There we go, it was the USB card (NEC chipset).

Thank you bloodem, much appreciated. Going to boot back into my original install now and see if it’s OK in there too with the newer 4-in-1 and AmigaMerlin drivers.

paradigital wrote on 2020-05-05, 19:03:

There we go, it was the USB card (NEC chipset).

Thank you bloodem, much appreciated. Going to boot back into my original install now and see if it’s OK in there too with the newer 4-in-1 and AmigaMerlin drivers.

Did you have to remove the card? Or just disable it in windows?
I have a dual boot, I would like to keep the card in for the other OS (Windows XP), because it works fine there.

I never tried disabling, just pulling it out. It was only in there for fast(er) data transfer to get applications onto the system, I’ve copied what I need over now so it’s kind of redundant anyway at this point.

paradigital wrote on 2020-05-05, 19:03:

There we go, it was the USB card (NEC chipset).

Thank you bloodem, much appreciated. Going to boot back into my original install now and see if it’s OK in there too with the newer 4-in-1 and AmigaMerlin drivers.

Yep, same as mine (also NEC chipset). Seems that the VIA MVP3 chipset is very picky when it comes to peripherals.
You’re welcome, glad I could help.

It was the USB 2.0 controller here also, removed it and now the performance is great (3923 3dmarks in 3dm2000, and above 60 fps in Quake 2).

https://imgur.com/olwYNCl

Damn.... So this is actually more common than I thought. The fact that you have an identical issue on a much more powerful platform is intriguing!
I think I will investigate it further in the upcoming weeks, to try and understand what's causing this behavior. Seems to be directly related to Windows 98 (probably a Windows 98 driver issue?), since you said that on Windows XP everything works fine.
I wonder if newer Via Hyperion drivers for Windows 98 exhibit the same behavior. I know they are slower and have other issues, but maybe this specific issue is fixed.

Bit of an update, I managed to score a VIA VT6212L based USB 2.0 card in a job lot of PCI and AGP cards.

No discernible performance loss with this installed.

Nice, thanks for the update 😀

I am only having this exact issue when a usb stick is plugged in. No need to pull out the usb-pci-card, just any usb stick.

Soyo 5ema+ (mvp3), k6-III+500, Voodoo 3, NEC USB 2.0, AWE64, 256 pc100, win98se

3dmark99max
With usb-stick: 2458/5926
Without USB-Stick; 3339/7518

I learn long time ago about MVP3. USB buggy, use a PCI card. IDE buggy, use a pci card. AGP buggy use a Voodoo. Nothing on these boards work except the CPU. Still then not all have proper vrm, or multipliers.

I disable USB free up irqs. Everything I copy over network. problem solved.

Warlord wrote on 2020-07-23, 04:55:

I learn long time ago about MVP3. USB buggy, use a PCI card. IDE buggy, use a pci card. AGP buggy use a Voodoo. Nothing on these boards work except the CPU. Still then not all have proper vrm, or multipliers.

I disable USB free up irqs. Everything I copy over network. problem solved.

Tell me about it, my FIC-PA2013 is unstable as all hell.

Installing is not an isdue for me as long as no usb stick is inserted. A mouse works fine.
The cards uses quite a lot of interrupts. I have not yet tried to seperate those from others.
I feel like the issue started with installing the chipset driver? Maybe that causes it to behave in a buggy udma-mode or something like that.... but i know very little about that.

Here is my K6 3+ @ 550mhz build to campare with.
It has benchmarks posted on my thread:
AMD K6-III+@550mhz., Voodoo-3-3000 (tower)

I used Philscomputerlab benchmark programs:

Check here for CPU patches.
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/k6-2-2-3-resources.html

Download the DOS bench Pack and extract then burn to CD-R.
Then you can run it from you DOS based computer.

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/dos-benchmark-pack.html

Results from everest on my soyo 5ema+ v1.1 with the k6-III+ 1.8v ANZ and 256 mb ram with chipset drivers, bios maxed and the NEC-USB2 card installed.

Results with a 2.0 usb stick inserted and without stick inserted.

You're welcome. I hope the same fix applies to you too. Let us know! 😀

Hi there, and thanks for this thread, was slowly gonna lose my mind...
So am reporting the same symptoms and solution on my setup.

• DFI P5BV3+
• AMD K6-III 450 mHz
• VIA VT82c598 Apollo MVP3 - VIA 4-in-1 4.43
• 384 MB SDRAM
• 3Dfx Voodoo 3-3000 - Amigamerlin 2.9
• SB Live! with LiveDrive - WDM drivers 1-5-2001
• SB AWE 32 ISA
• Onboard USB on for keyboard and mouse (no PS2 headers on the motherboard and I currently have no compatible adapter for my PS2 keyboard)
• VIA Tech 3038 / VT83C572 USB card

Was running Everest 2.20.405 to check if everything was fine, finding the computer a bit sluggish. Ran the Memory benchmarks and consistently ranked last, far behind a basic K6.
Removed the USB sticks from the USB card and tried again, went back just behind a K6-III 400 mHz. Quite an improvement but I guess I need to fine tune the whole thing. I will disable all the USB ports as soon as possible and see if that helps too.

Thanks again, you should add FIXED in the title!

CesarDRK wrote on 2020-05-05, 18:34:

bloodem wrote on 2020-05-05, 18:26:

Are you using a sound card or any other devices in the ISA/PCI slots? Can you try and remove everything and see if there's any change?
For example, I had a very similar problem (on a different board), which, as I discovered, was caused by a USB 2.0 PCI card: Slow AMD K6-2+ 550 MHz performance?

Wow... that could be my issue. I have a VIA VT6214L USB 2.0 / VIA VT6421A Sata combo PCI controller.

I will try to remove it and try again. Thanks for the tip.

I bought one of those via combo cards despite warnings of people having tonnes of issues with them but unfortunately I was only able to confirm the reports. Corrupted drives reported during install. It’s a good idea but a bad card.

Warlord wrote on 2020-07-23, 04:55:

I learn long time ago about MVP3. USB buggy, use a PCI card. IDE buggy, use a pci card. AGP buggy use a Voodoo. Nothing on these boards work except the CPU. Still then not all have proper vrm, or multipliers.

I disable USB free up irqs. Everything I copy over network. problem solved.

i have to use the IDE in PIO 4 in the 5EHM 1.3, otherwise windows dont boot'

Also i cant use even a usb mouse, the usb 1.1 eats the CPU alive (K6-2 500Mhz)

AGP its too picky and Bsods with the majority of the Vcards (tnt2, geforce 2 and 4)

i REALLY hate this motherboard but i dont have another choice, its the only SS7 i have that works

Living wrote on 2022-01-18, 23:30:

AGP its too picky and Bsods with the majority of the Vcards (tnt2, geforce 2 and 4)

They are probably running at AGP 2x, which is a no-no for most SS7 boards. You can confirm this with Everest/Aida32/Aida64.
You need to force AGP 1x - there are various ways of doing that: either by using some earlier VIA 4in1 drivers and installing the AGP driver in “normal” mode (NOT turbo mode), or by applying some registry tweaks available for nvidia drivers.

Please note that disabling AGP 2x in the BIOS settings might not always work, depending on the motherboard/BIOS version, so it’s better to always confirm the AGP speed with the aforementioned third party software.

bloodem wrote on 2022-01-19, 05:46:

They are probably running at AGP 2x, which is a no-no for most SS7 boards. You can confirm this with Everest/Aida32/Aida64. You […]
Show full quote

Living wrote on 2022-01-18, 23:30:

AGP its too picky and Bsods with the majority of the Vcards (tnt2, geforce 2 and 4)

They are probably running at AGP 2x, which is a no-no for most SS7 boards. You can confirm this with Everest/Aida32/Aida64.
You need to force AGP 1x - there are various ways of doing that: either by using some earlier VIA 4in1 drivers and installing the AGP driver in “normal” mode (NOT turbo mode), or by applying some registry tweaks available for nvidia drivers.

Please note that disabling AGP 2x in the BIOS settings might not always work, depending on the motherboard/BIOS version, so it’s better to always confirm the AGP speed with the aforementioned third party software.

Did anyone ever figure out why SS7 hates AGP 2x ? was it an electrical issue or just shitty chipset and drivers ?