XP Pro and adding more CPUs 4

[carpetbelly]

When running XP Pro (apologies for the dumb question, not worked with multiply CPUs before and couldnt find any info on the net elsewhere) if I have a board with a single opteron Dual core then add another on in later, will this require an OS reinstall or will windows automatically pick up the new chip and act accordingly?

 

[Wishdiak]

carpetbelly,

Windows should pick up the second CPU automatically, but you may need to check your BIOS and be sure that it's upgraded to the latest version.

Wishdiak
A+, Network+, Security+, MCSA: Security 2003

http://www.wishdiak.com

 

[carpetbelly]

excellant, thanks for the info )

 

[rvnguy]

First for XP to support 2 CPU's SP2 is required.

Win often installs specific support for dual CPU's when installing Win server xx. We always imaged a dual install setup as this will also function on a single so that when & if a second was added a re-install would not be necessary.

I would think that XP Pro would act similarly.

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[cdogg]

Now that's a good question. Windows XP pro supports up to two CPU's. I do believe that a dual-core counts as two. If you drop another dual-core in later, I think you would have to be running the "server" edition.

This link shows the comparison between XP Home and XP Pro, noting that XP Home does NOT support multiple CPU's:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx

This link is a comparison for the different server editions:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluation/features/comparefeatures.mspx

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[kmcferrin]

Cdogg, Microsoft is counting physical CPUs, not cores. That means that you can run a pair of dual core CPUs (4 total cores) on Windows XP Pro. Of course, Windows XP home only supports 1 CPU. Windows can get around this because the SMP support isn't a design feature so much as a licensing restriction. The SMP thread scheduler in XP Pro is perfectly capable of scheduling threads to four cores, but there are some "switches" in the OS that are set to ignore anything beyond two physical CPUs.

Question #4 on this FAQ is relevant:

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/multicore.mspx

rvnguy, XP Pro supports two CPUs out of the box, as did Windows 2000 Pro. SP2 is not necessary but is recommended.

To the original poster, I am honestly not sure if you need to reinstall or do the repair install to get the second CPU recognized. There are two different versions of the HAL that XP Pro can use, the single CPU version and SMP version. The correct version is installed when Windows is installed based on what hardware it detects during installation. I would suspect that the SMP version would have been installed when Windows XP was originally installed on a dual-core system, and so it should be just plug-and-play to install the second CPU.

 

[cdogg]

OK kmcferrin, that's good to know. Thanks for the correction.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884