Works well, I was running at MSI 5120 (430FX) with setmul and it could only disable L1 cache. Some games were still to fast as I couldn't disable L2. Now it slows down enough to play Wing commander.

Tamerator wrote on 2026-06-20, 17:19:

Hey everyone, […]
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Hey everyone,

Following the suggestions and theory from Anyone know of a DOS Utility to disable Level 2 cache on 430TX chipset?, I put together a utility to solve the locked BIOS problem on OEM Socket 7 rigs like my Dell OptiPlex Gs.

Usage:
Run it from a clean DOS prompt. It pairs perfectly with setmul (to kill L1) and throttle.

L2KILL /OFF - Safely flushes and disables the L2 cache.
L2KILL /ON - Restores the L2 cache.
L2KILL /STATUS - Shows the current cache state.

Attached is the compiled L2KILL.EXE. It has a hardware safety check and is whitelisted strictly for Intel 430 FX/HX/VX/TX chipsets.
Test it out and let me know how it performs on your setups!

Wow, thank you so much. Yesterday I had to manuelly disable the 2nd Cache of my i430HX Board (thinking in this moment why there is no tool to help?)

Edit: unfortunately on my ECS P5HX-A i430HX it doesn't work. After calling the exe it freezes...

Riikcakirds wrote on 2026-06-30, 21:06:

Works well, I was running at MSI 5120 (430FX) with setmul and it could only disable L1 cache. Some games were still to fast as I couldn't disable L2. Now it slows down enough to play Wing commander.

Glad that it worked well for you!

eliot_new wrote on 2026-07-04, 19:57:

unfortunately on my ECS P5HX-A i430HX it doesn't work. After calling the exe it freezes...

Bummer that it didn't work on your HX! Thanks for trying it and reporting back.

👍
How do you flush L2?

Ha! This is awesome! I need to crack out my board back out of cold storage and redo some benchmarks - thanks very much again,
Cheers!

Tamerator wrote on 2026-07-07, 22:14:

eliot_new wrote on 2026-07-04, 19:57:

unfortunately on my ECS P5HX-A i430HX it doesn't work. After calling the exe it freezes...

Bummer that it didn't work on your HX! Thanks for trying it and reporting back.

I resolved the mysteria:

I've just realized that when I call L2KILL.exe BEFORE the SETMUL command, it works flawlessly.
Why do I use SETMUL?

In Phils Video about the P166MMX he clearly shows how to slow it down to P75, 486, 386 levels:
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/136-in-1-pentium-mmx.html

Here are the screenshots that demonstrate my succes => FAST.BAT, MEDIUM.BAT,SLOW.BAT etc are batch files based on SETMUL
I hope you enjoy it: