Windows XP Pro CPU Utilization

I work at a small startup. Our IT contractor just upgraded our machines from WinXP home to Pro-service pack 2. Now my cad application only uses 50% cpu utilization even when it is the foreground application and no others are running. Under XP home the application could use 100%.

The net result is that the simulations that I run take twice as long.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Steven

 

Try opening up the task manager (CTRL + SHIFT + ESC) and selecting the processes tab. Right click the process and select Set priority, then real time.

 

First check the priority before doing anything. Even then I would first use high before using realtime.

 

is this an HT type processor?

i'd also chek the app's preferences and faq etc. maybe a setting in there for affinity on multiprocessor cpu.

 

Thanks for the replies.

I tried setting the priorities. That didn't help.
This problem is actually on two different machines setup by the same contractor.
Both machines have AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core, 1 gig ram.

I tried adding ram, that didn't help.
The problem occurs on other cad programs as well.

I have another box with winxp home, and it runs much faster.

Thanks everyone for the help.

Steven

 

Well Steven, you can download & install this patch from AMD to see if the things improve http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/amdcpu.exe. If they don't, I would reinstall XP but with SP2 slipstreamed.

 

Also try this one: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=896256