- 1). Open your Windows Task Manager by right-clicking your taskbar and clicking "Start Task Manager." Alternatively, you can open the Windows Task Manager by press the "Ctrl", "Alt" and "Del" keys simultaneously on your keyboard.
- 2). Click the "Performance" tab. The first thing you should notice on a properly functioning dual-core system is two "CPU Usage History" graphs. If you do not see two graphs, click "View," then "CPU History" and click "One Graph Per CPU."
- 3). Launch a processor-intensive application, such as playing a video, music or opening a photo editor. As the media plays or program is loading, look at the "CPU Usage History" graphs. Both graphs should show some activity. If the program you opened supports multiple processors, the activity will be fairly identical on each side. If the program does not support multiple cores, the left side will have more usage showing, while the right side will have less. However, both should be displaying some activity.
- 4). Click the "Processes" tab. This displays a list of all the currently running applications in Windows. Click the "CPU" column to sort the applications by processor intensity. Right-click the application name at the top under the "Image Name" column, click "Set Affinity" and uncheck "CPU 0." Press "OK" to confirm the change.
- 5). Click back onto the "Performance" tab and look at the "CPU Usage History" on the right side. It should now have significantly more usage than the processor on the left side. If this is the case, your dual-core processor is functioning as designed.
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