P5RD2-VM, Pentium D 945 and Vista

TheMatrix · 02-12-2007, 11:27 PM

I've got a weird situation where Vista will not see the 2nd CPU on a PD 945. The odd part is Device Mgr sees 2 but Task Mgr sees only 1. At first I had not activated Vista Business and thought this was the problem. After activation, this did not resolve the problem. Very weird. I swear my XP Pro install saw both computers. I'm gonna have to reload or dual boot (if possible) with XP Pro and see if that narrows the issue down a bit.

Any suggestions short of format & reload? I didn't find any solutions googling. I found similar problems, but no solutions.

TheMatrix · 02-13-2007, 08:33 PM

Looks like I "fixed" the problem on my own. After reinstalling XP, I discovered the same symptoms for the PD 945. A Multiprocessor ACPI PC, 2 CPUs listed in Device Mgr and 1 CPU in Task Mgr. The BIOS reported 2 CPUs with the 0903 version.

Curiosity was getting to me so this time around, I decided to poke around the BIOS to check everything out again. This time I noticed that my Hyperthreading was disabled. I figured that if I had changed this to disable before this ordeal that it shouldn't have mattered as the PD 945 does not have the HT feature. Windows should have still picked up both processors (which DM did along with TM). I figured it wouldn't hurt to give this a try so I changed this to enable. Surprisingly XP could now see the 2nd CPU! Very Weird. I then decided to upgrade the current fresh install of XP to Vista Business and it is now also showing 2 CPUs in Task Mgr! Hooray!

The end result was a problem with how the mobo was talking to the OS. For some reason, HT needed to be enabled for Task Mgr to "see" the 2nd CPU. As stated earlier, the PD 945 does not have the HT feature. This also showed me that Task Mgr is not accurate in reporting how many CPUs are seen by the OS.

Now I'm wondering if this is a "undocumented feature" of the P5RD2-VM. Other friends who have the 975X, and Dell Latitudes with Core Duos do not have this issue.

Hope this info helps someone else!

h20-ski · 02-13-2007, 11:28 PM

Very interesting, interesting indeed.

02-12-2007, 11:27 PM	#1
TheMatrix Asus Aficionado Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Michigan - USA Posts: 106	P5RD2-VM, Pentium D 945 and Vista I've got a weird situation where Vista will not see the 2nd CPU on a PD 945. The odd part is Device Mgr sees 2 but Task Mgr sees only 1. At first I had not activated Vista Business and thought this was the problem. After activation, this did not resolve the problem. Very weird. I swear my XP Pro install saw both computers. I'm gonna have to reload or dual boot (if possible) with XP Pro and see if that narrows the issue down a bit. Any suggestions short of format & reload? I didn't find any solutions googling. I found similar problems, but no solutions. __________________ WinXP Pro SP3: Gigabyte EP35-DS3L with E8400 Linux PC - Ultimate Edition ver 1.8: MSI 975X PowerUp Edition with Q6600
(Offline)

02-13-2007, 08:33 PM	#2
TheMatrix Asus Aficionado Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Michigan - USA Posts: 106	Looks like I "fixed" the problem on my own. After reinstalling XP, I discovered the same symptoms for the PD 945. A Multiprocessor ACPI PC, 2 CPUs listed in Device Mgr and 1 CPU in Task Mgr. The BIOS reported 2 CPUs with the 0903 version. Curiosity was getting to me so this time around, I decided to poke around the BIOS to check everything out again. This time I noticed that my Hyperthreading was disabled. I figured that if I had changed this to disable before this ordeal that it shouldn't have mattered as the PD 945 does not have the HT feature. Windows should have still picked up both processors (which DM did along with TM). I figured it wouldn't hurt to give this a try so I changed this to enable. Surprisingly XP could now see the 2nd CPU! Very Weird. I then decided to upgrade the current fresh install of XP to Vista Business and it is now also showing 2 CPUs in Task Mgr! Hooray! The end result was a problem with how the mobo was talking to the OS. For some reason, HT needed to be enabled for Task Mgr to "see" the 2nd CPU. As stated earlier, the PD 945 does not have the HT feature. This also showed me that Task Mgr is not accurate in reporting how many CPUs are seen by the OS. Now I'm wondering if this is a "undocumented feature" of the P5RD2-VM. Other friends who have the 975X, and Dell Latitudes with Core Duos do not have this issue. Hope this info helps someone else! __________________ WinXP Pro SP3: Gigabyte EP35-DS3L with E8400 Linux PC - Ultimate Edition ver 1.8: MSI 975X PowerUp Edition with Q6600
(Offline)

02-13-2007, 11:28 PM	#3
h20-ski Forget Wakeboarding Join Date: May 2004 Location: Texas Posts: 2,460	Very interesting, interesting indeed. __________________
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