Debian guest only sees 1 CPU

[enrico]

Hi,

Problem: Guest OS only sees 1 CPU, instead of the 4 I have assigned to it.
Host: Windows 7 64-bit, Intel Core I7 (8 CPUs), 8 GB RAM
Guest: Debian testing 32-bit, Intel Core I7 (4 CPUs), 2 GB RAM
VirtualBox Version: 4.3.6r91406
Guest Additions: Installed (4.3.6r91406)
Hardware Virtualisation: Enabled
Additional Information: Please see Log and Screenshot attached

Description:
My Debian testing guest system only sees 1 CPU, out of the 4 that I have assigned.
Everything looks fine on the VirtualBox side of things (but please check my Log), but when I am inside my Debian guest system, this is what I see:

Code: Select all

$ ls /sys/devices/system/cpu/
cpu0  cpuidle  kernel_max  microcode  modalias  offline  online  possible  power  present  uevent

$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/online 
0

$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/offline 

$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/present 
0

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 42
model name	: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2820QM CPU @ 2.30GHz
stepping	: 7
cpu MHz		: 2272.671
cache size	: 6144 KB
fdiv_bug	: no
f00f_bug	: no
coma_bug	: no
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 5
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht nx rdtscp constant_tsc pni ssse3
bogomips	: 4545.34
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Is there anything I can do to solve this issue? This is massively important for me and I would really appreciate any help. Please let me know if I need to provide any additional information.

Thank you very much.

[Perryg]

00:00:00.531694 Guest OS type: 'Debian'

Shut the guest down ( not saved state ) and select the 64-bit version in the settings.

[enrico]

Hi Perryg,

Thanks for your help.
I did that, but the situation hasn't changed, there's always only one cpu visible to Debian.
Please note that I installed the 32-bit version of Debian, is this a problem?

Cheers,

[Perryg]

It could, depending on the kernel. For instance the i486 version kernel is not compiled to support SMP. You would need to investigate Debian SMP to be sure.

[enrico]

That was it! THANK YOU.
I think I installed Debian with PAE disabled, so the installer automatically installed the 486 kernel (that doesn't support SMP) instead of the 686-pae one.
I installed it, rebooted and now I can see the 4 cores from Debian.

Is there any way to transform my virtual 32-bit to a 64-bit installation? For example If I select Debian(64 bit) from the list and the install the amd64 kernel, would that give me a 64-bit OS?

[Perryg]

In theory this could be done, but I believe the 32-bit libs, and lack of 64-bit libs, will cause you a lot of grief. Best to install 64-bit fresh.