Vista and Quad core CPU

  • Thread starter Thread starter Carl
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Carl

Hello all, I recently bought an Intel quad core Q6600 95w energy efficient
CPU. I installed in a Lanparty ICFX3200TR/G motherboard, with Vista Home
Premium, and 8 Gb Corsair DDR2. This board had been running vista with an
E2140 without any problems. Since I have installed the Quad core, I
attempted a fresh install of vista, with hyperthreading enabled, now I
cannot get the OS to install. I flashed the Motherboard bios to the most
recent, and now the board rarely lets me access the bios settings. I realise
that this is probably a bad bios flash, but the quad core was working fine
in vista before I tried a fresh install. Does Vista Home Premium support
multi-core processors? A friend of mine also bought new components, the only
similarities being the OS and the CPU, his system will not install the OS
either, this is what leads me to think that the OS does not properly work
with quad core CPU? So, to sum up: straight swap of E2140 for a Q6600,
computer ran fine. Formatted all drives (2.1TB), created a raid stripe
array, OS (Home Premium) refused to install. Bios flash, now board
inoperable, unstable boot procedure. When I do manage to get to the install
screens for Vista, it gets all the way to "windows will now restart/
starting for the first time" tried with hyperthreading on and off. Any
suggestios anyone?
 
All versions of Vista support a quad core CPU. However,
the 32-bit version of Vista can only support up to 4GB RAM.
If you had the 64-bit version, you should be able to install OK.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

---------------------------------------------------------------

Hello all, I recently bought an Intel quad core Q6600 95w energy efficient
CPU. I installed in a Lanparty ICFX3200TR/G motherboard, with Vista Home
Premium, and 8 Gb Corsair DDR2. This board had been running vista with an
E2140 without any problems. Since I have installed the Quad core, I
attempted a fresh install of vista, with hyperthreading enabled, now I
cannot get the OS to install. I flashed the Motherboard bios to the most
recent, and now the board rarely lets me access the bios settings. I realise
that this is probably a bad bios flash, but the quad core was working fine
in vista before I tried a fresh install. Does Vista Home Premium support
multi-core processors? A friend of mine also bought new components, the only
similarities being the OS and the CPU, his system will not install the OS
either, this is what leads me to think that the OS does not properly work
with quad core CPU? So, to sum up: straight swap of E2140 for a Q6600,
computer ran fine. Formatted all drives (2.1TB), created a raid stripe
array, OS (Home Premium) refused to install. Bios flash, now board
inoperable, unstable boot procedure. When I do manage to get to the install
screens for Vista, it gets all the way to "windows will now restart/
starting for the first time" tried with hyperthreading on and off. Any
suggestios anyone?
 
It is the 64 bit version, ah well, at least I can cross that off the list
then. I have tried various combinations of DVD drives and hard drives as
well. The PSU is a 1.2KW crossfire rated monster, so it can hardly be a
power problem, I have tried installing with the bare minimum of hardware in
the PC- 1 stick of ram, one hard drive- a raptor 74GB, and I have ran the
manufacturers hard drive tools to zero fill all the drives. Question, can
the Vista DVD be copied onto a usb key, and be installed that way?
 
There have been a number of installs that could not succeed with more than
3gig of ram. After the install, the remaining ram could be inserted.
 
I will give that a go when my new motherboard arrives, the bios flash has
not helped things either, the current board is to all intents and purposes
dead. With the new board, it supports 8Gb of ram and everything else I
require, just got to wait a few days for them to reach the UK. Asus RoG
Maximus Formula board.
 
Carl said:
I will give that a go when my new motherboard arrives, the bios flash has
not helped things either, the current board is to all intents and purposes
dead. With the new board, it supports 8Gb of ram and everything else I
require, just got to wait a few days for them to reach the UK. Asus RoG
Maximus Formula board.
Click to expand...


You don't have to actually pull the memory out of the machine. Most BIOS
support "OS Install mode" which limits the amount of memory that is
recognized.

If present, just turn that feature on. Do your installation (as well as MS
updates cause some address large RAM issues) then go back into BIOS and turn
that feature off again.

-Seth
 
Does Vista Home Premium support
multi-core processors?
Click to expand...

I have a dual core Athlon. It is working on Vista Home Premium, though
I suspect some apps have trouble with it, like O&O Defrag.
 
I had all software running without fault until I tried a clean reinstall. I
think that my motherboard is the culprit, but, damn it's expensive finding
that out for sure!
 
If your old motherboard will ever allow you to boot off a floppy, USB memory,
or other source, then you could flash your BIOS again.
A bad BIOS flash is often caused by a corrupted BIOS update file, or bad
floppy disk, USB memory, etc. So it's a good idea to always check the file,
and check the disk it runs off of before flashing.
Even when things go wrong, if you can ever get it to boot again, you can
re-flash it with a freshly downloaded BIOS update.

Too bad for me I just smoked my first motherboard. It won't boot off
anything. I checked the floppy before I did the flash and found no problems.
After the flash apparently smoked the board, I ran the same test again and it
said the floppy was trashed. Sometimes you just can't win even when you do it
right. At least it was an old board - not a big loss.

JeffO
 
What test are you talking about? You "smoked your first motherboard"? How?
What your describing makes absolutely no sense. If it were "smoked" how
could it "test" your floppy drive? And what does this have to do with a quad
core installation?

I have always had to install Vista Ultimate with only 2Gb of RAm, add the
additional memory later.
 
cw823 said:
I have always had to install Vista Ultimate with only 2Gb of RAm, add the
additional memory later.
Click to expand...


Or just use the "OS Install mode" most (but not all) BIOS have which limits
the amount of memory the BIOS allows to be seen. This way one doesn't have
to mess with physically pulling the memory during an OS load.
 
It all makes sense if you consider the fact that I own 20 computers in my
lab. So I tested the floppy on a different machine than the one I flashed.
You mentioned that things got worse after you flashed it. So at that point,
it's probably a motherboard/BIOS issue.
That being the case, any experience I've had flashing BIOS's comes into play.
Years ago, I bought a horrible motherboard that wouldn't run stable. I
demanded a replacement - which the vendor didn't want to do but after he
yelled at me and I yelled back, I got another. He plugged it in and showed me
it booted stable.
At home, it was just as bad or worse than the original.
I found out that this particular board totally flaked-out when the CPU ran
at 700MHz or more. In the computer store, he was testing with a slower CPU,
so it was perfectly stable there.
I flashed the BIOS, but it got worse. It barely ever booted. So I tried
repeatedly to boot off the BIOS flash disk until it booted successfully and
re-flashed it back to the old BIOS. It returned to the old, half-reliable
condition.
Two months later, a newer BIOS was issued that allowed my motherboard to run
at 850MHz. It crashed about once ever 20 hours of use, which was better than
every hour. Still not good but much, much better than it was before. At
700MHz, it was totally stable with the new BIOS flash. At 1GHz, it still
wouldn't run.
So the new BIOS improved things a bit, but the board had serious flaws
related to CPU and bus speed.
But this story illustratesa few things:
1) a BIOS flash may improve or even fix the problem(s)
2) if a BIOS flash makes things worse, you can roll it back - as long as you
can ever get it to boot sufficiently to flash the BIOS
3) even if fixing the BIOS problem doesn't fix the entire situation, running
slower clock speeds on the CPU multiplier, memory multiplier, or motherboard
bus may alleviate the issues

Unfortunately for me, the board of mine that got smoked was a friend's. She
said I could have it, but I wanted to rebuild and give it back so she could
back up her laptop to this machine. Now it's a pile of scrap that's not worth
fixing.

Good luck with your machine. I know how a flaky new computer can suck the
life out of your free-time trying to figure it out.

JeffO
 
I have the Q6600 with Vista Premium. Since setting up the computer, I've
been receiving several error popups, one of which is quite frequent that says
""Microsoft Feeds Synchronization has stopped working". It offers to go
online for a solution but never comes back with one, or you just close it out.

What can I do to remedy this? Is there somewhere to go to learn how to
"fix" these problems as I can't find anything about them in FAQ's at
Microsoft.

Thanks for any input.

Nickelbuff
 
Carl said:
Hello all, I recently bought an Intel quad core Q6600 95w energy efficient
CPU. I installed in a Lanparty ICFX3200TR/G motherboard, with Vista Home
Premium, and 8 Gb Corsair DDR2. This board had been running vista with an
E2140 without any problems. Since I have installed the Quad core, I
attempted a fresh install of vista, with hyperthreading enabled, now I
cannot get the OS to install. I flashed the Motherboard bios to the most
recent, and now the board rarely lets me access the bios settings. I realise
that this is probably a bad bios flash, but the quad core was working fine
in vista before I tried a fresh install. Does Vista Home Premium support
multi-core processors? A friend of mine also bought new components, the only
similarities being the OS and the CPU, his system will not install the OS
either, this is what leads me to think that the OS does not properly work
with quad core CPU? So, to sum up: straight swap of E2140 for a Q6600,
computer ran fine. Formatted all drives (2.1TB), created a raid stripe
array, OS (Home Premium) refused to install. Bios flash, now board
inoperable, unstable boot procedure. When I do manage to get to the install
screens for Vista, it gets all the way to "windows will now restart/
starting for the first time" tried with hyperthreading on and off. Any
suggestios anyone?
Click to expand...

hi Carl first with Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad and Pent D you do not use
hyperthreading.

hyperthreading was used on older CPUs and all though you have the setting in
the bios if you have a cpu from the D to the quad it should be left disabled.

second trying to install windows vista 32bit with more than 3gigs of ram
will give you problems. what i mean by that is it will not install.

what you have to do if installing vista 32bit with more than 3gigs of ram is
take out the ram in get it to 3gigs and under install the os and then
reinstall the memory.

there is a patch for this issue but you can't install it till the os is
installed.

i would think it would download with the updated install files but Alas it
doesn't.

all so a 32bit os will not use the amount of ram you have installed if i
were you i would install the 64bit version. because all that extra ram is a
waist with 32bit
 
Zandor said:
hi Carl first with Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad and Pent D you do not use
hyperthreading.

hyperthreading was used on older CPUs and all though you have the setting in
the bios if you have a cpu from the D to the quad it should be left disabled.

second trying to install windows vista 32bit with more than 3gigs of ram
will give you problems. what i mean by that is it will not install.

what you have to do if installing vista 32bit with more than 3gigs of ram is
take out the ram in get it to 3gigs and under install the os and then
reinstall the memory.

there is a patch for this issue but you can't install it till the os is
installed.

i would think it would download with the updated install files but Alas it
doesn't.

all so a 32bit os will not use the amount of ram you have installed if i
were you i would install the 64bit version. because all that extra ram is a
waist with 32bit

Hi,
Click to expand...

I'd like to customise my 'Start Menu Taskbar' on Windows Vista to resemble
a theme that is shown on
http://www.guimods.com/vista-revamped-v11-vista-theme/#more-1007
under the Title: Vista Revamped V1.1 - Vista Theme.
In short, how do i 'remove' the rectangles on the Start Menu Taskbar to give
it a 'clear' effect ?
Pls. advise, thanks - Dhimit
 
JeffO said:
If your old motherboard will ever allow you to boot off a floppy, USB memory,
or other source, then you could flash your BIOS again.
A bad BIOS flash is often caused by a corrupted BIOS update file, or bad
floppy disk, USB memory, etc. So it's a good idea to always check the file,
and check the disk it runs off of before flashing.
Even when things go wrong, if you can ever get it to boot again, you can
re-flash it with a freshly downloaded BIOS update.

Too bad for me I just smoked my first motherboard. It won't boot off
anything. I checked the floppy before I did the flash and found no problems.
After the flash apparently smoked the board, I ran the same test again and it
said the floppy was trashed. Sometimes you just can't win even when you do it
right. At least it was an old board - not a big loss.

JeffO
Click to expand...
Can't remember the name but there are places that sell pre flashed bios
chips for a very reasonable price.

saved me a bundle
 
Yes windows vista supports multi-core CPU's, however the program you are
running may not. The program has to be programed to utlize multi-core
techonology.
 
Multi-core, and hyperthreading are not the same thing, disable hyperthreading
and try again, Pentium 4s are the last CPU's to support Hyperthreading
 
Carl,

IF you're still having problems, try turning off 2 of the cores in the BIOS,
so then you'd be running with 2 cores instead of 4... I've had similar issues
with Windows XP and Dual core but installing the OS and enabling the other
core it was ok... just a thought, hope it works for you because I'm buying a
quad-core CPU soon for my media centre so I'm interested in how you go.

Cheers.
Gareth
 
I'm just stunned reading this, the amazing new Vista cannot be installed with
more than 4gb ram and you have to mess about and either disable some in the
BIOS or take some out if you want to install the OS.

Seriously, stunned.....

What a dreadfull, dreadfull OS VISTA is !

Oh and yes, I have had it installed, Ultimate x64 and yes I did remove it to
put back on XP for games and dual boot with Mandriva for office related work.

To the OP, dump vista and run with a dual boot XP and Mandriva instead -
forget about Vista, the OS is dead before it's even begun.
 
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