dead cpu?

[dznutz]

is it common for one of 2 cores to die?

my dad said his laptop (my old sony vaio sz 320) died. it had a Intel Core Duo T2400. i reinstalled windows 7. decided to check on the number of cores as it was slower than usual. task manager says 1. went to msconfig.... said only 1 core available. bootup screen said only single core. can't go into bios as sony restricts this.

are there any other avenues i can explore to set this to its actual dual core?

 

[khajvah]

it is hard to believe. Really i dont think it is possible but really interesting. They are together so i dont think one will work alone ...let me know any information you get please

 

[johnb35]

It can happen. But as far as I know, Sony can't restrict you from entering the bios. So you can't get into the bios at all? Are you sure there just isn't a password assigned to it?

 

[voyagerfan99]

You should be able to get into the BIOS. I think it's either the F2 key or the Del key. I was just in a Vaio Handheld BIOS the other day.

 

[dznutz]

i'm sorry what i meant is i can't access everything in bios. i can get into bios but i don't see anything about cpu frequency/multipliers/etc. in the past i read that sony does this to prevent people from messing with the computer. to sum up what i meant to say is.... i can't get the cpu info from bios to see if the motherboard recognizes 2 cores.

another interesting thing is sometimes it'll perform a chkdsk when booting up. so far for the past 2 days it has happened 3 times. it happened once before a fresh install and today happened one after another.

other than that the laptop runs fine although sluggish due to using only 1 core. just wish i can get it to use 2 cores again...

 

[johnb35]

If its performing a checkdisk most likely your hard drive is failing and needs to be replaced. However, if you aren't shutting it down properly then checkdisk will automatically run the next time the machine is turned on. Any laptop will have limited bios options, you basically need a custom built desktop in order to have a wide variety of options to choose from including overclocking.

 

[voyagerfan99]

i'm sorry what i meant is i can't access everything in bios. i can get into bios but i don't see anything about cpu frequency/multipliers/etc. in the past i read that sony does this to prevent people from messing with the computer. to sum up what i meant to say is.... i can't get the cpu info from bios to see if the motherboard recognizes 2 cores.

All OEM's do this - not just Sony.

 

[dznutz]

ok ill run some drive scanners to determine the health of the drive.

any advice to deal with the cpu matter?