Win7 HP only sees 1 physical proc ?

Hi,

Three days ago I installed Win7 Home Premium on a clean new drive (unallocated space). Oddly, everything went smoothly. My original xp64 pro is on another drive (where it originally was), and upon booting, I am given the choice of which OS to use.

I put antivirus on the Win7 sys, and let MS Update do it's thing(s) so that it would be up to date.

Everything looked to be running well except when I went into Task Manager, it only showed 4 of my 8 processor cores. The system has dual sockets, each with a quad xeon in it. I checked to make sure that Task Manager was set to show each core, and it was (rather than all in one usage frame).

So, I went into Device Manager and it showed all 8 processors. Clicking on them (properties) showed that all 8 are working properly.

On every forum I could find over the past 3 days, I have found other people with these problems too, and fixes for their variety of this problem.

I have checked all of these fixes, and none seem to apply to my machine... They include:
--Selecting the number of procs used to boot with (via msconfig),
--Deleting all the procs listed in Device Manager then rebooting to force a scan,
--Using EasyBCD to set processors to 0, then rebooting,
--Setting the number of processors in the BIOS....
-- and many others.... etc..

These (and other similar fixes) seem only to apply to people with a single socket dual or quad core who have the same symptoms. None of these worked for my dual socket machine.

Then... I came across (only) one post by a Charles T. Waters near the bottom of this page:
HOWTO: Get Windows 7 to detect your new multi-core processor

He stated, "MORE THAN ONE PHYSICAL PROCESSOR, Windows 7 Home Premium will ***NOT*** support it - PERIOD! W7HP will *ONLY* see the 1st processor & the core(s) of that one ONLY!"

He went on to say, "I installed Windows 7 Ultimate and right off the bat, without doing a thing, my machine showed 4 processors, where W7HP only showed 2."

He indicated that this assertion had been verified by someone on the Win7 team. This may be correct, but when I can only find something like this in one place on the internet, it makes me want a second opinion. I couldn't find any official Win7 comparison anywher which would confirm any of this.

Last night, I talked to MS support, and it almost seemed as if they were under some kind of orders to not come out and directly confirm this..... while indicating after all the above mentioned tests that there was a good chance that Win7 Ultimate could solve the problem (I know.... black helicopters ...).

Anyhow, before spending more money to upgrade from Win7 HP to the Ultimate version, I thought I should ask here to independently verify this:
That Win7 HP will only recognize a single socket on your motherboard.

I should add that in efforts (I guess) to sell more hardware, Hewlett Pakard only supports up to Vista on the xw8400..... Although, on the AVID forums (audio stuff), bunches of people seem to be using the xw8400 with win7.

Later today, I may end up asking this question there.

I was hoping that by posting here, one of the brain trust (like Brink, who wrote the great dual boot tutorial) could verify this.

Thanks in advance for any help

edit: I should add that when I boot under xp64 pro (which is on a separate drive), all 8 processors show up (and are working) in both Device Manager and Task Manager.

I'm surprised this is still a concern or an issue, but yes, Windows 7 Home Premium only supports one processor socket. People get too hung up on cores to look at the limitations for what they really are....sockets. Forget that your computer has 8 cores....it has two processors, meaning your current install will only see and utilize one.

If you want to use both of your processors, you will need Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Ultimate. Simple as that. There's nothing to debate about, nothing to call Microsoft to confirm, and nothing to worry about black helicopters flying over. It's been this way for a decade, if not longer. Always always consider sockets when comparing your OS features....not cores.

As I mentioned about things being this way for the past decade...you gave an example of this, in XP. Had you installed XP Home, you would have run into the same issue. Since you were using XP Pro (32 bit or 64 bit, doesn't matter), you'd be able to see and use both processors. The processor support is always clearly laid out in the comparisons of the versions...the only problem is that people confuse cores with sockets. Stick to sockets, and it becomes very simple.

Thanks for the quick answer. I had thought that W7 had only been out 4 or 5 years... Were you referring to Vista?

Either way..... thanks

edit: Oh... I see, this applies to xp, vista, & W7...

again, thank you

Yep, you got it now. It refers to all the versions of Windows that had separate Home and Pro level versions, going back to XP, Vista and now with 7. Windows 7 has only been available for a little more than a year...a little less than a year to the general public.

Either way, if you move up a level in Windows 7 to Pro or higher, you'll see both procs and all 8 cores.

The confusion came from pages like this (and others):
Windows 7 editions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

...which indicate that Win7 HP will support 2 physical CPUs. Any way you read this (cores, processors, or sockets), what it is trying to say is not obvious (and contradicts the "W7 HP single socket" idea).

I would think something like this would be spelled out more clearly. My hardware experience started with tubes in the early '60s thru present day surface mount design, and my software experience spans from punched paper tape thru C#.......

....why I pondered obfuscation rather than incomplete documentation. Having used "pro" versions since they were available, I was not aware of the limitations of the home stuff, so it is my problem on this....

However, "2 physical CPUs" in the above document sounds remarkably like a couple separate physical units.

still..... thanks.... I'll buy it this afternoon.

Considering it was a Wikipedia page, you should automatically assume the information could be false, and that's why I skip Wikipedia links when searching for answers. A quick google search turns up plenty of links giving factual information on the topic.

I don't want to sound like I'm being an ass (I say that a lot lately), but this information is clearly spelled out. Aside from being considered "common knowledge" for people building these systems for themselves or others, it is documented on many sites. In fact, if you do a quick search for "dual processor support AND Windows 7", one of the first links are to threads in our very forum here.

It was a mass confusion and debate with XP, but after that was all hammered out, it didn't need documentation anymore. It's already assumed that the limits follow to Vista and Windows 7....and they do.

Ok..... you all were spot on.. Win7 pro upgrade did the trick. Almost every reply was very helpful....
Thanks again!