Novice question on CPU display in task manager 1

[Nuovo2004]

Hi All,
Search functionality is down so I apologize if this is a duplicate.
I have a dell poweredge 1600SC server with a dual cpu. My OS is W2K advance server and for some reason instead of seeing 2 CPUs in task manager, I see 4.
Additionally, every process seems to only occupy 25% of CPU capacity. I would think with 2 CPU that I could occupy 50% capacity.
So I have 3 questions:
1) Is it normal that I have 2X the number of actual CPUs displayed?
2) Am I losing half of my CPU capacity per process because of this?
3) Is this a setting that I can modify?

Thanks

 

[SimonDavis]

What happens if you click view / CPU history - do you get the option for one graph per CPU?

I really doubr you're losing any capacity though.

 

[Nuovo2004]

yes. If I set this to one graph per CPU, I get 4 individual graphs and not 2.
I see this issue in more than one place. For instance, in MSSQL Server properties in Enterprise manager, the processor tab allows me to set processors 0, 1, 2, or 3 to be active when I use MSSQL. Why would MSSQL think I have 4 CPUs when I know there are only 2?
Is this some system wide setting?
I'm still concerned about a performance issue because a single thread can only be assigned to cpu (I think).

 

[mayfran]

If your processors have Hyperthreading technology this would explain the task manager showing double the processors. Usually can be disabled in bios, but don't see any reason to do that.

Hope that helps

 

[mayfran]

this explains it a little better

http://www.viewcast.com/products/Niagara/hyperthreading.html

 

[Nuovo2004]

Bingo, I have Xeon chips.