Athalon 64 problem with Win XP Home Editon

Athalon 64 problem with Win XP Home Editon

• DaftP

  Are there really differences in XP Pro when it comes to dualcores I can understand, that this would give me probably some additional features or more performance, but i cannot understand, that it is NOT working at all under XP Home...
  And i am also aware, that most games don't support dualcores - but this performace lack is no problem to me, as long as one core works properly...
  
  I am using the newest version of the Programms and have no viruses on the system.
  
  Btw.: I replaced the Graphics card with a NVIDA Geforce 6600 and have the same effects.
  
  

• Bob Bannon

  Again, I have the same problem with my Athalon 64 X2 3800+ and Win XP Home.

  After installing the latest Athalon X2 64 drivers from the AMD site the problem seemed to go away however, recently my system has begun to reboot again. It usually reboots when running Far Cry (the game) or when using VisualStudio 2005.

  This got me thinking that it could be a RAM or overheating problem, as both these programs require a lot of memory to run. However, after downloading a program that monitors RAM usage I found that there was ample memory to run both applications and there should be no need for the system to shut down.

  I also checked for overheating problems, there were none. Even when running both the applications that caused the system to shut down, the CPU remained at around 29 degrees C and the graphics cards (SLi system) stayed at around 40-50. These are pretty normal temperature for my system which has LOTS of cooling. (3-fan 650W power supply, 120mm fan and 2 80mm fans!)

  So the mystery of the Athalon 64 X2 and Win XP Home remains.

  
  
  

• thowe

  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/815069#XSLTH3120121122120121120120

  http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_78.01.html

   

  
  
  

• T*R*Z

  Hi,

  I have seen this sort of problems on several occasions. Most of the time it is caused by a hardware incompatibility problem. Although each individual piece of hardware fits the windows specs it doesn't mean that all the components together result is a stable machine.

  I would try to rule out drivers (maybe in this case focus on the graphics card) by downgrading the card to regular VGA drivers or better yet, run the machine in safe mode for a day and see if it works better. If it is a hard ware problem it should show the same symptoms in safe mode too.

  After that, anything you can remove from your machine, take it out and test if the machine works then. After that, start adding one piece of hardware at a time and see if that makes a difference.

  I hope you will be able to get a stable machine.

  Wouter

  
  

• Digitalcandy

  Durring the hardware detection your screen might go black for a minute while it is looking for the video cards.
  
  
  

• csqlrun

  Check with the manufactures of the games for any updates.  I would also run a spyware and virus scan on the computer.  Remember XP home only supports 1 processor so you are only using 1 of the dual cores in a 32 bit mode you should think about upgrading to xp pro or xp x64 pro.  If you choose to upgrade to x64 pro make sure you check and see if there are 64bit drivers available for your hardware. 
  
  
  

• ShawnShawnShawn

  I also have a comparable Problem.
  Running Windows XP Home Edition on an AMD 64 X2 3800+ dualcore-machine.
  
  I think i have also tracked down the problem to graphics or something. But in my case usual windwos-work seems smooth and also old games (e.g. enemy-territory oder 3dmark 2001) run without problems. But if i go on to new games/3d-test which use more directX9 or something (e.g. 3dmark 2003/2005) My systems hangs after some minutes or does a reboot.
  
  Are there some known Problems concerning DirectX and dualcores
  
  I am using DirectX 9.0c and the newest drivers from nvidia for my Geforce 7800 GT, i tried NVIDIA-forceware drivers 81.98, 81.95 and the supplied ones on the CD with now change in effect.I also can say that i don't have heat-problems, as the old games also produce maximum load to gpu and CPU, also i am writing this using a 64-bit linux install on the same machine, where i can have both cpus running 100% for hours without Problems.
  
  Ram is acutally 2 Gig in dualchannel mode, but i also removed 1 and had the same effect with just 1 Gig of ram. memtest86 does also not report any errors.
  
  The strange thing is: After installing the drivers and redoo DirecX install 3dMark 2003/2005 work. But if i shutdown my system and do a reboot half an hour later or so i encounter the hangups, with now change further on.
  
  I also had replaced the harddisk, so i am pretty shure not having a problem at this point.
  
  Board is Asus A8N-E.
  
  

• Matthew Gertz MS

  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/815069#XSLTH3120121122120121120120

  Thank you for that link. Maybe I can get some performace enhancements from this. But right now this is not my problem: I don't even care if the games/3dmark  go a little slower, as long as they work at all...

  http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_78.01.html

  Also thanks for that link. I already found the nvidia-Page and of course i downloaded the newest drivers for my grafics card. And of course i reinstalled the drivers when i plugged in the GeForce 6600. But of course now i use the GeForce 7800 GT again and the 78.01 drivers only apply until GeForce 6600.

  
  

  Btw.: You mentioned above, that XP Home doesn't support dualcores. (Which means it would only run 1 core). But if I start the system-monitor i can see a splitted cpu-monitor for both cores and single programms also seem to use both of them.
  

  
  

• wbkayani

  Done and Done.... Im working with a fresh install of all of these... only updates and Installed drivers... what else can you tell me... And actually i narrowed it down to Graphics I believe... And I am working off a Windows XP Pro install now... I have everything isntalled all the current drivers, BIOS, Programs... And I still get a black screen... I have had it set on for about 2 hours now.. and I have gotten 1 black screen and i didnt stick aroudn for the reboot... I just manualy did it.  ANY OTHER SOLUTIONS ANYONE
  
  

• mrmrmax

  Since you are running windows xp home you are only using the 32bit capabilties of the microprocessor.  You should not have any problems from that.  First I would run a complete virus and spyware scan on your machine.  Second I would check and make sure you have the most recent drivers for your hardware. 
  
  
  

• Tom Craig

  I've updated the video card drivers from the nVidia website, updated my chipset driver whilst I was there too. Far Cry seems to work okay now, although I've only tried it twice.

  Not sure about VisualStudio at the moment as I seem to have lost the link from my Start menu and can't find it on my hard disk . However, when the Windows error reporting pop-up came up after the PC rebooted before, the error report contained something about a driver problem, so I think downloading the latest drivers may have solved it. At least for now anyway.

  Thanks Ken.

  
  
  

• Pyromanci

  TequilaTR wrote:

  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/815069#XSLTH3120121122120121120120 Thank you for that link. Maybe I can get some performace enhancements from this. But right now this is not my problem: I don't even care if the games/3dmark go a little slower, as long as they work at all... http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_78.01.html Also thanks for that link. I already found the nvidia-Page and of course i downloaded the newest drivers for my grafics card. And of course i reinstalled the drivers when i plugged in the GeForce 6600. But of course now i use the GeForce 7800 GT again and the 78.01 drivers only apply until GeForce 6600. Btw.: You mentioned above, that XP Home doesn't support dualcores. (Which means it would only run 1 core). But if I start the system-monitor i can see a splitted cpu-monitor for both cores and single programms also seem to use both of them.

  I am having a simular problem. Except, I cannot get the dual core to run in XP Home. A guy at a computer store said that the current releases of XP home support Dual core processors. Orginally, XP home did not. Which is true. XP home would only support one processor. It was not meant to be in a multi processor system as those were servers and business machines. But, dual cores are out now and the guy said he installs XP home with X2 processors all the time and it works just fine. (I cannot get it to work on my computer)

  
  

• German Mendoza

  I have an AMD Athalon Dual-Core 3800+ running on Win XP Home.

  Windows XP Home detects a dual-core processor but treats it as two seperate processors (which can be found in Device Manager).

  I think that Windows XP Pro support dual-core fully and I would be surprised if Win XP 64bit didn't. If you install that latest drivers from the AMD website, XP Home seems to improve in stability and performance very slightly as it's using official AMD drivers rather than the stock Microsoft ones. However, XP Home will still see the dual-core as two seperate processors.

  If you want to assign a program to a specific core, you can do so by going into Task Manager. Selecting the process/application you want to run and then setting the processor affinity to either CPU1 for core 1 or CPU2 for core 2.

  Don't know if this helps but the only other way I can see to get full dual-core support is to upgrade your OS to Pro/64Bit of wait to see if Microsoft update the dual-core support in Win XP Home.

  
  
  

• salex

  I wouls look in the event log for errors. I am thinking that since you have a problem with Far Cry in addition to Visual Studio the problem is the video card or driver.
  
  
• Athalon 64 problem with Win XP Home Editon