"CPU isn't supported"

bobkn said:

I don't know of such a list. Microsoft once maintained a Windows hardware compatibility list, but I'm unable to find it online at this time.

If you web search, you'll find multiple references to the Athlon 64 X2 lacking the CMPXCHG16b instruction, and that it's required to install the X64 version of Windows 10. Means nothing to me, but apparently it's a security feature required since Windows 8.1. (But not in Windows 8.0. Bit of a nasty surprise for a few people when they tried to upgrade from Win 8 X64 to 8.1.)

(I had an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ system. A fairly high-end desktop, built in late 2005. It was handed down twice. I think it died less than a year ago. It was probably still running XP at the time.)

I'm running a similar system, AMD X2 4200. It's is on borrowed time, having had some
capacitors replaced on the motherboard twice. (The first time the caps failed it was about a week
after the one year warranty expired. Strange how that works)

I installed Windows 10 on it, but had to install the 32-bit version because of the problem you mentioned.

Actually works quite well, on only 2GB of RAM

Yes, install 32-bit version. You won't see any performance difference with less than 4GB RAM to use 64-bit, let alone the compatibility problems you'll introduce! It is easier to find 32-bit drivers for old hardware than to find 64-bit drivers. If you have 4GB or less, don't think about it, install Windows 10 32-bit.

Matt26, she just gave up & is using her old system .... W7 !!!!

If you can borrow a disk, you can try. First run the utility to get GenuineTicket.xml as described in this post. Then clean install Windows 10 32-bit and if completed successfully, you can try installing drivers. If everything is good, you can keep a full backup or clone the original disk and proceed to install Windows 10 32-bit on her. Use the file to activate as described in the post. If I was in your place and had a spare disk, I would do it for curiosity. Besides, sooner or later she will have to upgrade or install Windows 10, because of newer applications and/or devices.

I tried both Coreinfo and AIDA64 (I used Extreme instead of Engineer) on my AMD4000+ system, Coreinfo reports CX16 * Supports CMPXCHG16B instruction, while AIDA64 reports that it is not supported.

A bit confusing to have two different programs with different results on the same test, but I'm guessing since one is reporting no support then that's probably the case?

Solved with a repair install !!

Thanks

So should I look further into my Coreinfo and AIDA64 results? I wonder if one reporting supported means that there's a BIOS setting or something else that needs to be changed? I'm hopeful...

NX/PAE support might be set from the BIOS, in CPU features section. But I don't recall any setting for enabling the relevant instruction to make your CPU compatible with 64-bit Windows 8 and 10. It either supports it or not, you cannot select it from BIOS. See Aida64 for command support.

flashh4 said:

Solved with a repair install !!

Thanks

you did an install of windows 7 64 bit and did a repair install to get windows 10 installed? not sure i follow..

i misquoted my Coreinfo results earlier, mine has the "-" and not the "*". Does one mean supported and the other mean not supported?

X64 versions of windows 10 have the exact hardware requirements that windows 8.1 x64 has,that is a x64 CPU that supports PrefetchW,Compare exchange 128,and LAHF/SAHF.For most systems capable of running windows 7 at a decent level ,PrefetchW and LAHF/SAHF is a non-issue since these instructions are implemented since the first Athlon 64 days.For AMD,no CPU running on socket 754 or 939 is capable of running x64 versions of windows 8.1 or 10 without some serious modding of the setup files.On the Intel side,things are a bit more complicated since some motherboards have old BIOS versions which do not expose the cpus complete instruction set,some report that q9xxx series CPUs have issues with these instructions despite the fact that all the Instructions are supported.I run w10 x64 on a q6600 without issues.The oldest x64 capable CPU that I installed windows 10 x64 was an old AMD turion x2 tk56.For everyone else reading,if you have any CPU since Nehalem(included) you are 100% capabile* of running windows 10 x64.All Atom CPUS that are x64 capable also support w10 x64.
*The Intel g3528 has issues with the windows 10 setup due to faulty microcode within the windows 10 setup.While the processor is fully capable of running w10,it appears that the install process fails with a SAFE_OS message regardless of the CPU state.A temporary workaround is to disable all overclocking and one core.