I have a handful of plastic with pins chips I removed from one 486 board, so that real cache can be put in place. BIOS was hacked to show that there was always 256KB of cache, regardless of what was installed (and real cache was never enabled either) so I needed a BIOS replacement in addition to adding sockets for real cache.

There was a thread recently about adapting dip to soj chips. I was thinking you could probably use small resistor legs to solder them to fake cache chips. Would be tedious though. But easy diy adapter.

In addition to everything that was said, just
"Motherboards with these modules are commonly known and advertised as having 256k of write back cache. These modules do not function as cache memory. They are blank modules which contain 0k of level 2 or external cache." while being essentially true statements (calling a piece of plastic with embedded metal pins a "blank module" is a euphemism at best) , do constitute an admission that someone was lying as a board cannot have 256K of cache made up of "0K blank modules".

The rest is mostly lies with some facts here and there.

Whoever wrote that "FAQ" is what I would refer to as a "spin doctor".

IMHO, it is not worth losing time on any mental gymnastics to try to see this as anything more than a rather feeble attempt at public relations damage control.

This is 'cargo cult engineering'. Stuff that looks like it can do something, but can't, because it's all fake. It seems to be a particular problem with cheap stuff from China/Taiwan. A similar issue is pocket calculators with fake solar cells. (VWestlife has a video on YouTube about this.)

Though not computer related, I got burned by this a couple of years ago, when I bought a thermal food container from China. (I wanted to be able to cook a meal in the morning and still have it hot, or at least warm, at lunchtime.) The jar was well made, but the lid was just a thin piece of uninsulated plastic that sat loosely over the top, held in place with latches.

What is the point of insulating the jar if you don't also insulate the lid?

This blew my mind. What stupid design. Obviously food put in this thing would be cold within an hour, making it useless.

The worst is when those cache chips are soldered onto the bother board and the traces from their pins lead to nowhere, so you can't even replace them with the real stuff and get them to work. That is some real write-back cache right there.

Yes they exist, I had a PC-Chips P54C board with two fake plastic slugs for 'cache'. Fortunately, it had a COAST slot and populating that made it a non-issue.

This has become much more amusing and informative that I was expecting to.

I have been sorting my parts because of the move I'm going through and I found the fake cache chips I mentioned earlier :

I'm surprised they did not melt when I heatgunned them off the board, when I poked one with soldering iron it immediately melted into it 🤣 (little hole seen in bottom chip)

You've found the missing cache from those "cacheless" Octek DCA boards.

Tiido wrote on 2022-09-08, 06:33:

I have been sorting my parts because of the move I'm going through and I found the fake cache chips I mentioned earlier :
IMG_0086.jpg

you can try and dissolve one in acetone, preferably with timelapse video 😀

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-09-08, 23:09:

Tiido wrote on 2022-09-08, 06:33:

I have been sorting my parts because of the move I'm going through and I found the fake cache chips I mentioned earlier :
IMG_0086.jpg

you can try and dissolve one in acetone, preferably with timelapse video 😀

Oh that would be cool. Doooo et!