SMP on NT 4.0 with processor failure(s)

[andyc]

What happens when a PC running (Intel) SMP (Symetric Multi Processing) on an NT 4.0 platform has a failure or one of the processors leaving a single or multi processors to balance the processing load?

Presumably the data being processed by the failed processor will be lost, along with any data held in cache (or are there fail-safes to stop this?)

Do the remaining processors balance the processing efficently? Will NT crash or will processes such as ActiveX and other processor intensive functions fail?

In summary should SMP be viewed as a means of increasing resilience or just a method of increasing the available processing power?

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/confused.gif

[Ghost_Hacker]

Both.

Here's a tidbit from the MSDN:

"Multiprocessing operating systems can be either asymmetric or symmetric. The main difference is in how the processors operate. In asymmetric multiprocessing (ASMP), the operating system typically sets aside one or more processors for its exclusive use. The remainder of the processors run user applications. In symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), any processor can run any type of thread. The processors communicate with each other through shared memory. The Windows NT operating system is an SMP system.

SMP systems provide better load-balancing and fault tolerance. Because the operating system threads can run on any processor, the chance of hitting a CPU bottleneck is greatly reduced. A processor failure in the SMP model will only reduce the computing capacity of the system. In the ASMP model, if the processor that fails is an operating system processor, the whole computer can go down."

Hope this helps http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif



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