How do I disable Hyper-Threading on an HP desktop or get into the Advanced BIOS tab?

[saintfw]

I want to disable Hyper-Threading on my HP desktop (OMEN by HP Obelisk Desktop 875, motherboard HP 84FD, BIOS F.35) to test if it improves my FPS and 1% lows.

I know the setting exists on my PC, because I ran a PowerShell command that lists the BIOS settings, and it shows "Hyper-Threading" with the options Disable and Enable (currently Enable). It isn't marked as hidden either. But when I go into the BIOS (F10) with my password, there's no Advanced tab, so I can't find where to change it. I also tried changing it from Windows with PowerShell as Administrator, using the correct BIOS password, but it returns error 6 (access denied) and nothing changes.

Is there a way to unhide the Advanced tab, or another way to change Hyper-Threading on this model?

[NonSequitur777]

@saintfw,

Welcome to our HP Community forum!

The short answer is that there is no supported way to unhide the Advanced tab or change this setting via the BIOS or PowerShell on this specific desktop.

Whilst the master HP firmware framework includes the "Hyper-Threading" command line you discovered, retail consumer motherboards such as your HP 84FD have this option strictly locked out at the hardware level. When you attempt to force the setting via PowerShell or the HP BIOS Configuration Utility, the motherboard's internal permissions reject it, which is what triggers the Return Code 6 (Access Denied) error.

Fortunately, you do not need to use the BIOS to accomplish your goal. You can achieve the exact same performance-testing state by forcing Windows to only utilize your processor's physical cores.

Alternative Method: Disable Logical Processors via Windows:

You can configure Windows to ignore your hyper-threaded (logical) cores upon bootup, leaving only your native physical cores active:

1. Press the Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog box.
2. Type msconfig and press Enter.
3. In the System Configuration window, click on the Boot tab.
4. Click on the Advanced options... button.
5. Check the box next to Number of processors.
6. Drop the menu down and select the number that matches your CPU's exact physical core count (e.g., if you have an Intel Core i7-8700, choose 6 instead of the maximum 12 logical threads).
7. Click OK, then click Apply, and restart your computer.

Core Count Cheat Sheet for the OMEN 875 CPUs:

Depending on which processor your OMEN Obelisk came with, you would select the following specific number in the dropdown menu to successfully simulate turning Hyper-Threading off:

• Intel Core i7-8700 / i7-8700K (12 total threads) → Select 6
• Intel Core i9-9900 / i9-9900K (16 total threads) → Select 8

Note: If your system features a CPU that doesn't use Hyper-Threading at all -such as the Intel Core i5-8400 or the Core i7-9700K, the total number of threads already matches the physical core count, meaning, Hyper-Threading is already physically absent.

Once you reboot, open Windows Task Manager, switch to the Performance tab, and select CPU. You will see that your system is now operating strictly out of its physical cores with Hyper-Threading effectively disabled for your benchmarking tests.

Note: Once you finish testing your 1% frame lows, you can easily reverse this by reopening msconfig, unchecking the "Number of processors" box, and restarting.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777