Dual Core CPU large file issues.

We have several new dell GX745 desktops here at work. Some of our employees need to open fairly large XML files with Internet Explorer. As soon as they open the XML file IE immidiately closes.

The solution we found was to disable the dual core mode in the bios. This to me is a temp solution at best. We spent extra money to have these dual core machines and having to disable this is well a waste of money and performance.

Do any of you have any suggestions I could try so that these machines can use the dual core mode and still work with these large 1.5 - 3 meg XML files?

They come stock with 512 megs of ram, I have upgraded all of them to 1.5gb of DDR2 and that had no effect on the problem. These are all WinXP Pro desktops

Thanks in advance.

Kazz

What version of Internet Exploder are you using? If it is 7, I suggest removing it and installing IE6 at least on a test PC to see if that fixes the problem.

It is version 6 with 128 bit ciphering. Our corporate IT team is pretty slow in upgrading things. We just recently moved to SP2 and I was the guinnea pig for that as I had to have SP2 for some development work I was doing at the time.

I also tried loading firefox on a test machine to see if that made a difference and it did not. It would not parse the XML adapter at all.

FYI I have also tried the WINXP Duo Core patch from Microsoft KB896256 to no avail.

"XML Page Cannot Be Displayed" Error Message When You Open An XML File Attachment in E-Mail
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303487

System Does Not Respond When You Open Large XML Files in Internet Explorer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/269488

Hope one of them helps out..

Long time no see!

You can also set the affinity of iexplore.exe to use just one CPU instead of disabling the second core in the BIOS. That way only one application is affected until you find a solution.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ua549

You can also set the affinity of iexplore.exe to use just one CPU instead of disabling the second core in the BIOS. That way only one application is affected until you find a solution.

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This sounds interesting, but alas I have never heard the term "set the affinity" before, can you be more specific?



Jim,

Neither of those articles apply really. Smaller XML files open no problem, and I do not get the cannot be displayed issue, IE opens and I can see the XML/invoice but it closes as fast as it opens. As if IE was crashing.

Launch IE. Bring up Task Manager->Process tab ->Right click on IE and select the Set Affinity option.

You can also create a shortcut to start IE with the affinity you want.
For the syntax open a CMD window and enter help start.

Thanks SRJ, I will give that a try after I get back from Dairy Queen...it is blizzard time :-)

I tested this and it works, however I need an automated process to handle this. We cannot rely on our non technical employees to do this every time they have to handle a large file. I found this article http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro....mspx?mfr=true

Which describes how to add a script to the system to set the affinity. I have admin access on the machines, but it is not full blown with local machine rights. I have passed this article off to our corporate IT staff and will see if they can put this in place for us. It definately seems like a better solution than their suggestion which was to disable dual core functionality in the bios. I mean if you are going to pay the extra money for dual core machines you should at least be able to use them.

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ua549

You can also create a shortcut to start IE with the affinity you want.
For the syntax open a CMD window and enter help start.

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I think this one might work too, but I did not see anything under help start that would point to affinity.

of course the person assigned my ticket in corporate IT is putting up resistance, I think it is more work than he wants to do. It is my responsibility to make sure this gets done, so if anyone can help me with the shortcut to IE with the affinity code in it that would be helpful

Did you go to a CMD window on a Dual Core machine when you type "help start" to see the syntax? (it's looks a bit complicated)

A bit off topic, but why on earth can't a dual CPU handle a large XML file?!