High CPU on Win2K install to SMP box, Intel BX chipset

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I don't know if this is a setup or general issue, but has anyone come accross
this:

- I have an SMP mobo with 2 P-III slot 1 processors
- I installed Win2K PRO at SP3

Right after install I see the machine 50% busy in Task Manager. When idle,
the system idle process is at 99%, and I see about 100% processor busy, all
kernel time, and it always seems to be an 80/20 split - CPU 0 is 20% busy and
CPU 1 is 80% busy.

Is this expected and normal? For sure I did NOT observe this behaviour in NT
4 workstation at ANY servicepack level. In NT when system idle was 99%, both
processors used to show 1% busy in task manager.

Anyone else experience this on an SMP box laid down on the Intel BX-440
chipset?
 
I don't know if this is a setup or general issue, but has anyone come accross
this:

- I have an SMP mobo with 2 P-III slot 1 processors
- I installed Win2K PRO at SP3

Right after install I see the machine 50% busy in Task Manager. When idle,
the system idle process is at 99%, and I see about 100% processor busy, all
kernel time, and it always seems to be an 80/20 split - CPU 0 is 20% busy and
CPU 1 is 80% busy.

Is this expected and normal? For sure I did NOT observe this behaviour in NT
4 workstation at ANY servicepack level. In NT when system idle was 99%, both
processors used to show 1% busy in task manager.

Anyone else experience this on an SMP box laid down on the Intel BX-440
chipset?
Click to expand...

No, I have several Dual BX boards, but I'm running the latest service
packs. You did a clean install, not an upgrade, right?
 
I don't know if this is a setup or general issue, but has anyone come
accross this:

- I have an SMP mobo with 2 P-III slot 1 processors
- I installed Win2K PRO at SP3

Right after install I see the machine 50% busy in Task Manager. When
idle, the system idle process is at 99%, and I see about 100%
processor busy, all kernel time, and it always seems to be an 80/20
split - CPU 0 is 20% busy and CPU 1 is 80% busy.

Is this expected and normal? For sure I did NOT observe this
behaviour in NT 4 workstation at ANY servicepack level. In NT when
system idle was 99%, both processors used to show 1% busy in task
manager.

Anyone else experience this on an SMP box laid down on the Intel
BX-440 chipset?
Click to expand...

No you should not be seeing this. The BX-440 is common chipset so
shouldn't be a problem. When you say the processor is being used by
kernel what do you mean? There is not a thread called kernel. If you
want to get details of everything one way is to use pslist from
sysinternals.

Leonard Severt

Microsoft Enterprise Support
 
On Sun, 7 Nov 2004 05:11:42 UTC, "Leonard Severt [MSFT]"

Actually what I meant was the high CPU shown in task manager was reflected as
kernel time (as opposed to task CPU).

Anyways, there is a happy ending. After many lengthy searches that finally
devolved into discussions on switching MP kernel types for machines which
implement power managament by APIC versus the older APM, I went to confirm
that my machine was indeed APIC compliant and the last BIOS I flashed (in
1999) did list as one of its updates, APIC compliance.

I bit the bullet and installed the last ever BIOS from the vendor published in
2000 and listed forever as "beta". It officially was to support drives over
73 Gb, but the collateral effect of installing that beta BIOS was no ill
effect on any other subsystem and *surprise* something else fixed to the
extent that I no longer see total system CPU at 50% (in effect burning up 1
CPU's power doing nothing).

After WINLOGIN does its business at startup, everything settles down and I
have two engines ready to work hard at user initiated task code.

Interesting that none of this flared up during the time the box was running
NT. Had I not solved this I may very well have stayed with NT4 at SP6a.
Currently I have no application requirements pushing me into W2K. I just used
this period of protracted system stability to try and ease into something a
little more current.
 
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