This post is a quick warning to my fellow programmers. I have 2 machine’s that I primarily use for development: An Avaratec C3500 TabletPC (which has an Athlon 2200+ XP-M CPU), and a custom built (by me) desktop (which has an Athlon 64x2 processor). I’m not a dedicated AMD fan… in fact, I buy whatever is cheapest because I know I’ll be swapping it out in a year or so.
There are some new features of the Athlon64x2 that gets enabled with Windows XP Sp2 (I’m running 32–bit Windows XP) that seem to make it unique from all other processors. How did it first show itself? Well I had to re-build the C drive for the new machine (the Athlon64x2); I didn’t do this on purpose… it just worked out that way. In the process I had to activate CodeSmith… From what I can tell CodeSmith uses a Web Service for Activation. Anyway, after working with Eric Smith (and having him eventually buying an Athlon64x2 machine), everything worked fine for him until he installed Windows XP Sp2, and immediately he had the problem. I’ve forgotten the exact issue but it had to do with the way hashes were created. Essentially he had a section of code execute (in the XHEO component) that never ran on any of the prior runs and not on any other processor…
Currently I’m working with SourceGear to try to sniff out a problem with the Vault. Basically if I make too many changes to a file the Vault server will not get the complete request from my machine.
BTW, both my TabletPC and my Desktop have identical software in terms of virus/spyware software. None of these issues crop up on my TabletPC.
Until recently I thought it was an isolated issue, but I just recently was working with another application that when I activated I got the same result… failure on the Athlon64x2 and not on the TabeltPC. It really sucks for pieces of software that I really want to run on my desktop. I’ve started to suspect some new virus feature that is killing large amounts of data being transferred, but I really don’t know.
Be aware that this processor may be radically different… or maybe not… don’t assume the customer is an idiot (no one has treated me that way), but be aware that I was told by Eric that he had other Athlon64x2 users with problems.
BTW, I wouldn’t necessarily steer clear of the A64x2,,, it rocks as a processor! Just be prepared for a couple minor headaches (none of the software that has failed has been show stoppers for me…