Recognizing Multicore Processor?

[FMfrank]

I was unable to get any version of  pclinuxos to boot my Acer ASE-700 desktop (Intel Q6600 Quad core) so I finally mounted the hard drive in an older computer and installed Full Monty 2011.4. When I switched the drive back to the Acer it booted up and works fine but it's only using one core. How do I persuade the OS the recognize the Quad core?
I have been able to install Windows7 and Kubuntu on the Acer from DVD so it does seem to be a pclinuxos issue but  I'm totally hooked on the Full Monty.

Thank you

[AS]

I was unable to get any version of  pclinuxos to boot my Acer ASE-700 desktop (Intel Q6600 Quad core) so I finally mounted the hard drive in an older computer and installed Full Monty 2011.4. When I switched the drive back to the Acer it booted up and works fine but it's only using one core. How do I persuade the OS the recognize the Quad core?
I have been able to install Windows7 and Kubuntu on the Acer from DVD so it does seem to be a pclinuxos issue but  I'm totally hooked on the Full Monty.

Thank you

Hi and welcome to PCLinuxOS forum!

PCLinuxOS usually recognize all cores per default, unless you used some boot option (i.e. safe mode) or some boot parameter to to change the default behavior.

post the output of dmesg on http://pastebin.com and report back a link.

AS

[FMfrank]

Hi
If I've done everything correctly the link to my dmesg output is "http://pastebin.com/THez4Tkq"- I haven't tried that before, but it's certainly a good way to keep from littering the forum with pages of log messages.

I was disappointed to see the lines:
"weird, boot CPU (#0) not listed by the BIOS.
SMP motherboard not detected."

This suggests to me that the Acer BIOS is broken and it isn't going to let me run Linux. I went back to Kubuntu and it has the same entries and ksysguard shows only one cpu in use. Still hopeful though.

Thank you

[Old-Polack]

Hi
If I've done everything correctly the link to my dmesg output is "http://pastebin.com/THez4Tkq"- I haven't tried that before, but it's certainly a good way to keep from littering the forum with pages of log messages.

I was disappointed to see the lines:
"weird, boot CPU (#0) not listed by the BIOS.
SMP motherboard not detected."

This suggests to me that the Acer BIOS is broken and it isn't going to let me run Linux. I went back to Kubuntu and it has the same entries and ksysguard shows only one cpu in use. Still hopeful though.

Thank you

This suggests to me that you have not entered the proper parameters when configuring the BIOS on your machine.

[CaptainSarcastic]

Off the top of my head I would check the BIOS settings for power saving and hyperthreading to start with.

[FMfrank]

Hi
Sarcasm aside, I've found everyone's suggestions quite helpful. The BIOS was set to default and Win7 installed normally using 4 cpus.
 I have now flashed the BIOS to the latest version and with the help of google and Intel I'm working through every setting that could effect processor detection (how many of us really understand HPET,PEG,DVMP mode,Energy Lake etc.?). I don't see anything that would make a SMP processor vanish but Intel's Linux support is good and everything is supported by the 2,6.xx kernel. Since each change is going to require a reboot this is going to take some time but I'll keep plugging along.

Thank you

[kjpetrie]

You appear to have ACPI problems which prevent the SMP facility being detected on the motherboard. That could be a BIOS setting or it could be you have disabled ACPI to get round some other problem or maybe the kernel doesn't understand your motherboard. The kernel is now about a year old. There is a newer kernel in the pipeline (currently in testing) which might or might not help.

[FMfrank]

Hi
After more then a few hours playing with this thing I would tend to agree with kjpetrie. I've gotten the Full Monty to boot with 4 CPUs a few times but it takes 6-7 minutes to load and is very unstable- it quickly loses access to USB Ports and the sound card, then freezes. Dmesg shows pages of IRQ assignments all the way up to IRQ44- I didn't think that was possible! It seems that Acer sets ACPI/IRQ's? in the BIOS before the OS in a manner incompatible with the PCLinuxOS kernel. I guess I'll wait for that kernel update.

Thanks all

[T6]

you mention you used fullmony, what about other livecds?

minime or 2012.1 could help

http://www.pclinuxos.com/?page_id=180

a kernel update could take some time since 2.6.38.8 has worked so well for most of us so wait could be a problem here

maybe install a pae kernel after instal cold be useful?