MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-06-17, 00:10:

First I have to say the same thing that @Law212 said: […]
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DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-06-16, 23:23:

Really don't know what's going on with this system. It just won't accept the onboard graphics at all. Had to install the Geforce 4 card just to be able to use it. And despite installing the USB drivers so I can access other drivers, the response time/read/write speed is shockingly slow. To the point that the whole system stops responding. This was never an issue on my main setup. 🙁 It won't even copy/paste anything off the pen drive onto the HDD. Even something as small as 700Kb. It doesn't even run the onboard graphics drivers.

First I have to say the same thing that @Law212 said:

Law212 wrote on 2026-06-16, 01:23:

Slow but steady. Thats how it goes sometimes

some systems are hard to get going at first but will become good performers once the issues are resolved, it will make it all the more satisfying when it finally "clicks" together 😀.

The onboard graphics not working is annoying, but if you have a dedicated graphics card then it will not matter in the long run anyway. For the USB data transfer you can try putting the drive into a different USB port, sometimes the problem is only with a single USB port and avoiding that makes things work better. If there is a constant data transfer speed issue when copying files and the system stops responding during these there might be a problem with the HDD, you can use a variety of programs to check for that, for example HDSentinel(https://www.hdsentinel.com/index.php) or if you are familiar with the Linux tool then smartmontools also have a version for Windows XP to download.

Ahh, bugger. I forgot. I did test the HDD out, using my IDE/SATA adapter on my main PC, the other day and for some reason it can't show much of anything about it. Same with my external HDD I've been using for years. It recognises it, but everything else is unknown.

The same happens with CrystalDiskInfo, too. I'll have to see if there's a legacy/Win9x version of both.

EDIT: Ahhhh, that's why. Just read it's because they're connected via USB, which can't provide enough power. Makes sense.

Okay, all sorted. For now. ^^;

Have yet to run Hard Disk Sentinel, but I don't think it'll be necessary now. Looks like the missing ingredient was the Intel Chipset drivers. I misplaced the driver CD, but managed to find it. After that, everything worked correctly and now files copy and paste at the correct speed. 😀

Audio is working, too. Still a mystery about the onboard graphics. They were definitely working to begin with. If I have the Geforce 4 in, the drivers won't install as it'll complain the incorrect GPU is in. And I swear, in the BIOS, there were more onboard memory options to begin with. As low as 2Mb. So 2-32MB, I think. Now it only gives me the option of 32, 64, 128, and 256.

But the main thing is that everything is up and running and working properly. Now I'll be able to start installing those games and test them out. 😀

Did you flash the bios? maybe it's been updated with one from a board that didn't have the onboard graphics

The memory options you are listing sounds more like AGP aperture size than onboard VRAM allocation

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-06-17, 11:55:

Did you flash the bios? maybe it's been updated with one from a board that didn't have the onboard graphics

The memory options you are listing sounds more like AGP aperture size than onboard VRAM allocation

Yeah, they do. But it definitely listed onboard VRAM to begin with. I'm not sure what's changed. I certainly haven't flashed the BIOS. I believe it's already the latest version too from what I've been told. It's 02.54. Although the versions listed online only go from 1.00 to 1.40.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-06-17, 12:12:

Yeah, they do. But it definitely listed onboard VRAM to begin with. I'm not sure what's changed. I certainly haven't flashed the BIOS. I believe it's already the latest version too from what I've been told. It's 02.54. Although the versions listed online only go from 1.00 to 1.40.

The user manual doesn't say specifically but insinuates that the onboard extreme graphics 2 gets completely disabled if you insert a PCI or AGP graphics card, by way of removing the internal GPU memory size allocation from the BIOS options

That also means the drivers cannot be installed while a dedicated graphics card is inserted as the driver package will never see the disabled onboard GPU device ID

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-06-17, 12:12:

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-06-17, 11:55:

Did you flash the bios? maybe it's been updated with one from a board that didn't have the onboard graphics

The memory options you are listing sounds more like AGP aperture size than onboard VRAM allocation

Yeah, they do. But it definitely listed onboard VRAM to begin with. I'm not sure what's changed. I certainly haven't flashed the BIOS. I believe it's already the latest version too from what I've been told. It's 02.54. Although the versions listed online only go from 1.00 to 1.40.

Where are you seeing 02.54 displayed ? (is that perhaps a discrete graphics card vBIOS). I did mention in PMs that the board shipped originally with P1.30 and that at some time since then I'd updated it to P1.40, so onboard graphics are indeed present.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2026-06-17, 12:39:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-06-17, 12:12:

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-06-17, 11:55:

Did you flash the bios? maybe it's been updated with one from a board that didn't have the onboard graphics

The memory options you are listing sounds more like AGP aperture size than onboard VRAM allocation

Yeah, they do. But it definitely listed onboard VRAM to begin with. I'm not sure what's changed. I certainly haven't flashed the BIOS. I believe it's already the latest version too from what I've been told. It's 02.54. Although the versions listed online only go from 1.00 to 1.40.

Where are you seeing 02.54 displayed ? (is that perhaps a discrete graphics card vBIOS). I did mention in PMs that the board shipped originally with P1.30 and that at some time since then I'd updated it to P1.40, so onboard graphics are indeed present.

Ahh, it lists it there. With the POST disappearing pretty quickly compared to my main setup, I never even noticed that. So the version number I'm seeing must be the AMI version instead.

But I did see the 1.4 briefly as it booted.

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-06-17, 12:26:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-06-17, 12:12:

Yeah, they do. But it definitely listed onboard VRAM to begin with. I'm not sure what's changed. I certainly haven't flashed the BIOS. I believe it's already the latest version too from what I've been told. It's 02.54. Although the versions listed online only go from 1.00 to 1.40.

The user manual doesn't say specifically but insinuates that the onboard extreme graphics 2 gets completely disabled if you insert a PCI or AGP graphics card, by way of removing the internal GPU memory size allocation from the BIOS options

That also means the drivers cannot be installed while a dedicated graphics card is inserted as the driver package will never see the disabled onboard GPU device ID

That would certainly make sense. Unfortunately, apart from the Geforce 4, I've not installed any other card. PCI or AGP. But as the monitor fails to output anything if I plug the VGA into the board, it's impossible to tell whether the onboard graphics re-enables or lists anything in the BIOS.

Just taken the card out and popped the cable back into the motherboard and now the monitor has decided to come on. 😀

But yes, these were the VRAM options I saw:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-06-17, 13:44:

Just taken the card out and popped the cable back into the motherboard and now the monitor has decided to come on. :) […]
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Just taken the card out and popped the cable back into the motherboard and now the monitor has decided to come on. 😀

But yes, these were the VRAM options I saw:

The attachment IMG_5573[1].JPG is no longer available

Just too smart for its own good! 😀

First game tested - Thief 2. It runs soooooo much better! On my main retro PC, the very first mission drops as low as 25fps. And that's at 640x480. On my second setup, the lowest I've seen it fall to is 45fps...? At both 640x480 and 800x600. Otherwise, it's anywhere from 55-85fps. A huge improvement!

And I've still yet to try things out with HyperThreading enabled, though I'm not sure if that will make a massive difference.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-06-17, 23:05:

First game tested - Thief 2. It runs soooooo much better! On my main retro PC, the very first mission drops as low as 25fps. And that's at 640x480. On my second setup, the lowest I've seen it fall to is 45fps...? At both 640x480 and 800x600. Otherwise, it's anywhere from 55-85fps. A huge improvement!

And I've still yet to try things out with HyperThreading enabled, though I'm not sure if that will make a massive difference.

Thief 2 AFAIK doesn't take advantage of HT(I haven't played that much Thief 2, but System Shock 2 uses the same engine and I played that quite a lot.), if you are running something else in the background it might smooth out the performance a little bit though. For programs that actually takes advantage of multiple threads it usually gives 10-20% performance advantage depending on which execution units the different threads use. (Intel advertised it as giving 30%, but that was only true for very specific situations, they used that value for marketing of course 😁)

In extreme cases where there is only a single running thread (like DOS 😁), HT can actually lower performance because the CPU still has to do the two thread bookkeeping of the execution threads(Setting the "which thread this micro-op belong to" flag for each pipeline step).

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-06-17, 23:20:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-06-17, 23:05:

First game tested - Thief 2. It runs soooooo much better! On my main retro PC, the very first mission drops as low as 25fps. And that's at 640x480. On my second setup, the lowest I've seen it fall to is 45fps...? At both 640x480 and 800x600. Otherwise, it's anywhere from 55-85fps. A huge improvement!

And I've still yet to try things out with HyperThreading enabled, though I'm not sure if that will make a massive difference.

Thief 2 AFAIK doesn't take advantage of HT(I haven't played that much Thief 2, but System Shock 2 uses the same engine and I played that quite a lot.), if you are running something else in the background it might smooth out the performance a little bit though. For programs that actually takes advantage of multiple threads it usually gives 10-20% performance advantage depending on which execution units the different threads use. (Intel advertised it as giving 30%, but that was only true for very specific situations, they used that value for marketing of course 😁)

In extreme cases where there is only a single running thread (like DOS 😁), HT can actually lower performance because the CPU still has to do the two thread bookkeeping of the execution threads(Setting the "which thread this micro-op belong to" flag for each pipeline step).

I see. That reminds me, I've yet to try underclocking the CPU. See how low I can set it for DOS games. Presumably, I'd need to adjust the voltages...? If so, I imagine there's a certain threshold I shouldn't lower it to...? Or is it simply a case of adjusting the multiplier as though I were overclocking it? I've only ever attempted overclocks and they haven't always been successful. So underclocking is new.

But no, no other programs are running really. I've barely installed anything. They only thing I had running was Fraps.

At any rate, I've got quite a few early 00s games to try on this machine. More than I originally planned. Even some I've not played for a very long time. It'll be interesting to see how they run. 😀

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-06-17, 23:30:

I see. That reminds me, I've yet to try underclocking the CPU. See how low I can set it for DOS games. Presumably, I'd need to adjust the voltages...? If so, I imagine there's a certain threshold I shouldn't lower it to...? Or is it simply a case of adjusting the multiplier as though I were overclocking it? I've only ever attempted overclocks and they haven't always been successful. So underclocking is new.

No, for underclocking you don't have to touch the voltages. Some MB and P4 CPU combos let you lower the core frequency multipliers from the maximum. (For overclocking it does not work in the other direction, Intel intentionally locked the core frequency multiplier of P4s in the upward direction.) If the multiplier cannot be changed downwards (A lot of MB manufacturers decided to stay on the safe side of Intel and locked the multiplier in the downwards direction too.), you can lower the FSB frequency as that is what is multiplied by the CPU.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-06-17, 23:41:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2026-06-17, 23:30:

I see. That reminds me, I've yet to try underclocking the CPU. See how low I can set it for DOS games. Presumably, I'd need to adjust the voltages...? If so, I imagine there's a certain threshold I shouldn't lower it to...? Or is it simply a case of adjusting the multiplier as though I were overclocking it? I've only ever attempted overclocks and they haven't always been successful. So underclocking is new.

No, for underclocking you don't have to touch the voltages. Some MB and P4 CPU combos let you lower the core frequency multipliers from the maximum. (For overclocking it does not work in the other direction, Intel intentionally locked the core frequency multiplier of P4s in the upward direction.) If the multiplier cannot be changed downwards (A lot of MB manufacturers decided to stay on the safe side of Intel and locked the multiplier in the downwards direction too.), you can lower the FSB frequency as that is what is multiplied by the CPU.

Okay, gotcha. Thanks. I'll take a look into that sometime tomorrow. Do a bit of experimenting.

For performance reduction on P4, you can use the recently released P4tool
[b]p4tool - performance control utility for Pentium 4 / NetBurst[/b]

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-06-17, 23:51:

For performance reduction on P4, you can use the recently released P4tool
[b]p4tool - performance control utility for Pentium 4 / NetBurst[/b]

Oh cool. Recently, huh. I'll take a lookie. Thanks.

Most Pentium 4 CPUs have locked multipliers. There are some exceptions such processors that use Intel SpeedStep (used for performance/heat management).

For throttling a Pentium 4 with a locked multiplier, your options are going to be tools like SETMUL and CPUSPD, and the above mentioned P4Tool.

Main options for throttling include disabling cache, on-demand clock modulation (OCDM), ACPI throttling (via motherboard). And P4Tool uses DebugStore / Branch Trace enabling to slow down performance.

Shponglefan wrote on Yesterday, 01:13:

Most Pentium 4 CPUs have locked multipliers. There are some exceptions such processors that use Intel SpeedStep (used for performance/heat management).

For throttling a Pentium 4 with a locked multiplier, your options are going to be tools like SETMUL and CPUSPD, and the above mentioned P4Tool.

Main options for throttling include disabling cache, on-demand clock modulation (OCDM), ACPI throttling (via motherboard). And P4Tool uses DebugStore / Branch Trace enabling to slow down performance.

Argh, bugger. Of course. You mentioned you have a Cedar Mill model. Overlooked that detail. Ahh, well. I can have a play with the P4Tool at least. And I've always got my main retro rig.