Why won't Windows use the other CPU cores?

Posted by revloc02 on Super User See other posts from Super User or by revloc02
Published on 2012-11-03T15:23:21Z Indexed on 2012/11/03 17:07 UTC
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Windows

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Performance

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cpu-usage

In Windows Task Manager the Performance tab shows the first CPU maxed out, the other 7 just idling along with the occasional spike. What gives?

More info: I've got 8GB and only 4.5GB are being used. The Processes tab has no indication of any process hogging processing power. In fact System Idle Process is 98-99.

When I program stuff and have like 8 to 12 applications going (several directly unrelated to programming of course) my computer slows to a crawl.

Sysyem Info: Intel Core i7-2600K Processor (quad-core with hyper-threading), 8GB RAM, Intel BOXDZ68BC LGA 1155 Motherboard, 500GB HDD

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