How to Enable All CPU Cores in Windows 11

Sadique Hassan•Updated Feb 4, 2022

In this guide, we will you the steps to enable all the CPU cores on your Windows 11 PC. Nowadays, most CPUs support multi-cores, and the same is respected by the OS as well. In this regard, it is the sole responsibility of the OS to determine the number of cores it needs to enable at a particular point in time. It does so by looking at the task that you are currently performing, if it is a resource-intensive one, then it will automatically enable a higher number of cores and vice versa.

However, in some instances, the actual requirement of the cores might not be in sync with what the OS thinks is the right number. As a result of which, the task that you currently executing might be slow and laggy. Fortunately, we do have the option to manually enable the required number of cores when a particular task is in progress. When you do so, the workload will now be divided among more cores, and this should translate to a better and improved CPU performance. So with that in mind, this guide will show you how to enable all the CPU cores on your Windows 11 PC. Follow along.

Table of Contents

How to Enable All CPU Cores in Windows 11

The first three steps are the prerequisites, so make sure to checkmark them off the list. After that, you may start off with the instructions to enable all the corers, which are given in STEP 4.

STEP 1: Boot Windows 11 to BIOS

To begin with, power off your PC. Then turn it back on.
As soon as it is booting up, continuously press the Esc key.
This shall bring up the Start menu.
Now just press the key that corresponds to BIOS (which is usually F10) and your PC shall boot to the BIOS screen.

STEP 2: Enable Multi-Core Support in BIOS

Next up, you will have to instruct your BIOS to use all the logical cores present in the CPU. So from the BIOS screen, go to the Multi-Core Support option and select All.

STEP 3: Enable HyperThreading

Intel’s Hyper-Threading Technology allows more than one thread to run on each core. More threads would translate to the ability to do more work in parallel. This means that one physical core now works like two “logical cores” that can handle different software threads. So from the BIOS menu, look for the HyperThreading settings and then choose Enable.

STEP 4: Enable All CPU Cores

Now that we are done with the prerequisites, it’s time to enable all the cores on your Windows 11 PC. So refer to the below instruction steps:

Bring up the Run dialog box via Windows +R shortcut keys.
Then type in the below command and hit Enter to open System Configuration:
```
msconfig
```
Now go to the Boot section and click on Advanced Options.
After that, checkmark the Number of Processors box and select the maximum one from the list.
Finally, click OK to save the changes. You will be instructed to reboot your PC, so click on the Restart button.
Once your Windows 11 PC boots up, all the cores stand enabled.

How to Check Number of Enabled Cores in Windows 11

You could easily check the total number of cores that are currently enabled as well as the utilization graph of each of these cores from the Task Manager. Here’s how

Bring up the Task Manager using Ctrl+Shift+esc shortcut keys.
Then go to the Performance tab and select CPU from the left-hand side.
You could now see the total number of cores including the logical ones that are enabled.
To check the utilization of individual cores, right-click on the activity graph and select Change Graph to > Logical Processor.

That’s it. These were the steps to enable all the CPU cores on your Windows 11 PC. Likewise, we have also listed out the steps to check the total number of logical cores enabled at a particular point in time as well as their utilization stats. If you have any queries concerning the aforementioned steps, do let us know in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution at the earliest.

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