So what makes Dual Core special?

I ran across something kind of disturbing last night while working on my new SZ120

I was restoring a Database backup to SQL Server 2005 and while it was restoring, my new laptop was at a dead stop.... i couldn't minimize windows, change focus to another window, pull up "Start" menu, nothing.....

Isn't the whole point of Dual Core so that one "core" can do one intensive thing and the other core to handle others? The whole reason I sold my laptop that i was perfectly happy with and got this new one was so that when I am doing my work, usually Visual Studio 2005 / SQL Management Studio / Few web browsers, I wouldn't run into any resource issues

Why would something like doing that restore hog up all resources?

 

The two cores Duel against each other, and whoever wins is stronger and gets to perform the operation.

Sort of a survival of the fittest thing.

 

wow... thanks

 

Du al Core

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=45655

 

Hehe... sorry I couldn't resist !

The image of two CPUs with lightsabres fighting to the death made me do it...

 

That's a good read, and I had done research before buying the new laptop to get up to speed on the technology of Dual Core, and I was under the impression, and I quote right from the above link

"There's a catch to this, too, though. Most applications, at least on a consumer level, aren't written to run in multiple threads. So while a dual core processor can smooth your computing experience out by running two different programs simultaneously instead of bogging up a single core by having to make those programs take turns going through, it doesn't offer much to speed up existing programs"

That is what my concern indeed is (in bold italics).... I didn't (and rightfully shouldn't) expect doing something like a Database restore take up so many resources that I couldn't even do something like minimize a window.... Was/Am I expecting too much?

 

Try this:
open the task manager while doing that same task again. are both cores at 100%? Are you using all physical memory? What about virtual? What your experiencing could be due to RAM running low not CPU use!

In task manager, processes tab, you can right click on the application that is killing your computer (visual studio in you case) and go to set affinity. Allow it to use only one core. Does that make a difference?

I don't have a core duo to test this, but I find what your experiencing a bit weird. I don't think VS is optimized for multi-cores, at least not yet!

 

Well, it seems from reading that programs "optimized for dual core" can use both cores simultaneously, so it does its thing better/faster, but that's not what my problem is....

My issue is that if SQL Management Studio is looking for CPU resources to do its restore, shouldn't it's, hmmmm not really sure of the right adjective, "resource hog-ness" been isolated to a single CPU core? After all, this seems to be what Dual Core is all about! Not for overall speed, but to be able to handle multiple processing "threads" independently, so while Core #1 is flooded with SQL doing its work, Core #2 surely should have been available for me to do something simple and stupid like minimize an explorer window


And about checking out task manager, that indeed was one of the first things I tried to pull up after i kicked off the restore and found myself with a bogged down computer, but my laptop was totally unresponsive until it finished the restore, wouldn't respond to left click, right click, etc etc

 

It depends on how a multi-threaded application is written. If a program is written to use multiple threads, it can hog two cores just as efficiently as one. The mouse clicks, moving windows and so on, must be running in lower priority threads, so they don't get executed.

Also when an application uses multiple threads, special care must be taken to assure that its internal resources are properly shared and conflicts do not arise. Some threading problems only occur on multiprocessor machines. So it is possible for an application to run fine on common single processor machine to develop strange behavior in a true multi-processor environment. This may not be your issue, but it is something to keep in mind.

 

lol... that's the truth right there.. we are talking about Windows after all

I'll poke around google and see if SQL 2005 is "Dual Core Optimized"