Not CPUs.

Are you sure you have a 16 core CPU? That's an amazingly high-end machine. HP do produce some of these 16 core workstations; out of interest I'd love to see the specs of your machine.

Here's how you find out:

1. Right click on the taskbar and select Task Manager
2. Go to the 'Performance' tab
3. Underneath the CPU graph, there is text that reads Utilization, Speed
4. In the second column the first entry is 'Base Speed' the second entry is 'Cores'

That will tell you if you have a 16 core processor. (eg. I have 6 cores)

If you don't have a 16 core processor, they are talking shit.

I'll probably call the shop on Monday. Something probably got lost in translation! It's a Quad Core i7-7700 with 8 threads.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/97185/intel-core-i7-7700hq-processor-6m-cache-up-to-3-80-ghz.html

But if you are using Win 10, all the CPU cores will be enabled by default - the operating system is configured to use ALL cores as long as the program has the ability to utilize them.

Your pc has 8 ‘cpus’ (2 threads per core) not 16.

As others have noted, you can view the individual cpus in the task manager.

HP is not turning cores off. That would not go unnoticed and lawyers would be salivating over the class action suit.

With windows built in resource monitor app. Or there is downloadable app/utility called process explorer that’s pretty good.

Need for cooling via the fan, and vice versa ?

The BIOS detected it.

had a design fault where the opening at the side wasn't wide enough to let the hot air escape. It also caused a build-up of dust on the fan, which over time caused the temperature of laptop to go through the roof, triggering a machine shutdown. Every month or so I had to take the fan out and clean it.

I had a heat sink rivet that was loose and caused the same problem because the heat sink was not flat against the processor. I removed the heat sink, removed the dried thermal paste, applied new thermal paste, reinstalled the heat sink.

You can install CPU-Z (freeware) to see how many cores are active.