Have you tried removing everything on the PCI bus? Have you tried Clear ESCD option?

appiah4 wrote:

Have you tried removing everything on the PCI bus? Have you tried Clear ESCD option?

I have everything stripped down to the PCI graphics card only (I've tried 2 other pci gfx cards, just for the heck of it), running only one stick of ram (I've moved the ram to different slots and used other known good RAM sticks, to no avail). I've also stripped all IO stuff from the Motherboard headers and disabled them in the bios as well. I have cleared the CMOS via the jumper, but I have to disable the external cache again or it'll freeze at the end of post. He's another weird one. I decided to downgrade the BIOS, fired up AWDFLASH, and it wont let me. It said something about write protection.... weird. I don't think this mobo has the write protection jumper or anything, unless I'm missing something. I'm not sure if that's related to the L2 cache thing tho. I'm going to try with no drives except the floppy and see what happens, and after that I'll try w/o the floppy drive and see what it does. I'll report back any "changes" 🤣. Thank you for the help.

Still not sure what's up with this issue. The only way it will get past POST is with the L2 cache disabled 🙁

1) i was thinking about the jumpers settings for the cache, but that late boards don't have jumpers...

2) well, that cpu as cache built-in, i gues... it can get in some kind of conflit, betwwen the cpu cache and the board cache...
because they are diferent in capacity and speed... maybe, you have to choose

- cache cpu or cache board.

nuno14272 wrote:

2) well, that cpu as cache built-in, i gues... it can get in some kind of conflit, betwwen the cpu cache and the board cache...
because they are diferent in capacity and speed... maybe, you have to choose

Please don't try to help if you are not into it. Every CPU since the 486 has built-in cache. That's L1 cache. Cache on the motherboard is called L2 cache therefore. These are independent and not conflicting - and they never have the same size or speed. Nor do you have to "choose".

If you already cleared the CMOS and it doesn't even run with fail-save settings unless L2 is disabled, the L2 cache is most likely toast. You could try with a FSB of 66 MHz instead of 100 MHz and see if that changes anything.

One thing to note.. Could you possibly be running a K+-2+ CPU and not know it? Those have have L2 on the CPU so that would probably disable the motherboard L2 or cause some weirdness?

No, not even then. L2 becomes L3 in that case. The cache controller on the motherboard doesn't really care what's happening inside the CPU.

derSammler wrote:

No, not even then. L2 becomes L3 in that case. The cache controller on the motherboard doesn't really care what's happening inside the CPU.

OK, you learn something new every day..

Have you checked the Cache chip's legs for bent and contacting pins? Or pins that got seperated from the motherboard, but you may have missed it because it's either barely off the board or maybe intermittently contacting it? I checked a picture of the board and those kinds of chips can have such issues all the time..

I have one Pentium1 board which only functions right if L2 is disabled. I have replaced most parts on it and it still misbehaves making me think the board has some mechanical issue that causes the problem (broken via or something).

Hmmm, I haven't tried with lower FSB. I'll give it a shot, tho I think you're right, the L2 cache might be toast. It's acting like it wants to be retired anyway, being as the keyboard fuse blew on it too. I guess I'll just bin this one for now. Thanks for everyone's suggestions

Tiido wrote:

I have one Pentium1 board which only functions right if L2 is disabled. I have replaced most parts on it and it still misbehaves making me think the board has some mechanical issue that causes the problem (broken via or something).

At least on those older board you could replace the cache to see if it's just the chip(s). I think it might be retirement time for this old MVP 🤣

I was able to get it to boot with L2 Cache enable BAAAAARELY at 66Mhz FSB and the RAM running at 66. But as soon as I run a program or an old PC bench, it freezes her right in her tracks. I'll have to see about borrowing a microscope to get a better view of the L2 Contacts etc. I'm not holding my breath tho. To add insult injury I ordered a couple replacement baby AT SS7 boards (a FIC 503+ and a DFI P5BV3-1M+... I got a real good deal for them at 25 USD each) but they having been Lost in the mail (I guess) since the 18th smh. I'm was really looking forward to messing with the DFI board, since I have never played with one...

If the stability is frequency dependant, maybe it's the capacitors? I have a 5MVP3 as well and it came with bad capacitors - I replaced those before I started testing it though.

My AN430HX board was also behaving similarly with the L2 enabled / was being just weird after a few hours use. Again I replaced the board's capacitors and it started behaving properly once more.