128 to 256 megs? Asus P5A-B

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Cthulhu8u
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128 to 256 megs? Asus P5A-B

Post by Cthulhu8u »

Hi all,

I know there are a few P5A-B owners out there. Could I hear some suggestions on whether to add more RAM to the motherboard? Should I stay at 128M or double it to 256 (2x128Mb DIMMs)?
The motherboard only has 512K L2 cache, so as far as I know this may be a bottleneck if I put anything more than what it has now.

I use the computer mostly for the internet, and an occasional game. I also have Win98SE installed.

TIA
ASUS P5A-B rev 1.04 (bios 1011 beta 02)
AMD K6-2+ 500
256 Mb RAM
3Dfx Voodoo 4 4500
Maxtor 6Gb HD
LG 52x CD-RW
SyQuest EZ 135 internal drive
D-Link DFE-530TX+ NIC
Generic PCI Soundcard
Lots of stickers...
Jim
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Post by Jim »

Somebody else here can give you a more definitive answer, but I'll tell you what little I know. I ran my SP3 (XP- 98 dualboot ) machine on one of those boards for quite a while using 768 Meg of ram. That is way too much for top speed, but it did allow me to have an enormous number of windows open silmultaneously without freezing. The board can only cache 128 meg of ram, but Win 98 can use up to a max of 256, and will gain some speed up to that point according to the benchmark numbers that I got from the "Sysinfo" applet within Norton Utilities 2000. More than 256 starts slowing you down, because Win 98 can't use more than 256, though it can recognize and report more; and the extra ram is just a drag on system resourses to keep refreshed. At least I THINK thats why it slows down . (XP however, can use all the ram that you throw at it, - which justified the 768)
Last edited by Jim on Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
DasMan2

Post by DasMan2 »

I think the computer really only handles the ram well with lots of cache....somewhere, on-board , on-die ..anywhere, proper TAG chip too.

Persons I know owed a E-machine that was AMD K-2 333 mhz and stuck in 320 megs ram cause a 256 stick was dirt cheap at the time.

He mentioned that it was very slow now ...I said yeah , you overloaded the optimum capacity of the system (win 98 ..not S/E) , I told him a Amd K6-2 "+" or AMD K6-III would help . The "+" CPU I had did not get seen by the BIOS , but the K6-III was good and the answer.
It performed much snappier and no lags in changing around in the system. (A better hard drive would of helped also)

A AMD K6-III 450"+" and a 1 mb on-board cache motherboard is heavenly (not heaven ,,but up there :) )
nk
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Post by nk »

AFAIK, the amount of cacheable RAM-area depends by chipset and the amount of the cache memory, and differs from chipset to chipset. Your motherboard Asus P5A-B has ALi Alladin V chipset, and as mentioned here:

http://www.stud.fernuni-hagen.de/q39981 ... .html#ali5

it will handle up to 512 MB RAM with 512 KB cache.

Please fix me if i'm wrong.
AMD K6-III 400 MHz (66x6)
GigaByte GA-586S2 512K cache
256 MB SDRAM PC100
Riva TNT2 M64 PCI 32 MB
Creative Ensoniq PCI
10 GB Samsung UDMA/33
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Cthulhu8u
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Post by Cthulhu8u »

Thanks for all the suggestions so far!
Jim wrote:Somebody else here can give you a more definitive answer, but I'll tell you what little I know. I ran my SP3 (XP- 98 dualboot ) machine on one of those boards for quite a while using 768 Meg of ram.
How much L2 cache did this motherboard have? Who manufactured that mobo anyway?
Jim wrote:The board can only cache 128 meg of ram, but Win 98 can use up to a max of 256, and will gain some speed up to that point according to the benchmark numbers that I got from the "Sysinfo" applet within Norton Utilities 2000. More than 256 starts slowing you down, because Win 98 can't use more than 256, though it can recognize and report more; and the extra ram is just a drag on system resourses to keep refreshed. At least I THINK thats why it slows down .
This is what I am thinking also, I think I will give it a try. I also like DasMan's suggestion about getting a "+" or "III" because of the on-die cache, that might help. Of course I'd have to find one first :cry:

Any more suggestions or experiences would be welcome.
ASUS P5A-B rev 1.04 (bios 1011 beta 02)
AMD K6-2+ 500
256 Mb RAM
3Dfx Voodoo 4 4500
Maxtor 6Gb HD
LG 52x CD-RW
SyQuest EZ 135 internal drive
D-Link DFE-530TX+ NIC
Generic PCI Soundcard
Lots of stickers...
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Wiggy
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Post by Wiggy »

Were bouts you from Ct?

K6-2+ are fairly easy to come by on E-Bay in the UK. K6-III+ are like rocking horse poo. :wink:
SOLTEK rocks!
Jim
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Post by Jim »

I did say "one of those boards" - meaning the same one you have. Asus P5A-B w/ 512k cache - Rev 104 (in my case). And Guys if you are willing to spend the money , "UpgradeAbility" will fix you up w/ a K6-3+ACZ 450. They sell them in two ways.
1) Brand New Untested.
2) Brand New Tested - Burned In at full load for 12 hours - Guaranteed to clock 600 MHz at 2.1v.
(Apparantly about 33% pass their test)

Re the amount of ram these boards can cache, there seems to be a conflict of opinion amoung people better qualified than me to say. I read N.K.s post and read the article he provided a link to. A conflicting opinion may be found at :

http://www.duxcw.com/digest /Reviews/MBs/Asus/p5a-b.htm
gardener
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Post by gardener »

I remember, loosely, the details of the RAM versus cacheable area discussion from the old AMDzone K6 forum.

But the server crashed and all the old posts are gone.

Details...512kb cacheable handles alot of memory. The cacheable area is not the bottleneck...your OS is.

As far as I know, 256mb of RAM under win98 optimal. You are safe.
nk
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Post by nk »

It really looks like different sources of information provide different information about same problem.

Two years ago, i put two 128 MB sticks into my motherboard with SiS 5597 chipset, and it really was slooooooooow... I've tried to becnhmark: compilling a custom linux kernel takes about 20 minutes with 256 MB RAM and about 13 minutes when linux is booted with option to use only 64 MB RAM.

As i know, M$ Windows manages RAM in strange manner: it uses highest memory pages first, which means if you have more memory than your chipset can cache, it will be noticeable slower, because windows will use uncached area first.

I will try to find one proggy which tells EXACT cacheable area of currently used chipset. I;ve used it before, but i must dig into my brain to remember... will post later.
AMD K6-III 400 MHz (66x6)
GigaByte GA-586S2 512K cache
256 MB SDRAM PC100
Riva TNT2 M64 PCI 32 MB
Creative Ensoniq PCI
10 GB Samsung UDMA/33
Jim
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Post by Jim »

Nik: This might be off the wall, remember, rookie talk here; but is it possible that Windows actually runs your applications faster that way ? i.e. by loading its own fat butt into uncached ram, and saving cached ram for your applications. That is the only reason I can think of for them doing it the way you say they do.

Also if you could find the program you mentioned that would be great. I had always based my opinion about the amount of ram a mobo could cache on the simple formula that for every 512k of cache the board has, 128 meg of ram can be cached.

You are telling us it's is more complicated than that and I am inclined to go along with that. (My experience has been that things are always more complicated than they seem).
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Cthulhu8u
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Post by Cthulhu8u »

Jim wrote:And Guys if you are willing to spend the money , "UpgradeAbility" will fix you up w/ a K6-3+ACZ 450.
Whoa that stuff is pricey! :lol:
Jim wrote:I read N.K.s post and read the article he provided a link to. A conflicting opinion may be found at :

http://www.duxcw.com/digest /Reviews/MBs/Asus/p5a-b.htm
This is the general belief I had also. 512Kb=128Mb maximum cachable ram.
Lo and behold, I read the manual and it actually had a useful bit of info (go figure). If you install more than 128M, you apparently need to run the bus below 95Mhz.

Wiggy, I'm in Canada, and I have never Ebayed before. Don't know that I ever will either. :wink:
ASUS P5A-B rev 1.04 (bios 1011 beta 02)
AMD K6-2+ 500
256 Mb RAM
3Dfx Voodoo 4 4500
Maxtor 6Gb HD
LG 52x CD-RW
SyQuest EZ 135 internal drive
D-Link DFE-530TX+ NIC
Generic PCI Soundcard
Lots of stickers...
Jim
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Joined: Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:10 pm
Location: Toronto

Memory Usage

Post by Jim »

Nik is right about the way Windows uses memory. What he said rang a bell, and I remembered something that I saw while nosing around within XP. Went digging.

Control Panel\Performance and Maintenance\See Basic Information About Your Computer\Advanced\Performance\Settings\Advanced\Memory Usage

Thats how you get there. What you find is two settings.

Adjust for best performance of : 1) Programs 2) System Cache

The default is : 1) Programs.

I think therefore that I am also right in saying that the reason that Windows loads into uncached memory first, is to stick it's own fat butt into uncached memory, and thereby save cached memory for your application programs.

But this has interesting implications. First you might be able to make Windows start loading from the other end of memory, i.e. cached memory, by selecting the : "2) System Cache" memory option. Second depending on how much ram you have; and how much of it is cached, you might get way better performance by selecting that option.

Right now my Win 98 boot isn't set up on this machine, because I am stuck on solving a problem relating to what I believe are "Boot Track Errors", but when I get that sorted out, I will be looking to see if Win98-SE has similar adjustable memory settings.

Thanks Nik , You just gave me an idea that might seriously speed up my machine.
Last edited by Jim on Sat Aug 14, 2004 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jim
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Post by Jim »

I am a slow typer. You snuck that in while I was typing the one that followed. Now that too is interesting. "Reduce the FSB below 95" I mean. I never did. I ran my 768 meg of PC133 with aggressive 222 timings using the 100 FSB setting.

Now you are making me wonder if I got away with that because I was using PC133, or if that means that you have to reduce the FSB speed to get the 512 Meg cacheable ram that Nik is talking about. Don't know; - another area for potentially fruitful experimentation.
Last edited by Jim on Sat Aug 14, 2004 4:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.
nk
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Post by nk »

Um, i cannot look at windows stuff, because i'm using linux only.
The proggie i remembered of is the memtest86 - www.memtest86.com
During the test, it says the amount of tested RAM and the next field is "Cached", which in my case is the same size as the RAM in my pc. If someone can put lot of RAM in system with CPU w/o L2 and run the memtest, maybe we will figure out is it really the amount of cached memory that it shows or not. I looked in the source of memtest86, but it has not comments about this stuff.
AMD K6-III 400 MHz (66x6)
GigaByte GA-586S2 512K cache
256 MB SDRAM PC100
Riva TNT2 M64 PCI 32 MB
Creative Ensoniq PCI
10 GB Samsung UDMA/33
nk
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Post by nk »

The following lines in the memtest's changelog makes me really think that it reports the cacheable RAM:
Enhancements in v2.5 (13/Dec/00)

Enhanced CPU and cache detection to correctly identify Duron CPU and K6-III 1mb cache.
Added code to report cache-able memory size.
Offtopic:
Now i'm starting to dig Google about "k6-iii and 1 MB cache". Is it possible to exist limited quantity of K6-III's with such huge cache size ?
AMD K6-III 400 MHz (66x6)
GigaByte GA-586S2 512K cache
256 MB SDRAM PC100
Riva TNT2 M64 PCI 32 MB
Creative Ensoniq PCI
10 GB Samsung UDMA/33
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