mobo is abit IC7). I have xp home
which doesn't support dual processors. Does xp home somehow fully support
this new p4 or am I going to have to get xp pro to fully take advantage of
my hardware?

Thanks much in advance,

Ian

 

[Pete Baker]

Hi Ian

That the device manager in XP Home shows 2 processors without any warnings
should provide a hint that there is no problem.

XP home does not, as you say, support the installation of 2 physically
separate processors. But what you are seeing is the implementation of
'hyper-threading' which allows better multi-tasking than the simulated
multi-tasking that previous versions of P4 were capable of. From the
information I have seen both XP Home and XP Pro support hyper-threading, but
only XP Pro supports multiple, physically separate, processors (2, I
believe).

In short, no, you shouldn't need to change to XP Pro.

hope that helps
Pete

 

[Ian Ferrin]

It does help. I'm much relieved. Thanks to both of you.

Ian

 

[Pete Baker]

Hi Ian

Always happy to help clear up any confusion.
Extra credit to Nicholas for the 'hyper-threading' link.

Cheers
Pete
---------------------

 

[Donald Link]

XP home does not work with dual processors.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I didn't realize when I bought my shiny new 800fsb 2.6p4 system that this p4
installs as 2 chips in device manager (mobo is abit IC7). I have xp home
which doesn't support dual processors. Does xp home somehow fully support
this new p4 or am I going to have to get xp pro to fully take advantage of
my hardware?

I think you may need Pro. This is an awkward one. Pro supports two
physical chips, and if they are these HT ones it is then happy to see
them as 4 virtual processors. But that needs the underlying
multi-processor HAL installed first - and that explicitly does *not*
come with Home

 

[Pete Baker]

Hi Alex

What you're saying is contrary to the information contained in the Microsoft
Knowledge Base article referenced above, dated 12/10/2002.

Additionally in the white paper on Windows support for hyper-threading it
specifically states that although XP Home is only licensed for 1 physical
processor it *is* licensed for 2 logical processors, unlike XP Pro which is
licensed for 2 physical processors and 4 logical processors.

In particular the white paper specifies -


Support has been implemented in Windows operating systems to take advantage
of this new technology. The goal of this paper is to describe that support
and to focus on areas of interest to OEM system manufacturers and
multithreaded application developers. The Windows operating systems that are
supported for logo qualification on HT-enabled systems include:

· All versions of Windows 2000

· All 32-bit versions of Windows XP and the Windows Server 2003
family





Windows Support for Hyper-Threading Technology (1 May 2003)
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hwdev/platform/proc/HT-Windows.mspx


If you know of any counter-information to this I would be happy to look at
it. It's in everyone's interest to clarify this issue.

hope that helps
Pete
------------------

I didn't realize when I bought my shiny new 800fsb 2.6p4 system that this p4
installs as 2 chips in device manager (mobo is abit IC7). I have xp home
which doesn't support dual processors. Does xp home somehow fully support
this new p4 or am I going to have to get xp pro to fully take advantage of
my hardware?

I think you may need Pro. This is an awkward one. Pro supports two
physical chips, and if they are these HT ones it is then happy to see
them as 4 virtual processors. But that needs the underlying
multi-processor HAL installed first - and that explicitly does *not*
come with Home