I've a very similar setup with an Asus TXP4. I've had better luck with the SSD though - using a Promise IDE controller with a PATA to SATA adapter, I've had no problem using a Team Group 120 gig SSD. Have you benchmarked with the motherboard cache enabled and disabled? I found that my 3D Mark 99, 2000 and 2001 scores were higher when the L3 cache was disabled, presumably because I too had 256 megs which exceeds the TX chipset's cacheable limit of 64 megabytes.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2020-08-23, 00:09:

I've a very similar setup with an Asus TXP4. I've had better luck with the SSD though - using a Promise IDE controller with a PATA to SATA adapter, I've had no problem using a Team Group 120 gig SSD. Have you benchmarked with the motherboard cache enabled and disabled? I found that my 3D Mark 99, 2000 and 2001 scores were higher when the L3 cache was disabled, presumably because I too had 256 megs which exceeds the TX chipset's cacheable limit of 64 megabytes.

I only have a couple StarTech IDE to SATA adapters and may have better luck with a different brand. Most of the benchmarks don't show much of a difference with the motherboard cache off vs on. If there is a difference, it is not much.

jasa1063 wrote on 2020-08-23, 00:20:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2020-08-23, 00:09:

I've a very similar setup with an Asus TXP4. I've had better luck with the SSD though - using a Promise IDE controller with a PATA to SATA adapter, I've had no problem using a Team Group 120 gig SSD. Have you benchmarked with the motherboard cache enabled and disabled? I found that my 3D Mark 99, 2000 and 2001 scores were higher when the L3 cache was disabled, presumably because I too had 256 megs which exceeds the TX chipset's cacheable limit of 64 megabytes.

I only have a couple StarTech IDE to SATA adapters and may have better luck with a different brand. Most of the benchmarks don't show much of a difference with the motherboard cache off vs on. If there is a difference, it is not much.

That's exactly the adapter I'm using in this box.
No, the difference isn't huge; my 3D Mark 2001 score is 1,749 with the L3 cache enabled, 1,948 with it disabled.

jasa1063 wrote on 2020-08-22, 23:46:

I picked up a P133 system on Craigslist for $20. It was nothing special :

AT Case, PCChips M572 Motherboard (Intel 430TX chipset), Pentium 133 CPU, 40GB IDE hard drive, 128MB SDRAM, ATI Rage XL 8MB PCI graphics graphics, and Sound Blaster AudioDrive PCI sound card

That is a good purchase considering many would have sold it as a "vintage" computer via fleabay for 5X+ that amount plus shipping

Horun wrote on 2020-08-23, 01:24:

jasa1063 wrote on 2020-08-22, 23:46:

I picked up a P133 system on Craigslist for $20. It was nothing special :

AT Case, PCChips M572 Motherboard (Intel 430TX chipset), Pentium 133 CPU, 40GB IDE hard drive, 128MB SDRAM, ATI Rage XL 8MB PCI graphics graphics, and Sound Blaster AudioDrive PCI sound card

That is a good purchase considering many would have sold it as a "vintage" computer via fleabay for 5X+ that amount plus shipping

I agree . I had a PC Chips M550 430TX based board back in the day . It worked fine . Hopefully the M572 is just as good if not better .

I tried a different Compact Flash to IDE adapter and so far it is working. Keeping my fingers crossed I won't have any data corruption issues and will keep plenty of good backups!