With the purchase of my last computer I got a decent processor, P4 2.4GHZ. Without HyperThreading. Today I installed 3DMark03 to see the test that everyone is talking about :). Well then I look at the system specs the program gathered. What got me thinking is the HyperThreading section. It is marked as Available but Disabled. Could it be one of those "blockades" to make to make the processor cheaper or did 3DMark03 simply got the wrong info. If HyperThreading was indeed available on my proc that would be interesting :).

The first versions of P4s 2Ghz and up were built on the same chip as the Xeons. In theory hyperthreading should work on these models if you have the correct motherboard bios, one that allows you to enable them. I was involved in a 100 page thread at HardOCP when someone happened to se the same thing you did. It seems that Intel disabled HT somewhere on the chip. If this processor was just bought in the lasy 3 months then it is probably a P4E. If it is one then HT is enabled in them and the only thing you need is a motherboard that supports it.

Is the processor an 800Mhz version or is 533Mhz?

If it's an 800 it's HT enabled.

I think it was bought in the last 4 months (somewhere around that), but the computer was probably sitting longer in the store. But unfortunately its the 533MHZ version, too bad.