Did I lose one of the cores?

[churin]

I have just noticed that there are only three(3) core as indicated by system utility(CPUZ, etc) for Phenom II x4 970. Does this mean one of the four cores is dead?

[Arclight]

You missed the perfect opportunity to call this thread "Dude, where's my coar?".

Anyways, most recent AM3 mobos, have the option both to unlock cores (for single, dual, tri cored CPUs, but also for Thuban based quads from 4 to 6 cores) AND to turn cores off (except Core 1 iirc). If you messed with the BIOS options, it should be an easy fix. Just restart your PC, boot into the BIOS and select "Load setup default" or w/e it's called.

I'd be worried if the core was turned off without your input. In this case the mobo or worse the CPU might be defective. Try to restore the disabled core and after that do some stress testing to see if the system is unstable. If it is, it will be tricky to pinpoint the culprit since you might need to swap and test with another compatible CPU that you know works fine. Good luck.

[just brew it!]

I would be surprised if the system would boot without at least giving you a warning during POST if one of the cores died unexpectedly. I agree with Arclight - this sounds like something in your BIOS settings, or possibly an OS issue (IIRC there are settings in the boot.ini and/or registry which can disable cores).

Does Windows Task Manager show only 3 cores as well?

[MadManOriginal]

You just got a rare engineering sample Bulldozer-based CPU labeled as a Phenom II. CPU-Z is just honestly reporting the number of actual cores.

But yeah, what does task manager say?

[Arclight]

I have just noticed that there are only three(3) core as indicated by system utility(CPUZ, etc) for Phenom II x4 970. Does this mean one of the four cores is dead?

Forgot to ask, can you post a screenshot of CPU-Z and task manager>Performance tab (that's how it says for W 7 at least)?

[churin]

Thanks everyone for your responses.
I have determined that this problem has something to do with installed W7.

There are three separate installations of W7 SP1 on the same mobo. The installed apps are not the same among them. The problem happens on one of them. I was using Windows Live Movie Maker to stitch 13 mp4 video clips and burn a DVD. While waiting for it to complete, I fired up Task Manager to see how hard the cpu was working. And there one core was missing.

Now how can it be fixed?

[Ryu Connor]

Might try running sysprep on that particular install and letting the OS roll through hardware detection again.

[just brew it!]

Sounds like the Boot Configuration Data for that instance of W7 has been hosed somehow. Try running msconfig, click the "Advanced options..." button on the "Boot" tab, and see whether the "Number of processors" option has been set.

If that (and Ryu's suggestion) doesn't help, I'd recommend just re-installing that instance of W7.

[Arclight]

Thanks everyone for your responses.
I have determined that this problem has something to do with installed W7.

There are three separate installations of W7 SP1 on the same mobo. The installed apps are not the same among them. The problem happens on one of them. I was using Windows Live Movie Maker to stitch 13 mp4 video clips and burn a DVD. While waiting for it to complete, I fired up Task Manager to see how hard the cpu was working. And there one core was missing.

Now how can it be fixed?

You say you have installed W7 SP1 3 times on the same motherboard? Surely you meant HDD (but i suspect not the same partition)? First you said you saw 3 cores on CPU-z not on task manager...how about those screen shots?

Also why would you need 3 separate W7 installations? I'm sorry, i'm getting tired but it makes little sense to me.

Edit 1
[quote]Well, it could also be 3 different HDDs in the same computer...p/quote]

Could be, just that HDD prices made me skeptical of such a config and even so, it would still be strange. WHY would you want/need this?

[just brew it!]

You say you have installed W7 SP1 3 times on the same motherboard? Surely you meant HDD (but i suspect not the same partition)?

Well, it could also be 3 different HDDs in the same computer...

[DPete27]

Also why would you need 3 separate W7 installations? I'm sorry, i'm getting tired but it makes little sense to me.

I agree. It sounds like some twisted type of user profile management to me. Perhaps the OP can comment on this. I also see no reason to have W7 installed 3 times even if its on 3 different hdds.

[TurtlePerson2]

You can disable cores in AMD processors if you have the right motherboard. Personally, I run my 6 core chip with only 4 cores enabled because I don't do anything more CPU intensive than gaming, and I haven't found any games that benefit from the extra cores.

[just brew it!]

Also why would you need 3 separate W7 installations? I'm sorry, i'm getting tired but it makes little sense to me.

I agree. It sounds like some twisted type of user profile management to me. Perhaps the OP can comment on this. I also see no reason to have W7 installed 3 times even if its on 3 different hdds.

I actually agree with both of you. But that's beside the point -- Windows shouldn't be disabling his 4th core regardless of how many copies are installed!

You can disable cores in AMD processors if you have the right motherboard. Personally, I run my 6 core chip with only 4 cores enabled because I don't do anything more CPU intensive than gaming, and I haven't found any games that benefit from the extra cores.

Since the OP indicated that only one one of his triple-boot OS instances is exhibiting the issue, it can't be a BIOS setting causing it.

[churin]

Try running msconfig, click the "Advanced options..." button on the "Boot" tab, and see whether the "Number of processors" option has been set.

This is the right on target suggestion! The option is found to be set for three(3) cores. I just have no idea at all why this happened.
I am feeling lot better now. Thanks for the suggestion and everyone else for trying to help me.

[just brew it!]

Well, it could also be 3 different HDDs in the same computer...p

Could be, just that HDD prices made me skeptical of such a config

Only if he bought the drives in the past 2-3 months.

and even so, it would still be strange. WHY would you want/need this?

Maybe he'll tell us.

But at least his problem is fixed now.

[churin]

and even so, it would still be strange. WHY would you want/need this?

Maybe he'll tell us.

Since my problem is resolved, I am happy to answer the question, even though my reasoning may still not be embraced.
There are three hard drives on the machine. The latest versions of apps are installed on one of them, while one generation older versions are on another one. The third one is used as a testing bed for evaluating any kind of application softwares.

I am not referring browsers, emailer, utilities and so forth for the above mentioned two versions of application softwares. They are a graphic suite software and a CAD software. I want to keep these two installed versions accessible during the transition or until I get their newer versions.

[just brew it!]

...and there you have it. If you've got an app that won't allow you to install multiple versions side-by-side (or if doing so tends to break stuff even if it is supposedly allowed), that can be an argument for multiple OS installations!

[UberGerbil]

I'd be strongly tempted to use VMs for that, rather than actual separate OS installations, unless the base hardware was old and highly memory-constrained (or the apps were so performance-critical that VM overhead was unacceptable). Especially in the case where you just need to keep app versions separate, and don't need separate/different OS images.

[just brew it!]

One of the listed apps (CAD software) may run unacceptably slow or become unstable in a VM if it relies on hardware accelerated 3D. While many virtualization solutions do support some form of hardware 3D acceleration (i.e. pass-through of Direct3D/OpenGL to the underlying hardware), it isn't yet a mature tech.

But yeah, if the apps are amenable to running in a VM, that may be a better solution.

[churin]

I'd be strongly tempted to use VMs for that, rather than actual separate OS installations, unless the base hardware was old and highly memory-constrained (or the apps were so performance-critical that VM overhead was unacceptable). Especially in the case where you just need to keep app versions separate, and don't need separate/different OS images.

Aside from the speed problem mentioned by just brew it!, what I do not much care for about VM is reliability issue. What I have is a redundancy system. With the VM, you are relying on ONE os installation which hosts the VM.

[just brew it!]

Aside from the speed problem mentioned by just brew it!, what I do not much care for about VM is reliability issue. What I have is a redundancy system. With the VM, you are relying on ONE os installation which hosts the VM.

Modern OSes are reliable enough that IMO this is a misplaced concern. If you're really worried about redundancy, they should be on separate computers.

[Flying Fox]

Aside from the speed problem mentioned by just brew it!, what I do not much care for about VM is reliability issue. What I have is a redundancy system. With the VM, you are relying on ONE os installation which hosts the VM.

Modern OSes are reliable enough that IMO this is a misplaced concern. If you're really worried about redundancy, they should be on separate computers.

I would worry about disk redundancy over any (perceived or real) OS unreliability. Actually, VMs give you better reliability in that if it is just the OS that is hosed (I assume you are scared of Windows? I haven't had a catastrophic software event that requires me to reinstall the OS, my last few reinstalls are of my own choosing/mistakes), you can easily move the VM to another host and have it back up with the amount of time of copying the VM disk+config data. In that sense it is actually better. Also, by saving snapshots of the OS at different states, you can even have different branches of the OS evolutions with multiple versions of your software installations. For example, you save a snapshot before you install your big apps version X (snapshot A). Then you install version X of your apps, and then you save a snapshot (snapshot B). Then you can revert back to snapshot A, install version Y of your apps, and then save a snapshot (snapshot C). You can then flip back and forth of these (snapshots B, C, or even all the way back to A) using just one base VM.

A lot of software testing has been switched to this kind of setup for a while now. This really saves on imaging and reimaging computers. Unless you are touching hardware and/or writing low level stuff (like drivers), VMs are really the way to go for testing multiple versions of stuff.

[just brew it!]

Yup... for anything that doesn't require 3D acceleration or precise timing (e.g. MIDI sequencing, games), VMs are really the way to go. My primary desktop system at home runs Linux (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS), on a software RAID-1 array. I've got VMs set up for multiple Linux distros, Windows XP, and Windows 7. The host OS (which is also my primary desktop environment) is extremely stable; it never crashes, and gets rebooted only when Ubuntu releases kernel patches. Trying out things that have the potential to break stuff is as simple as using VirtualBox's snapshot feature, or making a temporary clone of the VM; if things go wrong, it is trivial to get back.

I'm also in the process of setting up a second "screw around" box to try out stuff that doesn't work well in a VM...