Vista 32bit

derby7

I have an AMD 64bit x2 3800+ Processor, (2GHz dual processor), and I have Win Vista Premium 32bit. Q is, what processor is Vista running on? or is it utilizing both (which I dont think it is) ?????

It should utilise both. The best way to tell is to open the Task Manager and check the following:

On the Processes tab, right-click any process. Do you have a Set Affinity option?
On the Performance tab is your CPU Usage History graph split in two?

These should tell you if both cores are enabled.

Capt'n Midnight

with a Knoppix bootable linux CD, you'd see two penguins ( or four with a quad or two dual processors )

or download cpuz to get more info on the processor

even Vista home can support dual core, not sure about AMD but with the intel processors you can turn OFF hyper threading in the BIOS on may systems

derby7

On the Performance tab is your CPU Usage History graph split in two?

>> NO.

But I do see the 2 proc's when I fire up Ubuntu 64bit (Linux), but I suppose that makes sense. I thought I saw somewhere that Vista doesn't utilize the dual-core or core-duo.....I'll search again.

sure about AMD but with the intel processors you can turn OFF hyper threading in the BIOS on may systems

I see in my BIOS that the AMD is the AMD Live!, but I also have two other options : one of them is virtualization enhancement and the other is ......ooops i canna remember, I'll chack later.

Another Q for ye: when I boot up the PC, BIOS rev 1.0.3 is displayed on screen but it stays there for at least 15sec's. My old PC with BIOS rev A03 with WinXP stayed at this boot-up screen for only a second.

Actually I could keep ranting on about my new system, ie. Vista, I'm over the initial 'wow' 'aero' 'cool' phase, and I'm now entering the 'its a crock of sh...' phase. It crashed twice last night. It won't recognise my micro-SD memory card in my phone, via mini-usb. Sometimes it boots fast (excluding the BIOS screen) and sometimes its very sloooow. I don't have a slow system either, its got 2G ram, ATI X1300 Pro graphics card. Trying to get my TV card to work is harder then getting MythTV to work !! OK rant over.....for now.

derby7

derby7 wrote: »

I see in my BIOS that the AMD is the AMD Live!, but I also have two other options : one of them is virtualization enhancement and the other is ......ooops i canna remember, I'll chack later.

Another Q for ye: when I boot up the PC, BIOS rev 1.0.3 is displayed on screen but it stays there for at least 15sec's. My old PC with BIOS rev A03 with WinXP stayed at this boot-up screen for only a second.

At this very moment I'm using an Athlon 64 X2 6000+ on Vista and both cores are working away fine. AMD Live is AMD's implementation of QuickResume aka Away Mode. It's not related to multiprocessing.

A03? I'm guessing your old PC was a Dell? Dell machines seem to have a BIOS that executes very quickly, I've yet to see such a fast running BIOS on a stock motherboard. My PC's BIOS with an Abit motherboard takes about 5 seconds to go through the motions while my Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop takes about one second.

derby7

Spot on, my old (3 yrs old !) PC is a Dell, & working away quite nicely (video editing, a few games, programming). But the new machine with the slooooow BIOS is a Dell also, Inspiron 531. Surely the BIOS start-up shouldn't be that sloooow

BTW, I installed both VirtualPC (M$) & VMWare player, and I must now get me hands on a few VM 'appliances'. The VMWare player wouldn't play the VirtualPC 'harddrives'/'OS's' I had installed/set-up, ie. it wouldn't convert them ! bummer
But I did get Zenwalk going (with mouse, no USB) in VirtualPC. I like the XFCE taskbar at the bottom.