ian ferrin

I didn't realize when I bought my shiny new 800fsb 2.6p4 system that this p4
installs as 2 chips in device manager (mobo is abit IC7). I have xp home
which doesn't support dual processors. Does xp home somehow fully support
this new p4 or am I going to have to get xp pro to fully take advantage of
my hardware?

Thanks much in advance,

Ian

pete baker

Hi Ian

That the device manager in XP Home shows 2 processors without any warnings
should provide a hint that there is no problem.

XP home does not, as you say, support the installation of 2 physically
separate processors. But what you are seeing is the implementation of
'hyper-threading' which allows better multi-tasking than the simulated
multi-tasking that previous versions of P4 were capable of. From the
information I have seen both XP Home and XP Pro support hyper-threading, but
only XP Pro supports multiple, physically separate, processors (2, I
believe).

In short, no, you shouldn't need to change to XP Pro.

hope that helps
Pete
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ian ferrin

It does help. I'm much relieved. Thanks to both of you.

Ian

pete baker

Hi Ian

Always happy to help clear up any confusion.
Extra credit to Nicholas for the 'hyper-threading' link.

Cheers
Pete
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