Ugrade Questions

[Chucky Cheese]

...with my current configuration i have a removable boot drive with vista ultimate...i also have a identical hdd with xp pro that i boot to run my video creation environment for political purposes...anyways...i want to upgrade to the QX9650 which my MOBO supports

ssooo...what do you guys/gals think my chances are of not having to reload either os's

C

[Dr Mordrid]

I always unload/remove the hardware specific IDE HDD drivers & revert them to Microsofts generics and all hardware drivers (embedded and otherwise) before the old boards last shutdown. That saves a lot of headaches.

[Chucky Cheese]

thanks doc

i'm using sata all around but i did want to unplug my 1.5TB raid 0(..where all my content is stored) during the boot and "discovery" phase of loading windows. as best as i can tell the intelppm.sys version is the same? mabe someone with a vista ultimate machine with a quad core can have a peek at theirs? mine is 6.0.6000.16386

i do recognize that going from a 32bit to a 64bit processor has its perils so i will back up to my raid drive before the "conversion" and to my NAS as an extra precaution. i just hope that i do not have to reload xp with Avid Liquid Pro and set it up again.

C

[Marshmallowman]

from core 2 duo (x6800 ) to QX9650 should be problem free I would think.

both are 64bit processors

that is if you are keeping the same setup,mobo..etc and it is compatable

[Chucky Cheese]

...i hope your right!

C

[Gurm]

Find out if they use the same HAL. If they do you're good to go with no problems at all.

If not, I'd make an Acronis image of the boot partition, and restore it back onto itself with Universal Restore in order to fix up the HAL.

[Chucky Cheese]

well i have version 6.0.6001.1800 with vista ultimate 32bit

i have a feeling that i am not going to get away with it due to the differences in the internal core architecture and caching algorithims...i'll be getting the processor in a week or so...i am planning on getting another tray and hdd for 64bit vista when i find out if i can recover without reloading

C

[Chucky Cheese]

this is from a document i found on microsofts site, it is about power management for intel processors(..intelppm.sys)...in the table that follwed the quad core is not listed but the core 2 is

Processor Drivers

Processor drivers in Windows Vista are used to abstract the specific differences of processor designs from various processor vendors from the operating system. For example, processor drivers may contain processor-specific routines to determine the presence of PPM capabilities and may use a model-specific register (MSR) to invoke PPM state transitions directly on a processor.
Processor drivers in Windows Vista are responsible for:
• Enumerating the PPM capabilities of the platform.
• Validating that PPM capabilities are described correctly and present in platform hardware.
• Passing the supported capabilities to the kernel power manager.
• Invoking processor power state transitions on the appropriate hardware as directed by the kernel power manager.

Loading the Correct Processor Driver
Processor objects are described in the ACPI namespace and enumerated by the Windows ACPI interpreter. Windows uses CPUID to generate the correct hardware device ID during processor driver enumeration, which enables the system to load the correct processor driver. If a specific match is not found, the generic Processr.sys processor driver is used. The specific CPUID matches that Windows Vista supports can be seen by examining the Cpu.inf file, found in the %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Windows\Inf directory of a Windows Vista installation.

C

[Gurm]

No no.

The processor will be detected automatically. You can pop out an Athlon XP, pop in an Athlon MP, and away you go. Windows re-detects the processor as a plug-n-play device (not exactly, but close enough).

The issue is that you're changing the number of cores. The HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) differs from one core to two, and may very well differ from two cores to four or whatever. You MIGHT get away with it, you MIGHT not.

But what WON'T happen is that you'll break it permanently.

1. Make a backup.
2. Pop in the new chip. Don't throw away the old one yet!
3. Boot up. Does everything look good? Yes? Great, ditch the backup and sell the old chip.
4. Wait, everything DIDN'T look good? Fine. Restore the backup with Universal Restore over the top of the botched system.

See? Not so hard.

[Chucky Cheese]

Ok

[Evildead666]

I've gone from single core to dual core without any modification of Windows and it just worked.

An athlon64 to an athlon x2.
AFAIK there is a single core HAL, and a multi core HAL.
If you are already on Dual core HAL, you should be fine for quad core.

[Admiral]

E6600 to Q6600 with no problems in XP.