[Solved] "ACPI Multiprocessor PC" is missing

[ToddAndMargo]

Hi All,

I just upgraded to VBox 3.0.3 from 2.2.4 on a customer's machine. Both of his guests, XP-Pro-SP3 and Windows Server 2008-sp1, show two processors in the device manager. The VBox console shows two processors. But both guest machines can only use one processor. I get it: the wrong kernel is loaded. I have installed the new guest addition on both machines. So using search on Google, I found this (yes I use search!):

SMP on a Windows XP guest without a reinstall: http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&p=84602

Very nice direction. I remember doing this to native XP machines back when Hyperthreading first came out.

Problem: with the "show compatible hard" box check (or even unchecked), I still only get "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)". On XP, I get an extra "Standard PC". What happened to my other compatible hardware? Specifically, I want "ACPI Multiprocessor PC". Anyone know how to fix this? What would keep both guests from showing the other compatible hardware?

The customer is not going to be pleased if I have to reinstall both.

Many thanks,
-T

[vbox4me2]

Install a new VM and when that one displays the proper kernal, copy the kernal files to the other VM.

[fixedwheel]

Hi, i don't remember where and how i found this one, worked for me: http://www.hardware.info/en-US/news/ym2 ... t_anymore/

[ToddAndMargo]

Hi, i don't remember where and how i found this one, worked for me: http://www.hardware.info/en-US/news/ym2 ... t_anymore/

Thank you!

-T

[BrianP]

fixedwheel,
I used the HAL update tool. It detected the correct hal, I just pressed OK, rebooted and now I have twice the CPU!!! Thanks for the specific pointer. Our esteemed moderator, vbox4me2, could learn by your example and perhaps contribute a bit more than just saying, how easy it is and to go look on Google.

Dragon Naturally speaking is vastly snappier now although the hit rate is still in the toilet. Perhaps 2 of 20 simple words. My voice file appears to have been corrupted somehow. I need to read Kennedy's inaugural address to it again to retrain it.

FLASH IS STILL TOTALLY FUBAR as is normal on linux. I tried FF 3. Exactly the same as before. Then (I am ashamed to admit), I even installed the new ms evilnet 8. It kept bugging me about "site wants to install dynamic html editing tool". What could malicious code with such a dynamic editing tool? Get past the AV, then edit its code and run it. Very scary! Then, my AV spotted an attack from WTSO.net so I killed the entire VM.

Then, I installed FF 3.5. It is a lot faster. At low def (non-HD) and in a postage stamp sized window, flash plays almost fine on YouTube and National Geographic. Switching to high-def, even the small window is very choppy and sometimes freezes for many seconds. Switching to full screen always freezes video entirely.

I suspect it might have something to do with my ATI R4850 video card. Until Ubu 9.04, absolutely nothing related to moving pictures worked correctly, mostly just crash-n-burn on the 3 previous Ubuntus or the 2 previous Suses. Even running on the host, not the VM, I can still see line artifacts and occasional white boxes whenever I run flash. When I reboot to windoz, the flash looks vastly better.

There is still a severe degradation in flash between native Firefox and VM FF.

Thanks again,

Brian

[XRolando]

Hi, i don't remember where and how i found this one, worked for me: http://www.hardware.info/en-US/news/ym2 ... t_anymore/

Sadly it didn't work for me (an i7 with XP as a guest and opensuse 11.1 as a host), and it wont boot properly now... Though I'll try reinstalling XP and see what happens.

[ToddAndMargo]

Hi, i don't remember where and how i found this one, worked for me: http://www.hardware.info/en-US/news/ym2 ... t_anymore/

Sadly it didn't work for me (an i7 with XP as a guest and opensuse 11.1 as a host), and it wont boot properly now... Though I'll try reinstalling XP and see what happens.

XRolando,

I have one that worked and one I had to do a full reinstall on. Don't waste a lot of time on it though: multiprocessors work like crap on XP. See http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/4620

-T

[XRolando]

A full reinstall did indeed work very well. I haven't noticed a difference between single vs multi core peformance in XP but multithreaded apps perform better which is what I was aiming for (some random server apps).