CPU Support /Deferred Procedure Calls and s939 vs. sAM2

Dear Support.

As I am in the process of preparing for equipping my next machine, ( yes -
it is just one humble piece!) I would appreciate some technical background
on a problem that a considerable number of people seem to currently be
having with the X2 CPU's from AMD. This problem revolves around, what is
described as "one core being hogged at 100% execution, while the other is
idle". (The problem being that the system [ IS ] idle, and nobody being able
to figure what is being executed).

This has a kind of proportion that some has gone to the lenghts of writing
programs to investigate the causes, and has come up with something to
measure, which has been termed 'Deferred Procedure Calls'.
I have had my head and fingers inside computers for more than fifteen years,
I do not call myself an expert but nowhere have I ever encountered the
concept of DPC's.

The person I was last in contact with, who were having this problem, just
wrote back and told me his problem had been solved - that he never turned
off his machine by the 'Stand By' method, but had once clicked the button by
mistake, and the system had crashed. After a month of investigations someone
else had mentioned 'Stand By' - and he then tried turning off the machine,
using stand-by and then when he turned it back on, the problem was gone.

I am reluctant to rush out and buy an AM2 socketed board until I can have a
healthy portion of DDR2-800 memory at a reasonable price. But I am also
reluctant to short-change myself by going for a 939 socket while the market
stabilizes, if this particular problem has been targeted and resolved with
the AM2 socket.

In the case where this problem is socket independent, I would feel much
consoled if the company was to admit and recognise the existence of such a
problem, and express a will to attend to any difficulties that I may
encounter. I am not asking for any legal commitments (that would imply that
all the concerned CPU's were to be affected), this is apparently not the
case, this is clearly something that pops up in freak combinations of CPU -
Board and BIOS and perhaps the conglomerate of Installed Drivers(?) - I just
want to make sure that I will not be turned away if I should happen to
return with this problem, I cannot afford to spend a month or more digging
for information that to some extent seems to revolve around concepts of
semi-techno-religious dogma.

If you should happen to know of, or be in a position to make references to
publicly available articles/white papers that sheds light on this particular
behaviour, I would further be much indepted.

Your's truely,

Tony Sperling.

 

Sorry, take no notice - this was to go to AMD Support!

And it will, to.


Tony. . .