Heads up re VM's & Intel 64bit Processors

[Liam Proven]

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 7:05 PM, NoOp <glgxg at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> On 03/20/2010 11:41 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
>> On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 6:23 PM, NoOp <snipped> wrote:
> ...
>>> http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8978
>>> [Verifying that Intel VT-x is Enabled and Locked at Boot]
>>>  Attachments:
>>>    * vt.iso (538.0 K)
>>> (bottom of the article)
>>
>> Unfortunately, "going shopping" is not an option. I can't afford any
>> new kit. This machine was given to me, dead, by a friend; I merely
>> fixed it up by replacing hard disks & optical drives from my spares
>> pile, graphics card from a different friend, RAM from my old PC, and a
>> new heatsink & fan from eBay.
>>
>> I'm lumbered with it, as it were. I'm very grateful for it - it's
>> dramatically more powerful than my old machine - but I need to work
>> around its limitations as-is.
>>
>> If VT is something that can be enabled or disabled by the system BIOS,
>> it seems a little odd to me that it can't be re-enabled or patched
>> around somehow in software, but that seems to be just how it is.
>>
>
> It gets even more interesting:
> <http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1003945>
>
> Note that even AMD64 processors have issues.

You're right. Apparently, according to some serious digging on Google,
no Socket-939 CPUs support AMD-V; it was a new feature introduced with
Socket AM2. So, as one poster on a forum I found put it, I am SOL:
http://serverfault.com/questions/48599/which-939-socket-chips-support-amd-v

To which I can only say, feelingly: /bugger./

(This also means that I can't play with OS/2 inside VirtualBox. :¬( )

IOW, some AMD Athlon X2 chips do, some don't. There are slower,
cheaper chips than the 4800+ that /do/ support it, which happen to
have come out later.

Also, my CPU is the fastest my board can support, too. So there's no
upgrade path other than a new motherboard, which also means all-new
RAM.

Still, it's a fine fast machine, and even with software
virtualisation, it runs fast & stably. I am not complaining!

> But I reckon that we're now wandering into 'sounder' territory :-)

True!

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
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