When using a K6-2+ or K6-3+ the mainboard´s onboard L2 cache gets degraded and turns into L3 cache. The CPU on-die L1 and L2 caches cover the whole range of RAM the HX chipset supports (512MB).
From then L3 cache won´t be a performance booster but afaik it won´t hurt performance either.

majestyk wrote on 2022-07-01, 06:58:

The 430HX MCH only knows the two operational modes "(reduced) cacheable area 64MB" and "enhanced cacheable area 512MB". If ctc […]
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The 430HX MCH only knows the two operational modes "(reduced) cacheable area 64MB" and "enhanced cacheable area 512MB".
If ctcm7 confirms a 96MB cacheable area I think we´re safe to say the MCH is in enhanced mode. It probably wouldn´t enter this mode if not all 3 additional Tag-IO lines were active.
Assumed BIOS sets the correct registers...
Was the 64/512 switch a hidden option you just enabled in Modbin or did you have to create it?

I was thinking that if the extra lines didnt have something there that the machine wouldn't post but that just tells us that there's something there. But I'd still like to test it.

The 64/512 switch i think was missing in the bios that was in the board when i got it. The latest bíos had the option set to "show only" and i just changed that to "normal" in modbin. I have yet to load the original bíos into modbin, I'm guessing the option was just hidden in that.

-lime

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-07-01, 07:12:

Oh cool, I didn’t know there was a mod to make the cd roms work on the adapters. […]
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Oh cool, I didn’t know there was a mod to make the cd roms work on the adapters.

I’m really hoping that the cache mod works!!! Fingers crossed!!

I highly suspect that a k6-3+ will find its way into this board haha. Mad science a little, may as wepl mad science it all the way.

Good job modding the bios.

The CD-ROM just goes through a simple sata to ide adapter. I modded the adapter because for some reason it didn't have a master/slave jumper on it from factory and i needed it set to slave.

Hmm don't the k6-2+ and k6-3+ need a 100 MHz FSB though?

CalamityLime wrote on 2022-07-01, 12:36:

Hmm don't the k6-2+ and k6-3+ need a 100 MHz FSB though?

They can run whatever (reasonable) FSB you want: 50, 55, 60, 66, 68, 75, 83, 100 and if you´re lucky and the other components allow it, 105, 110, 112, 120

^yep

majestyk wrote on 2022-07-01, 07:50:

When using a K6-2+ or K6-3+ the mainboard´s onboard L2 cache gets degraded and turns into L3 cache. The CPU on-die L1 and L2 caches cover the whole range of RAM the HX chipset supports (512MB).
From then L3 cache won´t be a performance booster but afaik it won´t hurt performance either.

In my experience, it varies by mobo. But in general, most 100mhz ss7 boards will like it enabled. And some 66 mhz but not all will like it. You just have to benchmark to find out.

CalamityLime wrote on 2022-07-01, 12:36:

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-07-01, 07:12:

Oh cool, I didn’t know there was a mod to make the cd roms work on the adapters. […]
Show full quote

Oh cool, I didn’t know there was a mod to make the cd roms work on the adapters.

I’m really hoping that the cache mod works!!! Fingers crossed!!

I highly suspect that a k6-3+ will find its way into this board haha. Mad science a little, may as wepl mad science it all the way.

Good job modding the bios.

The CD-ROM just goes through a simple sata to ide adapter. I modded the adapter because for some reason it didn't have a master/slave jumper on it from factory and i needed it set to slave.

Hmm don't the k6-2+ and k6-3+ need a 100 MHz FSB though?

Check out my adventures with my tyan s1564 single to dual in sig.

66mhz gives 400mhz k6-3+ 75 gives 450, 83 gives 500.

I did make a post on dosreloaded asking if people had the ram modules on there.
Might as well, I want to engage more with that forum.

Finally got win 98se installed.
That was not a fun trip but i did learn that there's a massive speed difference between the onboard ide controller of the socket 7 and the Isa card of my socket 3. Like a huge difference.

What else should i really do with this board?

Some ideas

Sata card, sata m.2 adapter

Order a 570 2+ and mod it

Jan mod the bios

512mb of simms

Overclock the fsb to 83mhz

Finish the voltage mod

Order a tweaker for ss7 multis, tillamook mods.

Audigy 2 zs

3.3v pci mod

A M2 SSD in a Socket 7 HX system - that tops it all off!

Besides that a K6-2+ and the voltage mod combined with a decent graphics card should do away with the most important bottlenecks.

Well while installing windows 98 se it was proving to be a little unstable.

The hd-dvd drive was being awkward. It was acting like the system could talk to it only once. So the bios would boot to the disc and then the system would complain about the drive not being ready.
I tried the Isa multiio card i have and it got further, like the errors made more sense, it went from the drive sometimes disappearing to the drive saying that it can't read the media.
I swapped back to my old íde cd drive and it didn't do anything, the bios boot screen sometimes picked it up and sometimes i printed a blank space. But the drive never done made a sound.
I swapped back to hd-dvd and same problem as before, tried new ide cables and same problems, then while using the old wire on the cd drive, that drive suddenly worked.

Using the windows 98 se boot disks, the first progress bar would fill up to 100% and crash.
I saw bootdisks that includes the boot partition of the oem iso.

Windows me boot disks made the win98 installer very said, so windows 95 boot disks did the trick, they got me past the 100% mark but this time the floppy drives did something.

It got to the part of making a start up disk and it froze again.
So for fun, i tried disconnecting the floppy drives, booting to cd and it worked.

So i don't know. Maybe the gotek is being strange? I have a feeling that the installer tried to prod the floppy drives for some reason and the controller got confused. So that'll be something to test when i can muster up the energy to care.

On the good side of things, my USB-2-232-KBD worked perfectly as a USB mouse to serial mouse converter. I was putting off plugging it in because if i wired the serial port wrong a second time i would have been livid.

-Lime

Also, thinking about an SMD version of the tag ram mod, I'm guessing that these would work

10ns
https://www.mouser.ie/ProductDetail/Cypress-S … sSP6nWZUg%3D%3D

12ns
https://www.mouser.ie/ProductDetail/ISSI/IS61 … KGm06bmYg%3D%3D

I never worked with that package shape before so I don't know how easy they are to work with.

I suppose you could use a smd pin header and make the whole thing smaller.

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-07-03, 04:15:

I suppose you could use a smd pin header and make the whole thing smaller.

and cheaper.

Have a look for a 12ns compatible sram chip. Mouser has new dip ones for 4 bucks, they also have SMD ones for 1.50 and 10ns smd ones for still cheaper than the dip one.
10ns could be handy for people looking to overclock the fsb.

Then again, still don't know for sure if the mod even works. I'm assuming it does since the board is posting but eh. This project is costing more than I thought it would. It would be nice to youtube video it all but christ that's another ball of effort.

Ordered the muRata modules from mouser because they actually do DDP instead of DAP, I don't want to be charged customs at the door.

Ordered 4 damn modules because over 50€ net is free shipping and shipping over wise costs 20€.
Cost of having one 1 module in the basket worked out to 45.56€, so that works out to 20€ for 3 more modules. That was worth it I guess.

I should try a youtube video on the vrm alone. I'll have to write a script I guess and it's been a long time since I did something like that. Fight with all the terrible video editors out there. It also doesn't help that I don't really have much of a surface to record above of. I'll probably just clear my second monitor off my tiny desk for some space or my primary monitor even.

oh lordie, it's gonna be meh but whatev's

I think I figured out why the win98 installer kept crashing.

I noticed the mechanical floppy drive made some stepping and motor noises and I know that the motor signal is unconnected on the gotek so I followed the guide to put it back in place
https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy/wiki/Har … ds#motor-signal

that seemed to work

Bought 2 32mb ram sticks for the tag ram testing.

should bring the total up to 96MB which is good enough for saying if the tag ram mod works or not.

Quick question:

In regards to what works well on both both DOS and Win98

Sound Blaster Audigy 2
or
Sound Blaster Live! SB0220

I sound someone selling both for cheap but I'm just wondering how they are with dos. Philscomputer lab has a video on both (technically the audigy 2zs) but only talked about dos with the live.
In an ideal world I'd use ISA card for dos but isa cards are getting to be more pricy than they are worth to me.

I did search on vogons and from what I see the live sounds bad as a sb16 and for the audigy I did find this: sound blaster audigy 2 zs and dos games?
but what do you guys think?

-Lime

CalamityLime wrote on 2022-07-05, 16:50:

Quick question: […]
Show full quote

Quick question:

In regards to what works well on both both DOS and Win98

Sound Blaster Audigy 2
or
Sound Blaster Live! SB0220

I sound someone selling both for cheap but I'm just wondering how they are with dos. Philscomputer lab has a video on both (technically the audigy 2zs) but only talked about dos with the live.
In an ideal world I'd use ISA card for dos but isa cards are getting to be more pricy than they are worth to me.

I did search on vogons and from what I see the live sounds bad as a sb16 and for the audigy I did find this: sound blaster audigy 2 zs and dos games?
but what do you guys think?

-Lime

I can vouch for audigy 2 zs in 9x/ME I have launched dos games from 9x and they seem fine but I’m not much of a dos gamer. Main problems I have are with processor being too fast not sound.

The zs is also probably the most hardware accelerated 9x card so performance perks I am told.

I use them pretty much exclusively in my builds.

CalamityLime wrote on 2022-07-05, 16:50:

Quick question: […]
Show full quote

Quick question:

In regards to what works well on both both DOS and Win98

Sound Blaster Audigy 2
or
Sound Blaster Live! SB0220

I sound someone selling both for cheap but I'm just wondering how they are with dos. Philscomputer lab has a video on both (technically the audigy 2zs) but only talked about dos with the live.
In an ideal world I'd use ISA card for dos but isa cards are getting to be more pricy than they are worth to me.

I did search on vogons and from what I see the live sounds bad as a sb16 and for the audigy I did find this: sound blaster audigy 2 zs and dos games?
but what do you guys think?

-Lime

The DOS drivers for both sound cards will require EMM386 loaded to work, reducing compatibility with several DOS games. Apart from that, FM synth emulation is mediocre and in some situations it can slow down the computer (holding spacebar in Wolf3D with AdLib sound effects enabled for example).

Note that the Audigy 2 (including the ZS variant) will use two IRQs, one for the sound card itself and the other one for the FireWire interface it has onboard. For the SB Live!, Joseph_Joestar has an excellent guide for installing the Audigy 2 ZS drivers on it.