Athlon L2 Cache *FIXED*

[Kyle]

Hey-
Just checking if this is normal.
First off, i am having horrible performance problems, so I thought i would check if this might be the reason.
I am using an Athlon 500@650 running off a Gigabyte 7IX mobo. When I run AMD's CPU info, it list's my L2cache as 0. Is this normal? In my bios, both CPU internal and external cache were enabled.
LMK if u have any info.
Thanks
-Kyle

 

[Deeko]

Well, I'd say it's not normal....classic Athlon's have 512K.

 

[Kyle]

Yeah, seems weird to me too...I have tried many diff. CPU id type programs and they all report me as having 0 L2cache...any ideas on how to fix this?

 

[BurntKooshie]

doh. nm. i didn't read it closely enough 🙁

Erm....have you tried using wcpuid to see if it see's the cache?

 

[Kyle]

It reports 0k bytes of L2cache...think i got a problem here...

 

[ltk007]

Some motherboards allow for you to disable L2 cache. Make sure you have your L2 cache on.

 

[Kyle]

Processor 1 : AMD Athlon (Model 1) / AD99C73B
: AMD-K7(tm) Processor
Platform : Slot A (SC242 Connector)
Vendor ID : AuthenticAMD
Type ID : 0 (0)
Family ID : 6 (7)
Model ID : 1 (1)
Stepping ID : 2 (2)
Brand ID : 0 (0)

Clock Frequency
Internal : 648.74 MHz
External : 199.61 MHz DDR
Multiplier : 6.5

L1 I-Cache : 64K
L1 D-Cache : 64K
L1 T-Cache : ---
L2 Cache : 0K Byte
L2 Speed : 1/2 H2 (1/2 H2, 1/2 S2)
L3 Cache : ---

MMX : Supported
SIMD : Not Supported
3DNow! : Supported

Machine : IBM PC/AT
Version : Windows 98 Version 4.10.2222 A


<< Cache Info. / Processor 1 >>

[L1 Instruction TLB]
2-Mbyte/4-Mbyte Pages, fully associative, 8 entries
4-Kbyte Pages, fully associative, 16 entries

[L1 Data TLB]
2-Mbyte/4-Mbyte Pages, 4-way set associative, 8 entries
4-Kbyte Pages, fully associative, 24 entries

[L1 Instruction cache]
64K byte cache size, 2-way set associative, 64 byte line size, 1 line par tag

[L1 Data cache]
64K byte cache size, 2-way set associative, 64 byte line size, 1 line par tag

[L2 cache]
0K byte cache size, Off, 0 byte line size, 0 line par tag

[L2 Instruction/TLB]
2-Mbyte/4-Mbyte Pages, Off, 0 entries
4-Kbyte Pages, 4-way set associative, 256 entries

[L2 Data TLB]
2-Mbyte/4-Mbyte Pages, Off, 0 entries
4-Kbyte Pages, 4-way set associative, 256 entries


That's what I got from it...

Yeah, my mobo lets me turn it on/off...That was one of the first things I checked, it was enabled.

 

[Kyle]

Man...fixed the problem.
Went to actually an older bios, and poof...my cache came back =)
It really is amazing how much L2 cache helps =)
went from 1998 3dmarks to over 4000 or them =)
thanks for the help guys

 

[Comp625]

Wow! So L2 Cache was nonexistant. How much performance did it hamper?

btw, I like this new Reply Layout with all the buttons and stuff. Kinda reminds me of a small MS Word type program 😛

 

[Toonces311]

Kyle,
Stay away from the f2 bios for your Gigabyte! It disables the L2 cache. I recomend going with the f3 bios. It is not on the Gigabyte USA site but can be found on the China site.
f3 bios

If you want, you can even try the beta f4a bios. I have been using the beta for about two months and find that it works the best.
f4a beta

 

[Kyle]

Ya wanna know the really pathetic part?
I have been using it like this for months =)
Didnt know why the hell the performance was so bad =)
now its workin.
Toonces- Thanks for the links, I'll try them out