VOGONS


First post, by AlessandroB

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PC with cache does not boot, disabling it works normally. I proceeded to uninstall the chips on the motherboard. Will the computer suffer as much in speed without L2? Or should I try to find a new one? Is there a way to test which chip is bad??

tnks

Reply 2 of 18, by douglar

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If you are able to jumper the board for a reduced cache size, then you have some spare chips you can swap for testing. A small L2 cache is much better than no L2. It would help if you posted a picture or the name of your motherboard

Reply 3 of 18, by Nexxen

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AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-29, 16:18:

PC with cache does not boot, disabling it works normally. I proceeded to uninstall the chips on the motherboard. Will the computer suffer as much in speed without L2? Or should I try to find a new one? Is there a way to test which chip is bad??

tnks

Faulty cache chip, I had it many times.
Unless it is not... :p

PC#1 Pentium 233 MMX - 98SE
PC#2 PIII-1Ghz - 98SE/W2K

Reply 4 of 18, by rmay635703

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Without L2 a P133 isn’t much faster than an amd 5x86-133 with full cache, especially if it is one of the early slow old Socket 4/5 Chipsets.

A very good hard drive controller and video card could make up some of the performance, especially if you can run fsb75 or 83 stable
but you will still get a lot of chugging.

Reply 5 of 18, by AlessandroB

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rmay635703 wrote on 2023-01-30, 01:48:

Without L2 a P133 isn’t much faster than an amd 5x86-133 with full cache, especially if it is one of the early slow old Socket 4/5 Chipsets.

A very good hard drive controller and video card could make up some of the performance, especially if you can run fsb75 or 83 stable
but you will still get a lot of chugging.

Really soooo slow??? When i can i post some pics of the board/chip

Reply 6 of 18, by zyga64

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Nope. It mainly depends on the chipset. Look for Intel 430FX benchmarks. A system without L2 cache has comparable performance to a system with Async Sram cache (those with Pipeline Burst are noticeably better).
I also remember that I had Gigabyte GA-586SG motherboard (with SIS5591 chipset) with corrupted cache memory (PB), so I used it with L2 cache disabled.
A little later I replaced both chips (cache and ram tag) and the difference was less than I expected (with L2 enabled).

L1 cache however is a whole different story....

1) VLSI SCAMP /286@20 /4M /CL-GD5422 /CMI8330
2) i420EX /486DX33 /16M /TGUI9440 /GUS+ALS100+MT32PI
3) i430FX /K6-2@400 /64M /Rage Pro PCI /ES1370+YMF718
4) i440BX /P!!!750 /256M /MX440 /SBLive!
5) iB75 /3470s /4G /HD7750 /HDA

Reply 7 of 18, by douglar

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AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-30, 10:00:

When i can i post some pics of the board/chip

If you can’t add the image as an attachment, you could post a link to your mobo’s info page on this site:

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/search/

Reply 8 of 18, by CoffeeOne

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AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-30, 10:00:
rmay635703 wrote on 2023-01-30, 01:48:

Without L2 a P133 isn’t much faster than an amd 5x86-133 with full cache, especially if it is one of the early slow old Socket 4/5 Chipsets.

A very good hard drive controller and video card could make up some of the performance, especially if you can run fsb75 or 83 stable
but you will still get a lot of chugging.

Really soooo slow??? When i can i post some pics of the board/chip

Sorry to ask, but ....
What is the problem in uploading pictures at Vogons? Works like a charm.
Do not use external hosting sites, please. It is annoying, there are tons of old posts, where the pictures are missing.

Reply 11 of 18, by AlessandroB

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CoffeeOne wrote on 2023-01-30, 20:40:
Sorry to ask, but .... What is the problem in uploading pictures at Vogons? Works like a charm. Do not use external hosting site […]
Show full quote
AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-30, 10:00:
rmay635703 wrote on 2023-01-30, 01:48:

Without L2 a P133 isn’t much faster than an amd 5x86-133 with full cache, especially if it is one of the early slow old Socket 4/5 Chipsets.

A very good hard drive controller and video card could make up some of the performance, especially if you can run fsb75 or 83 stable
but you will still get a lot of chugging.

Really soooo slow??? When i can i post some pics of the board/chip

Sorry to ask, but ....
What is the problem in uploading pictures at Vogons? Works like a charm.
Do not use external hosting sites, please. It is annoying, there are tons of old posts, where the pictures are missing.

The only problem is that the computer is not near me 😀 … until now. here the pics

Attachments

Reply 12 of 18, by H3nrik V!

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AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-31, 07:20:
CoffeeOne wrote on 2023-01-30, 20:40:
Sorry to ask, but .... What is the problem in uploading pictures at Vogons? Works like a charm. Do not use external hosting site […]
Show full quote
AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-30, 10:00:

Really soooo slow??? When i can i post some pics of the board/chip

Sorry to ask, but ....
What is the problem in uploading pictures at Vogons? Works like a charm.
Do not use external hosting sites, please. It is annoying, there are tons of old posts, where the pictures are missing.

The only problem is that the computer is not near me 😀 … until now. here the pics

Are those 20ns cache chips? They won't run much past 50MHz FSB, I guess?

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 13 of 18, by AlessandroB

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H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-01-31, 08:43:
AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-31, 07:20:
CoffeeOne wrote on 2023-01-30, 20:40:

Sorry to ask, but ....
What is the problem in uploading pictures at Vogons? Works like a charm.
Do not use external hosting sites, please. It is annoying, there are tons of old posts, where the pictures are missing.

The only problem is that the computer is not near me 😀 … until now. here the pics

Are those 20ns cache chips? They won't run much past 50MHz FSB, I guess?

I tried running the computer with a 233MMX and it works fine, bus 66, so I think the chips are working fine.

another question I wanted to ask you, in the photo you see a series of connectors on the left edge and if you read on the serigraphy you see the word "Turbo". I tried to close it with a jumper but I didn't see any effects… what do you think?

Reply 14 of 18, by Gmlb256

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I do have a Gigabyte Socket 7 motherboard that has the Turbo pins which is for a toggle button that sets the FSB to 50 MHz, it is more effective when disabling the L1 cache. Yours is only for the Turbo LED according to the manual.

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 15 of 18, by devius

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AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-31, 12:12:

I tried running the computer with a 233MMX and it works fine, bus 66, so I think the chips are working fine.

Then why did you say it doesn't boot with cache on?

Reply 17 of 18, by Windows9566

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Nexxen wrote on 2023-01-29, 22:48:
AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-29, 16:18:

PC with cache does not boot, disabling it works normally. I proceeded to uninstall the chips on the motherboard. Will the computer suffer as much in speed without L2? Or should I try to find a new one? Is there a way to test which chip is bad??

tnks

Faulty cache chip, I had it many times.
Unless it is not... :p

unstable or faulty cache could cause lockups, program crashes, etc. or make your PC refuse to boot, was experiencing this on one of my 486 boards, i eventually got it to work with some known good ICs i have in my random ICs box, it's only 128k but it is all fine.

R5 5600X, 32 GB RAM, RTX 3060 TI, Win11
P3 600, 256 MB RAM, nVidia Riva TNT2 M64, SB Vibra 16S, Win98
PMMX 200, 128 MB RAM, S3 Virge DX, Yamaha YMF719, Win95
486DX2 66, 32 MB RAM, Trident TGUI9440, ESS ES688F, DOS

Reply 18 of 18, by AlessandroB

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devius wrote on 2023-01-31, 15:14:
AlessandroB wrote on 2023-01-31, 12:12:

I tried running the computer with a 233MMX and it works fine, bus 66, so I think the chips are working fine.

Then why did you say it doesn't boot with cache on?

the test was made before the computer refuse to boot.