293490 - Browser shows "Not Responding" in Windows XP Task Manager until Hyperthreading is turned off in Bios or Affinity is set for CPU 0 Only.

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect)

Description

[Michael Fry]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414 Firefox/1.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414 Firefox/1.0.3

I recently upgraded from an Intel Celeron CPU to a 3.0GHZ P4 with hyper Thread
Technology. I noticed that Firefox would load my home page and then it would
hang up intermittantly with "Not Responding" in the Windows XP task Mangager
screen if I attempted to to click on any active link, sometimes it would create
mutiple instances of Firefox in the Task Manager. If I waiting several seconds
it may start working again for a breif instance, then go back to "Not
Responding". I have a simular problem with Spybot Search & Destroy and when I
researched it on the Web I found a Blog that stated its was due to the program
not working with the Hyper Thread Technology, which acts like dual CPU's. Since
HTT only works with Windows XP the problem could be Intel's, Microsoft's the
Motherboard Bios and of course the software applcation itself. Since it only
happens on a few Apllications I'm leaning toward the Software not supporting HTT
not the other way around. A way around the trouble without disabling the HTT
function in the Bios is to use the "Set Affinity" option in Windows Task Manager
for the individual process(application)and uncheck CPU 1 so CPU 0 is the only
one running the application and the problem goes away. This however is a pain as
it must be done every time you load the program. Before reporting a Firefox bug
I loaded Mozilla 1.7.7 and was able to recreate the problem, so I am reporting a
Mozilla bug instead.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Load Mozilla 1.7.7 on a system that has Windows XP Serv pack2 OS, an Intel P4
CPU with HTT enabled ( FYI my Mother bd. is an ASUS P4P800 SE with 8265G/PE/P
chipset with ver. 1005.003 Bios)
2.Open the browser and click on an active link and continue surfing until the
program hangs, usually takes less an minute.
3.Check the Task Manager sceen in Windows XP to see if the program is running.

Actual Results:  
Firefox and Mozzilla would stop responding and sometimes made a duplicate
listing in the program list.

Expected Results:  
Stayed running.

I'm sure that this is related to the software not working with the Hyper Thread
Technology because there are 2 ways around the trouble. 1 is to disable the HTT
function in the Bios and the other  is to use the "Set Affinity" option in
Windows Task Manager for the individual process(application)and uncheck CPU 1 so
CPU 0 is the only one running the application and the problem goes away. This
however is a pain as it must be done every time you load the program. Please
help, I would hate to have to be stuck with Windows IE as my only browser.

Comment 1

[Tim Clutton]

(In reply to comment #0)

> 1.Load Mozilla 1.7.7 on a system that has Windows XP Serv pack2 OS, an Intel P4
> CPU with HTT enabled ( FYI my Mother bd. is an ASUS P4P800 SE with 8265G/PE/P
> chipset with ver. 1005.003 Bios)

Had the same issue with the same motherboard on 1004 BIOS.  Upgraded to 1008
BIOS, and the problem was resolved.  suspect an issue with Intel's HT BIOS code.

Find the BIOS upgrade on the ASUS suport site here ->
http://support.asus.com/support/support.aspx

Comment 2

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
reproduction information if you have it.

If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
changed in any way in the next two weeks, it will be automatically resolved.
Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
Firefox:     http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/releases/1.5beta1.html
Seamonkey:   http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/

Comment 3

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

per Bug 282392