E2180 cores in Task Manager

Guy's, I've just built a machine for a friend consisting of the above mentioned CPU and an Asrock Conroe 945PL-GLAN. My problem is that it only shows one core in the task manager. Is this normal? If not, how can it be remedied? I just know you can solve this!

ok the E2180 is a dual core so it should show 2... the first suggestion would be to update the BIOS to the latest version...
second suggestion is to try this same CPU in another machine if possible to see if it only shows one core there as well, if it does then you have a defective CPU as one core is dead.
good luck

You sure have an unshakable confidence in this community, right?

First of all, let's say that no, this isn't normal. And yes, you should see two cores in the Task Manager. Before we move on, I'd advocate checking the configuration settings of the Windows Task Manager. Fire up Task Manager, go to the Performance tab, now this is where complaint resides, you are seeing only one graph. Now navigate under the View menu and you should find the CPU History row, this setting has two options: “One Graph, All CPUs” and “One Graph per CPU”. If the formal is checked then everything is fine since there is only one main graph displayed. This option is not enabled by default, but it's still worth checking. In that case when the latter option is selected then two individual graphs should be displayed as you were expecting. If that doesn't happen, then you have a problem. No worries--here's how to fix it.

(Since your AsRock ConRoe945PL-GLAN motherboard supports Intel® Core™ 2 Duo architecture due to the 945PL chipset and has the required FSB for that E2180 then we are going to skip all kinds of hardware-related possible solutions to this problem. Apparently, you need to focus purely on software-related troubleshooting.)

Chances are that your BIOS is already up-to-date or at least fresh enough to support the said dual core processor since it was specifically released for these kinds of CPUs. It sure helps checking out whether there exist or not a newer bios update and if so then updating is worthwhile, even though; I wouldn't bank on this kind of workaround. It won't fix your situation here but it's definitely worth a try (due to the extra bugfixes and hardware compatibility support for newer hardwares that are usually included in newer BIOS updates).

I'd bet that your problem is due to the HAL that Windows is using. You did not said what kind of OS you are running (XP or Vista) but fortunately the workaround fix can be applied on both. HAL is the abbrevation of Hardware Abstraction Layer, though Itsacon is a huge believer that it was rather a backronym than an acronym but this doesn't matter now. I was just trying to cheer this post up. Nevertheless, the HAL is the driver of the motherboard for the Operating System, it is the necessary software component that aids the OS how to communicate on low level with the hardware components such as controllers, the processor(s), etc.

It is unnecessary for me to go deeper than this. What you need to know is that there are different kinds of HALs (IIRC, exactly 5). These are not totally backwards compatible and there is no universal HAL that is appropiate for all kinds of processors. 99% of the cases when your problem occurs (such as dual core processor is recognized as a single-core during Windows, but works OK in other OS such as Ubuntu, Knoppix, other *nix flavors, etc.) due to a not compatible HAL. Why does this happen can have few reasons. The user may skip the Windows reinstallation process thinking that it's acceptable to swap a single-core processor with a dual-core one and get away without completely wiping Windows. This is untrue. The HAL remains for an uniprocessor system and fails to recognize the multi-processors.

Another reason why a wrong HAL is installed can be due to an incorrect BIOS setting. For whatever reason the second core is disabled in the BIOS, a new copy of Windows is installed, the uniprocessor HAL is installed, then the user figures out his or her problem, enthusiastically locates the "problem" in the BIOS, activates the 2nd core, and thinks that everything should go smooth. It should but not in that copy of Windows. The HAL is incompatible with the dual-core processor. Therefore, there are two correct ways to fix/work-around this problem. First is to reinstall Windows by installing a fresh copy right from scratch or, of course, using the Repair Procedure during the setup process, but this once again falls under the reinstallation. The second is to manually replace the HAL. This process isn't 100% safe and is sometimes marked as "don't try to this at home" (meaning backup your data and we aren't responsible for your actions!).

Since we are pros, I'd strongly suggest going on the second route. The first one still remains as a final resort if all else fails. Replacing the HAL manually isn't a demonic process, it barely takes a few minutes, but the truth is that there are various little things that can go wrong because the HAL can go way beyond than the process being explained here. And with Windows you can't really know for sure. 9 times out of 10 it will work just fine, it should always do that, but neither of us should be surprised when totally out of blue it pops up a BSOD, refuses to boot anymore, or simply becomes really unstable later on. I've done this process myself multiple times and never failed once. Based on my experience, it always works. Based on what I've read, it also works on Vista.

First of all, let's see all of the possible HALs and their compatibilities with each other.


You current processor is a full-fledged ACPI-based dual-core CPU. Therefore, you need the so-called halmacpi.dll in order to fully support the processor under Windows. As you can see, this HAL is a "bit" backwards compatible meaning that is supports both multiprocessors and uniprocessor systems. And yes, halaacpi.dll should also work since it does offer the same compatibilities but you can never know for sure. Even though they appear likewise, their "inner working" is different on an architectural level. All in all, it means that once you have either of these, you can go back to a single core CPU and experience no problems whatsoever. But if you currently have either hal.dll or halacpi.dll then neither of these will support a multiprocessor system. You can check what kind of HAL you currently have by navigating to the Device Manager. Under the Computer you should have ACPI Multiprocessor PC. Here's how it appears under my Core 2-based desktop.



Now let's see how to manually replace the HAL. The most easiest (but risky) strategy to do so is renaming the current hal.dll (if that's what you have) to hal.dll.bak (or hal_old.dll, or anything just for backup reasons) and copy the new HAL from the Windows installation CD. It can be found in the \i386\system32\ folder under the name of "halmacpi.dl_". You should copy this and rename it as "hal.dll". You see, what you are doing here is to replace the old HAL with the new HAL that should be compatible with your current hardware configuration. Windows doesn't detect this new change, it is just fooled and loads the HAL just like before, only that its content has changed. This is not healthy. Think of it as an adventurous approach that works but it can fail when you expect the least. But this is one workaround. Let's see more. It should also be said that this cannot be done under normal circumstances due to Windows file protection. You need to boot from a so-called NTFS4DOS (or try here and here) bootable disk into the DOS prompt. Then copy using the "copy source destination" and then rename using the "ren source newname" commands.

The second workaround is a bit more advanced, meaning that it goes deeper. Actually it forces Windows to recognize a system with N number of processors (in your case that's 2). Go to Start->Run and type "msconfig". Navigate to the Boot tab, check the Number of Processors setting, set "2" there, click OK, save everything (check Make all boot settings permanent), and reboot. If there's an option like "Detect HAL" then disable that (uncheck). This way you are forcing the multiprocessor HAL, meaning that like it or not, Windows will copy itself the new ACPI MP HAL (halmacpi.dll) and set the necessary configurations itself automatically. This is safer. It should work.

Another solution is the following (which could be used as an extension to my previous workaround when you are copying the necessary files yourself). Along with the HAL you should also copy the ntkrnlmp.exe file. It can be also found from the same path (\i386\system32\). And then use Notepad to edit the "boot.ini" file (it is located on your Windows root partition such as C:\boot.ini) and modify the already existing line under the [operating systems] tag to something like this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS=“XP Professional MP” /fastdetect /kernel=ntkrnlmp.exe /hal=halmacpi.dll

As you can see, we are explicitly asking Windows to run the ntkrnlmp Kernel with the halmacpi.dll HAL. This way your "old" HAL remains intact. This workaround actually goes through the process of installing the new kernel so you just need to accept the setup procedure by clicking Yes/OK and Finish. That's all. I also wanted to speak about 1-2 alternative ways but these are enough for now--they should all work, btw. And I personally do the last one almost always.

Hopefully this helps. I gotta run now. I got caught away with this post. But please do tell us how you are doing. I'll check this thread.

Thanks Martin. As it happens it WAS the XP install that caused all the problems, however, if ever there was a detailed explanation, THAT WAS IT!! My friend, you are a wonder!! Unfortunately the whole project went tits up. My friend wanted me to do only hardware replacement (something I'm not keen on) without touching his files (his Mobo blew out). I un-installed all the Nforce drivers (or so I thought) and everything went well except I could'nt get his sound drivers or Inf files to install. Well I wasn't overly worried about this until I saw only one core. I checked the BIOS and it had gone through several revisions since the board was made. I updated the BIOS to the latest version then things went totally Pear Shaped!!! On reboot I got "cannot find ntldr". No probs I though, just re-write the boot sector! Uh, uh! That failed! No probs, do a repair install, uh,uh! No previously installed version of XP!!! WTF!!! So I fitted another drive, loaded XP and had a look at what was on the original drive, guess what? NOTHING!!! Just a couple of 1K files. My friend is gonna be real pissed at me.

Then something else beyond our suggestions was (and maybe still is) wrong with that system. Out of the thousands and thousands of systems I have ever worked on and updated the BIOS on, I have never seen a BIOS update cause this.
I suspect the windows that was installed was borked from the get go and it would have done this even without the BIOS update, maybe a few days later, maybe at the exact same time, who knows.
If you just took an existing windows on a hard drive and put it in a new system with a new and different motherboard then everything should have been backed up, setup a fresh clean windows install, then restore the backups.
There are so many possibilities at this point that it sounds like a fresh start is the best way to go (unfortunately whatever happened caused his files to disappear).

Totally agree with you there. I wanted to do a clean install from the start but because my friend is such a lazy git he was adamant that I leave his files alone. Well it looks like tough shit, he's gonna get a clean install, just hope sector zero hasn't gone bye bye on his drive.