Legit Reviews

Hi All

This is my first post, please excuse any errors or details left out.

I just purchased an Intel System with the following components:
Intel Core i5-3450 Ivy Bridge
Intel DH67CL Motherboard (#AAG10212-210)
Corsair XMS3 2x2GB DDR3 1333 RAM

The problem I'm facing is that the processor is detected by the BIOS, OS and pretty much every other software as a dual core processor, whereas Intel clearly states that this is quad core (http://ark.intel.com/products/65511/).
I flashed the BIOS version from BLH6710H.86A.0146.2011.1222.1415 to BLH6710H.86A.0156.2012.0615.1908. It didn't help, nothing changed.

Every other specification of the processor (speed, cache size, name etc.) are being detected and reported correctly. Only Cores/Threads is being reported as 2/2 instead of 4/4.
I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

Evidence: (I've included images as attachments to back it up):
CPU-Z reports Cores and Threads as 2 and 2 respectively.
Task Manager shows activity on only 2 cores.
DirectX Diagnostics (dxdiag) shows "2 CPUs" alongside the processor name.
System Information shows 2 Core(s) and 2 Logical Processor(s).
In the BIOS, there's an option called "Active Processor Cores". It's currently set to <ALL>, but other options are only 1 and 2, no 3 and 4.

Basically, there is absolutely no hint anywhere that I'm even running a quad core processor. Kindly advise what to do.

Thanks

kedia990

make sure all the cores are enabled in the bios, that might be a reason why it is not picking them up. Steps to take, check the UEFI BIOS and verify that it is reading all four cores, if it is not, then make sure that all cores are enabled in the BIOS. if they are enabled and BIOS picks them all up, then redo windows.

Ok, there's a development, but I'll reply to your post first.

As I said in the original post, I've selected the <ALL> option for Active Processor Cores. There's no other BIOS setting pertaining to processor cores.

Now, I have the Developer Preview of Windows 8 installed alongside Windows 7. I booted into that, and it detects 4 cores. DirectX Diagnostics, Task Manager, System Information, CPU-Z - basically everything detects 4 cores. In Windows 7, everything detects 2 cores.

What's going on? Some driver I'm missing out?

Thanks

kedia990

Reinstall windows 7, and see what happens there. If one OS picks up all 4 cores and not another normally means that one of the OS' is toasted (corrupted), or the install disk of windows 7 is corrupted. Kind of hard to nail it down, This has happened a few times to me, typically it was a bad installation, but there were a couple of times it ended up being a bad install disk.
Are you dual booting off of the same disk or using separate HDDs, for each OS?

Welcome to Trouble shooting, Me I start by reinstalling Windows 7 alone.

@DragonFury Thanks for the advice, that would have solved the problem, since it would have reversed one setting I'd made for my dual core processor.

In msconfig > Boot > Advanced Options, I had selected No of Processor Cores as 2, since I previously had a dual core processor. I removed the check and rebooted, and now it detects all 4 cores.

Thanks for your help

kedia990

Well glad you got it working, never thought of that one. But then I never mess with that portion of msconfig either.