Aspire 8930 Core 2 Duo only one core

Hello everyone. In January I bought an Aspire 8930 with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHZ, and today I finally downloaded software to check on the CPU. It turns out I only have one operating core. Even the task manager shows a single core. Has anyone else come across this problem or heard of it? Are there any solutions short of sending the laptop in for warranty repair? I'm a truck driver and drive all over the country so being without the laptop would be absolute hell. I bought it at Tiger Direct which is close to my home and I spent $300 on the 3 year damage warranty so if I dropped it I could get it replaced. I called Tiger Directs' warranty line and they said it's still under Acer warranty and that they could not do anything until the manufacturer warranty is no longer valid. I've checked everything and there isn't even a way to access the CPU settings from the BIOS as best I can tell. Any help would be really appreciated, a month on the road without my laptop would be brutal. Also, my Blu-Ray player stopped working after the first time I updated Acer Arcade Deluxe, so now I have no DVD-Rom. I heard that they discontinued that software, can I just uninstall the Arcade software and install something like Power DVD and get my BDROM back? Thanks again everyone. This is a really nice laptop with the 18.4" screen and 1920x1080 native resolution for true HD viewing and the biggest reason why I bought it. I wanted something I could watch HD with on the road with a good size screen.

Sorry forgot the information, I'm on Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit, 4 gigs of DDR3 Dual Channel, nVidia 9600GT mobile, and I forget the rest. Not sure what all would be germane to the CPU issue. RealTek High Def Audio, for what it's worth.