Pentium 3 Build Running Insanely Slow??? \ VOGONS

Pentium 3 Build Running Insanely Slow???

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First post, by Shadic95

Posted on 2026-03-13, 08:09

Shadic95 Offline

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Joined: 2014-09-01, 23:50
Location: Texas

Greetings,

My Childhood Pentium 2 Machine is too dang slow, so I wanted to build a better machine, a Pentium 3 machine. However, its horrifyingly slow, and I don't know why. Check out how Topbench is behaving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKrtuSP5FjU

I had decided to run Topbench after the Windows 98 setup was being alarmingly slow, and... IDK what the issue could be. Is the whole system just trash?

Below are the specs, if it helps:

Motherboard: Intel D815EEA
CPU: Intel Pentium 3 866MHz
RAM: 133mhz 512mb (I currently have only 2 matching 128mb sticks, but I've bought a very similar 256mb stick with IBM and hynix (like my existing sticks), so all three ram slots will be filled for 512mb of ram, the max the machine can use)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 VCGFX522APB (new sealed in box. Don't have it yet, so a diamond stealth s540 pci will be used in place, because it's what I have)
Sound Card: Aureal AU8830 Vortex 2 BA88ST30A-01
Ethernet: The onboard thing
Storage: CF2IDE and some SD2IDE thing. Also a DVD writer thing, and a gotek USB floppy emulator
Additional: some USB card with an NEC chip that can work in windows 98 apparently
PSU: Corsair RM750e

Reply 1 of 9, by theelf

Posted on 2026-03-13, 08:26

theelf Offline

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Maybe you have cache disabled in bios

Reply 2 of 9, by NeoG_

Posted on 2026-03-13, 08:26

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With performance that low, it seems like all caches have been disabled - Check the motherboard bios settings

98/DOS Rig: BabyAT AladdinV, K6-2+/550, V3 2000, 128MB PC100, 20GB HDD, 128GB SD2IDE, SB Live!, SB16-SCSI, PicoGUS, WP32 McCake, iNFRA CD, ZIP100
XP Rig: Lian Li PC-10 ATX, Gigabyte X38-DQ6, Core2Duo E6850, ATi HD5870, 2GB DDR2, 2TB HDD, X-Fi XtremeGamer

Reply 3 of 9, by Shadic95

Posted on 2026-03-13, 08:41

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The closest thing I can find to cache settings is if I change a jumper on the board to go into maintenance mode. These are the only things I see that I think could matter, but IDK if I should really change these...

Reply 4 of 9, by Thandor

Posted on 2026-03-13, 08:53

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Try minimising your system first: remove the audio and USB card and run with just one memory module. Make sure you run TOPBench in DOS Safe mode. Also try to reset the BIOS settings and verify if you’re running the latest BIOS version.

If possible try removing the SD2-storage devices and test without them, just to make sure there is nothing conflicting (in other words: minimise the configuration).

thandor.net - hardware
And the rest of us would be carousing the aisles, stuffing baloney.

Reply 5 of 9, by theelf

Posted on 2026-03-13, 08:57

theelf Offline

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Shadic95 wrote on 2026-03-13, 08:41:

The closest thing I can find to cache settings is if I change a jumper on the board to go into maintenance mode. These are the only things I see that I think could matter, but IDK if I should really change these...

boot in real DOS, and check with cpucache what say with cpucache, i add in attachment

The attachment cpucache.zip is no longer available

or ise, or whatever cache utility you like
Disabling CPU cache - ICD.EXE is unsafe and should not be used (alternatives given)

Reply 6 of 9, by Shadic95

Posted on 2026-03-13, 09:30

Shadic95 Offline

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Location: Texas

So, the fix is not what I expected. My motherboard was already reporting the latest BIOS, so I thought I didn't need to mess with it. As a hailmarry, I decided to reflash it with the latest BIOS, and... well, now it's running fine??? I mean, I'll take it, but I don't understand how reflashing the BIOS fixed it...

Here's what Topbench reports now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLem8tGe5R4

Reply 7 of 9, by NeoG_

Posted on 2026-03-13, 09:56

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All's well that ends well

Reply 8 of 9, by Jasin Natael

Posted on 2026-03-13, 15:58

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I have a system with that same board.
I've not had any of those issues but I did have some issues finding a BIOS version that was happy to properly identify a modified Tualatin.
Very stable board if not very tweakable.

Reply 9 of 9, by leonardo

Posted on 2026-03-13, 20:54

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Probably following the reflash, all configuration data was also reset - and whatever bottleneck might have existed got cleared by a return to 'factory defaults'.

[Install Win95 like you were born in 1985!] on systems like this or this.

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