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WinXPSP2, Intel Core2Duo, Kernel drivers
Posted by on3lonestar@gmail.com on September 7th, 2006


Hello,

I write experimental drivers, and have never worked on SMP systems yet.
I need to upgrade to an IBM T60 but I am worried about the dual-core
Intel processor engine. I have the following questions:

- It seems the dual-core provides 2 pipelines and 2 caches to 2 cores
on a single die. This sounds like a SMP system. Will my drivers have to
worry about SMP stuff?

- Can I configured Windows XP SP2/BIOS to completely disable/ignore one
of the cores when I write my drivers? Will there be a major performance
impact if I did this? I read that Windows installs a different HAL when
it sees an SMP... so it sounds like I cant do this at boot time each
time.. it has to be a one-time decision during installation?

Basically, I want to know if I can write non-SMP aware drivers in
someway on a IBM T60 that has a core2duo processor engine.

Thanks!


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