Patches & hotfixes

Viable solution

The following solution worked for my AMD X2 system, and it should provide a good workaround for the TSC-drift bug. Since a lot of people reported this to work, it's a good base to start. Note that installing the TSC-drift patch from AMD would resolve the issue, I've included other things as well, in case the patch alone is not enough, or can't be installed for any reason.

Solution: Installing the dualcore optimizer from AMD

Try this solution before trying anything else.

You can download the patch here:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/Setup.exe
The patch installs drivers which monitor the TSC and sync them whenever necessary.

Alternate solution: installing AMD drivers and hotfix from Microsoft

If for some reason, the dualcore optimizer is not a viable solution for your system, you can try the following, which worked for my AMD X2.

• Install the AMD drivers: download and install the latest CPU drivers from the AMD site. You can find a direct link here:
  http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/amdcpusetup.exe
  This makes sure Windows correctly recognizes the CPU, and allows the installation of the hotfix and registry fix.
• Install the Microsoft hotfix: the Microsoft hotfix (for SP2) fixes issues with dual core. Along with the AMD drivers, it makes sure the frequency of both cores are kept the same. You can download the hotfix here:
  http://www.amdzone.com/files/WinXPdualcorehotfix.exe
  Note that this hotfix doesn't work for x64 systems.

If the above is not enough yet, you can also disable the cpu frequency scaling portion of the power management, by changing a setting in the registry. This effectively decreases the chance of having TSC-drift by disabling cpu frequency scaling, which keeps the frequency always at max. Of course, this is generally not a good idea for laptop systems, so this is why I keep this method for the last.

• Start regedit.
• Navigate to the key: KEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession Manager
• Create a new key with name Throttle.
• Create a new DWORD value with name PerfEnablePackageIdle and value 1.
• Restart Windows.

If you have other solutions, please post them here (in the comments section, or drop me an email). Alternately, if you're looking for more solutions, check the comments section... ;-)