Windows XP Multi Core config - Does your OEM do it for you?

o yea i definitely know about the AMD Optimizer and the MS Hotfix does not mix. I noted that a while back.

My system actually got BSODs from the the AMD Optimizer [older revision, new one seems to have fixed the issues] so i had to rely on the MS hotfix... which has been fine ever since.

 

Would this config change without the change to the boot.ini still be useful (or noticeable) at all on a Core 2 CPU. Yes, I see from step 5, Note 2: Currently Core 2 Duo's do not need this BOOT.ini command but what about the other tweak?

I'm thinking about applying it on a ThinkPad Z61m (9450-39U) with an Intel Core 2 CPU T7200 2.0GHz or would this be harmful or simply unnecessary?

Same question I suppose as well on a new XOTIC / SAGER NP5760 Intel Core 2 Duo DUAL CORE box.

Sorry if it is somewhere in this thread already but after reading the first 9 pages I am hoping no one will mind if I'm a bit redundant since I've been up working all night and can't think straight lol.

Thanks

 

The Core 2 Duo seems to not get a noticeable increase in performance after doing the hotfix. Although the hotfix wont hurt it, since the hotfix would guarantee that the programs/games that you are running would have both cores utilized.... usually most noticeable in 3D intense games, 3D rendering programs, and audio/video conversion.

Note: the program or game that you use must also have multi-thread support to really take advantage of dual core and hotfix.

If you are just a casual PC user (web browsing, movie watching, word processing, etc..), then this hotfix would not do anything for you.

Hope this helps,
-Gophn

 

Thanks for such a quick response.

Although I am not a "hard core" FPS gamer, I am looking forward to using my Sager NP5760 to play the new Lord of the Rings online game; so anything that will help me maximize the graphics quality or general gameplay is something I'm definately interested in doing.

Best,
Zwack

 

I have an coreduo 2050, and win xp sp2.

I have downloaded the microsoft pach and edited the reg as in post 1.

But my core are still not in sync, one is at 90% and the other is at 10% when running "Enemy Territory"

can anybody help.

john.

 

Note: the program or game that you use must also have multi-thread support to really take advantage of dual core and hotfix.

The two charts that you see are usually not the same, especially if its casual PC use.

The two charts will become identical if you are using taxing applications or games... that are multi-threaded.

So dont worry, try the wPrime to see if the charts are the same, they should be.

 

I ran wPrime and both cores run at 100% 32m in 54s

thanks.

John.

 

What kind of notebook do you have?


I would greatly appreciate anyone to participate in this:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=123570

By posting your wPrime score (along w/ your notebook model & OS)

Thanks,
-Gophn

 

Hi all.

I just bought a new e4300 core duo, which is in a new MSI P6N motherboard. I have the system up and running with xp professional, but there's just one problem: windows only reports one core in use! CPU-Z confirms this. It's as if the other core isn't even there. I've done all of my windows updates, I have the newest bios and drivers for the board, and I've performed the hotfixes listed in this thread.

Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong with my setup? Many, many thanks in advance.

 

Make sure that you have Service Pack 2 installed with your XP Pro

 

I installed the update, and when I restarted my computer I got a boot disk error! It says I have a computer disk hardware configuration problem. It says to check the boot path and disk hardware. Even when I try to start in safe mode... What happened?

It looks like I might need to boot from CD and repair the boot.ini file?

 

Did you do the BOOT.ini step correctly (or at all)?

Most people that run into similar problems after doing the hotfix, overwrote their entire BOOT.ini with the example one that I posted.... even though I strictly said NOT TO. Only add the /usepmtimer in it, not to copy the entire thing.

So if its your boot.ini thats the issue, read this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330184

 

Well I did copy and paste the one posted specifically for my computer. I had posted my boot.ini and you added what I needed I think. I prolly didn't copy it properly or something. Sorry about that, thank you for the help!

Btw I saw a post that says that this doesn't improve the core 2 duo as much as the AMD, is that true?

 

well the Core 2 Duo's seem to not need the Boot.ini edit, but XP still needs the hotfix and the registry entry.

the Core Duo and AMD dual-cores require the hotfix, registry add-on, and Boot.ini add-on.

 

Random question (i know I am being rather annoying with my n00bness) when I run windows from CD it asks me to identify my type of computer, it gives me two options:

Standard PC with i486
Other

When I am repairing, and when I first installed windows, I had to choose the first option to make it work. What does that mean?

 

OK so I just recovered the boot.ini file, I dont need to do anything now right? I already have throttle in the regedit...


My 3dmark06 CPU score didn't increase at all, but I think you mentioned that you might not see any changes in those tests, right?

 

good to here you got ur system back up and running, you should be good now

run the wPrime benchmark and post your score

 

Over a quarter of a million views on this sticky..Very impressive, Gophn!

Humbled,
The Old Man

 

Nice guide...I will certainly try it...but I do not know if this will work in Vista. If the HotFix has been installed etc.

Is there a similar guide for vista?

 

Vista is fully configured for multi-core (multi-CPU) use already.

So you do not need to do any extra hotfixes or configurations for Vista.

 

UPDATE - Fixed slow speeds after hotfix was installed: Ok...so the problem was the /usepmtimer switch. Once I removed that my average benchmark speed for 2 threads was 38.6 seconds...sweet! Thanks a million Gophn


Hello Eveyone,

when I saw this thread I was excited to see if I could benefit from this hotfix and config. I didn't have the hotfix/config installed. So I did a "wPrime" benchmark for my before. It was an average of 92.4 seconds.

After following the instructions to a tee, and installing the hotfix/config, I ran the "wPrime" benchmark again and it was 91.2 seconds average.

Here are my system specs for my Lenovo T60P:
Processor: T7600 @ 2.33Ghz
Core: Memrom B2
Clock: 997.5 Mhz
Vcore: 1.163 V
FSB: 665 Mhz
L2 Cache: 4096 KB
Memory: 2 GB DDR2
Frequency: 332.5 Mhz @ 5-5-5-15
Hard Drive: 100GB 7200 RPM
Mainboard: LENOVO 2613CTO
OS: Windows XP Professional

I thought for sure it would double my benchmark score. I rechecked the instructions, I didn't miss a step or misspell any of the registry settings.

Any idea on why I didn't see an improvement? I saw lower grade processors on the "NBR wPrime Hall of Fame" with faster times.

Thanks.

 

Wow, amazing score. You have an awesome CPU there.

I'll update the wPrime table.

 

Yeah it really was, I just did it again and got a 38.2

I'm so pumped. I anonymously submitted it to hwbot, I'm gonna register to stake claim on it because I think it was the top submission to date. Anyway I can't thank you enough. I'm very excited to see the difference this makes in my computing power.

I'm a programmer so I can't wait to see what it does to my Visual Studio build times.

 

...
it seems that acer has done this for me

 

nice.

about time that OEMs are catching on

 

well, i guess this KB896256 XP patch doesn't work on intel quad Q6600.. default speed.


fresh xp sp2 +all auto updates from windows website.

checked add or remove programs, it was not there. tested with wPrime 4 threads- 32M 18.257sec

installed KB896256 , didn't ask me to restart...
went to registry, the entry is already there. just not sure whether it is already there before i applied the patch or after... restarted pc.

tested with wPrime again: around 18.203 - 18.234sec


funny thing: after i installed the patch, it did not appear in Add or Remove programs window with update checked.... reinstalled twice, no change...

 

I was told that the latest XP SP2 install CD have the hotfix included, but I cannot confirm on that.

In any case, that is a mind blowing score you got there with the Quad-cores... definitely the score I was expecting by comparing to other CPUs.

 

yeah, i guess the lastest xp cd already has the patch...

overclock 2.4Ghz(default speed) to 3Ghz, 32M reached 14.452sec...

if get water-cooling, it is possible to reach around 10sec....


1024M. 2.4Ghz is about 9min 35sec.
1024M. 3 Ghz is about 7min 33sec.

 

LOL.. thats just crazy.

talk about overkill.

 

I have done all steps correctly. It seems quicker, but in device manager. i now have an unknown device.

The unknown device says "not properly configured" and the location is "on Intel(R) 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Controller - 27B9" any ideas??

 

Sound like you need to re-install your chipset drivers.

Go get the lastest drivers for it and see if that item goes away.

 

Hey Gophn, I'm doing the hotfix right now, just finished downloading it. However, is there any particular reason why in that screenshot of yours you have so many more windows updates than I do? I've done an update so I was just assuming alot were lumped into maybe one or so. I will have 4 total once I download the hotfix for multi-core support.

 

those updates that you will acquire when you leave Windows Update on auto.

theres like 70-80 updates for some that freshly installs Windows XP SP2.

Have fun.

 

Well this is a fresh install with SP2. Definitely don't have 70-80.

 

no these updates will be detected when you are online and should be downloaded/installed. it does not come along with your XP install.

Just run your Windows Update to see if your XP is up-to-date with updates.

Although I do believe that there is a new SP2 build that might have it slipstreamed into the installation CD.

I would not worry about it.

 

Oh ok, cool beans. Just finished 3Dmark06, btw. Score: 5290

 

I did this on my desktop and my younger son did it on his Dell Inspiron 6400, strictly just the patches listed. No problems for either one of us following the steps in the walkthrough and noticeable improvement for both, FWIW. I plan on doing it to my new M570U as well.

 

Hi, thanks for your guide, bur i have a question, i try the registry configuration for a dual core processor, and now im triying tho do the same but now whit a Quad core machine, a Macpro dual Xeon (4 cores).

¿What can i do for optimize Winxp pro for the four cores?

Thanks.

 

Nothing different, do the same.

 

I entered the information into "throttle" but I can't change the value to "1". What am I doing wrong. I have a HEL 80. Thanks

 

- right click on Throttle folder,
-- point to New > DWORD... name it PerfEnablePackageIdle.
- then double click PerfEnablePackageIdle
-- change the value to 1

 

Is there a way to optimize dual core for windows 2000? i do see the cpu0 and cpu1 on task manager, but im just not sure if it is optimizing both cores

 

Sorry, Windows XP (32-bit) w/ Service Pack 2 was the first Microsoft OS to have a hotfix to utilize the dual cores.

Windows 2000 may support multi-cores/processors, but there is no hotfix or tweak to optimize them to my knowledge.

 

thanks Gophn for the fast reply, i was googling for hours but cant find any info on optimizing dual core on 2000. i may as well leave it be. thanks.

 

do i have to do the boot.ini part? i have a intel core 2 duo 2.14 ghz in my sager 9260. what does this do??

 

No you do not need to do the Boot.ini.

 

is the throttle automatically put in after the patch?

 

ok i did this and i thought that both my cpus were suppose to be at 2.13 My second cpu is at 1.60...is something wrong? I didnt do the boot.ini because it was optional but i did see both go to 2.13...this is wierd. help pleeeeeze...in system info it reads it as 2.13 and 1.60 but in device manager it is read as 2.13 abd 2.13...is something wrong which one is right? now it went back up to 2.13....is this a feature for the processor to not overheat or somthing? now it went back down to 1.60...this is really really wierd

 

The hotfix does NOT put the registry entry in for you.

The device manager only sees the CPU clock at the moment, NOT the full clock speed.

What you are seeing is the downclocked speed of your CPU, which is normal when you are doing nothing or just doing casual stuff (web browsing, listening to music, chatting, etc.).

When you start up a CPU/GPU intensive program/game... then the CPU will dynamically switch to full clock speed.

Just use CPU-Z to check your CPU status and other CPU related info.

You better be using temp monitoring programs to watch the status of you CPU and GPU. Or else you will be sorry if the temps start to flux and cause damage.

 

well i have that cooling panel you suggested as well as fan on high i hope that keeps my pc cool enough!