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My computer seems to have only one of the two processor cores operating. 

inxi CPU~Single core Intel Core2 Duo T6400 (-UP-) speed~2000 MHz (max) Kernel~4.4.0-53-generic x86_64 Up~2:40 Mem~1180.8/3951.5MB HDD~80.0GB(34.1% used) Procs~160 Client~Shell inxi~2.2.35
lscpu Arquitectura: x86_64 modo(s) de operación de las CPUs:32-bit, 64-bit Orden de bytes: Little Endian CPU(s): 1 On-line CPU(s) list: 0 Hilo(s) de procesamiento por núcleo:1 Núcleo(s) por «socket»:1 Socket(s): 1 Modo(s) NUMA: 1 ID de fabricante: GenuineIntel Familia de CPU: 6 Modelo: 23 Model name: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T6400 @ 2.00GHz Revisión: 10 CPU MHz: 2000.000 CPU max MHz: 2000,0000 CPU min MHz: 1200,0000 BogoMIPS: 4000.41 Caché L1d: 32K Caché L1i: 32K Caché L2: 2048K NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0 Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 xsave lahf_lm dtherm

My computer is an ASUS F50SL laptop, which came with Windows Vista factory installed. And the BIOS lacks options to enable / disable advanced ACPI options, such as Acpi apic or Acpi 2.0... Options, that you can find in desktop BIOS versions; for example. This is the information 

inxi -F System: Host: x-PC1 Kernel: 4.4.0-53-generic x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: MATE 1.16.1 Distro: Linux Mint 18.1 Serena Machine: System: ASUSTeK product: F50SL v: 1.0 Mobo: PEGATRON model: F50SL v: 1.0 Bios: American Megatrends v: 209 date: 11/12/2009 CPU: Single core Intel Core2 Duo T6400 (-UP-) cache: 2048 KB speed: 2000 MHz (max) Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RV710/M92 [Mobility Radeon HD 4530/4570/545v] Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: fbdev,ati (unloaded: vesa,radeon) Resolution: [email protected] GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.8, 128 bits) GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 11.2.0 Audio: Card-1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RV710/730 HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 4000 series] driver: snd_hda_intel Card-2 Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Azalia Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.4.0-53-generic Network: Card-1: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 191 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter driver: sis190 IF: enp0s4 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: e0:cb:4e:69:13:c4 Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) driver: ath9k IF: wlp2s0 state: down mac: 00:22:43:6f:d3:08 Drives: HDD Total Size: 80.0GB (34.1% used) ID-1: /dev/sda model: INTEL_SSDSA2M080 size: 80.0GB Partition: ID-1: / size: 32G used: 8.7G (30%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 ID-2: swap-1 size: 8.59GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5 RAID: No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 69.0C mobo: N/A Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A Info: Processes: 160 Uptime: 2:54 Memory: 1256.8/3951.5MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.2.35

So; to be able to boot the computer correctly I am forced to make certain modifications to the grub file in the path: etc/default/grub I made the following necessary changes: 

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset nolapic acpi_osi=\"Windows 2006\""

And after this I updated the grub with sudo update-grub

Since apic is linked to the processor management and to be able to boot I have to disable it by manually entering changes to the GRUB file. I think those changes I have set, have to do with the deactivation of one of the CPU cores.

What can I do to make both cores of my processor work instead of just one?

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  • 1
    It is like your kernel isn't compiled with SMP support - you should see SMP in the output of uname -a or in your inxi output. What kernel packages are installed? dpkg -l | grep linux-image Commented Oct 1, 2017 at 2:07
  • Sorry, but I lost access to this account and I was no able to answer... Finally after migrate to Fedora, and then to MXlinux, i found what I think could be considered as a SOLUTION, although I don't know how It works... I'll try to explain what I found. Thank you for your help. :) Commented Jun 30, 2023 at 12:40

2 Answers 2

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If I remember correctly, it was in a Linux Mint forum in English where I found the clue to solve this problem that limited the number of cores of the DUAL CORE processor to one. My computer's bios is an America Megatrends, INC, Vc 2.61 1985-2006 It is an archaic bios with few options.

At the top menu of this BIOS, we find, among other options, "Advanced" and within "Advanced" there are several sub-options:

We will choose the option: "IO interface security".

Within this option, there are a number of locked or unlocked hardware systems.

Audio modem interface Unlocked LAN network interface Unlocked USB Interface Unlocked New Card Interface: LOCKED

If the "New Card Interface" option is unlocked (which I have no idea what it is for ha ha) then, "nolapic" boot parameter or boot option is needed to perform a full "normal" log-in in the operative system session.

And when you use "nolapic" you just get to work with a single core.

In conclusion:

Set "New Card Interface" to LOCKED in the BIOS, and don't use nolapic as a boot option anymore.

(I still needing irqpoll, but I have TWO cores working now.)

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  • And I guess you don't see "Núcleo(s) por «socket»:1" any more? BTW: Next time try something like LANG= lscpu to make the output be English. AFAIK APIC is needed to do multiprocessing. Commented Nov 14 at 10:35
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The answer is yes, I never saw 1 core per Socket again.

Here's a part of the current (November,2025) lscpu output.

$ lscpu Architecture: x86_64 CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit Address sizes: 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual Byte Order: Little Endian CPU(s): 2 On-line CPU(s) list: 0,1 Vendor ID: GenuineIntel Model name: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T6400 @ 2.00GHz CPU family: 6 Model: 23 Thread(s) per core: 1 Core(s) per socket: 2 Socket(s): 1 Stepping: 10 CPU(s) scaling MHz: 100% CPU max MHz: 2000,0000 CPU min MHz: 1200,0000

Apologies, I forgot to include that part of translating the terminal output. The "problem" seems to have been resolved. I hope this is helpful to others.

Thanks for your interest. :)

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  • As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please edit to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. Commented Nov 17 at 23:39

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