There's a piece of dark magic called WPCREDIT ... but I can't hold your hand there, I've only futzed with it, google will tell you more, be careful though or you'll get 3000 animated broomsticks overfilling your bathtub or some crap.

Get an EEPROM programmer or 2nd chip (to have a backup of original BIOS) and try a few BIOSes for 430TX from other manufacturers.

Garrett W wrote on 2021-12-18, 12:02:

However, what is arguably the most important option, lowering CAS Latency from 3 to 2 will always hang the system, be it under DOS or Windows, using a single DIMM, different DIMMs, occupying different slots, you name it. This is the option that would probably land the greatest performance uplift, so it really bothers me that it freezes the system like that. What's your take on this? If I mod the BIOS to lower the timings would I still get a system that freezes or will I be in the clear?

Having seen datasheets for SDRAM chips, it seems questionable to me whether changing CAS latency on the fly via software would ever NOT result in a crash. It's a setting that is configured on the memory chips at power-on time. Once you've booted and have an OS loaded into RAM it is too late to change the setting on the SDRAM chips, and changing it for the chipset would result in mismatched timing between the chipset and SDRAM (ie. crash).

My point is that TweakBIOS having that setting there may be an unintentional booby-trap... all it's going to do is freeze up. A different (or modified) BIOS is probably needed to use a different CAS latency.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-12-18, 15:51:

There's a piece of dark magic called WPCREDIT ... but I can't hold your hand there, I've only futzed with it, google will tell you more, be careful though or you'll get 3000 animated broomsticks overfilling your bathtub or some crap.

Very interesting, thanks for the heads up!

AlexZ wrote on 2021-12-18, 23:15:

Get an EEPROM programmer or 2nd chip (to have a backup of original BIOS) and try a few BIOSes for 430TX from other manufacturers.

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, the way I see it, trying a BIOS from another manufacturer could cause all sorts of issues down the road that I can't predict. The mainboard has an integrated video chip from S3 for example and I'm not sure if flashing the BIOS would fudge with that. In any case, editing the current BIOS for that one option would be ideal.

bakemono wrote on 2021-12-19, 09:58:

Garrett W wrote on 2021-12-18, 12:02:

However, what is arguably the most important option, lowering CAS Latency from 3 to 2 will always hang the system, be it under DOS or Windows, using a single DIMM, different DIMMs, occupying different slots, you name it. This is the option that would probably land the greatest performance uplift, so it really bothers me that it freezes the system like that. What's your take on this? If I mod the BIOS to lower the timings would I still get a system that freezes or will I be in the clear?

Having seen datasheets for SDRAM chips, it seems questionable to me whether changing CAS latency on the fly via software would ever NOT result in a crash. It's a setting that is configured on the memory chips at power-on time. Once you've booted and have an OS loaded into RAM it is too late to change the setting on the SDRAM chips, and changing it for the chipset would result in mismatched timing between the chipset and SDRAM (ie. crash).

My point is that TweakBIOS having that setting there may be an unintentional booby-trap... all it's going to do is freeze up. A different (or modified) BIOS is probably needed to use a different CAS latency.

Yes, I see what you mean. I'd be inclined to agree, I decided to give it a quick test on the VPX system but the option doesn't seem to affect anything. It applies it, supposedly, but benchmarks are spitting out the same numbers.

Overclockers.com had a write up on WPCRedit back in the day. https://www.overclockers.com/wpcredit/

This site has downloads for WPCRedit, and PCR files to match, but if you get V1.2a it includes the PCR file for the TX chipset. http://falconfly.3dfx.pl/download.htm

There have been more than a few OEM motherboards where the manufacturer had the same board with a non OEM BIOS which could be flashed to give more options. If you haven't already, you should search to see if yours is one of those.

I gave WPCRedit a go and unfortunately, as expected, the result is the same as with TweakB. As soon as I go and tweak that register, the system hangs. So I'm willing to agree with bakemono's assumption. I think BIOS modding might be my only chance, unfortunately opening up the BIOS in a hex editor mostly shows gibberish. I then proceeded to grab other OEM BIOSes that also used Phoenix like mine does and they all obfuscate details in much the same way. Bummer.

My system is a Digital Venturis FX-2, I'm not sure how I could figure out if there's a non-OEM version of my system's board. There's not a lot of info on my system, unfortunately. The fact that it uses Phoenix BIOS also concerns me, on the assumption that everything else stays the same, could my board work with an Award or AMI BIOS from another board?

Forget BIOS modding if you don't understand BIOSes and don't know assembly language.

There is a chance BIOS from another board using the same chipset could work. Having an integrated graphics card should play no role in that. There is a high likelihood of having to go through several BIOSes until you find something that works, which is why you need an EEPROM programmer and backup of the original BIOS. It's irrelevant if the new BIOS is AMI or AWARD. Don't even think about it unless you have a way to restore the original BIOS.

On both of my 440BX ECS boards I have non original BIOS (because I hated full screen Compaq logo), same on a KT133 board I have. In my case they were OEM boards and I just flashed the original BIOS from manufacturer which is much less risky.

Hmmm, looks like it's got integrated video and sound, meaning likely candidates for nasty OEM BIOS replacement are other nasty OEM BIOSes 🙁

Yeah, I'll probably keep this as is for the time being. Thanks for the suggestions everyone.