AMD K6-2/500 slower thank AMD K6-333

[qnerd]

I purchased a bare-bones AMD K6-2/500 based system with integrated video & sound last August to be used for a Linux DNS/APACHE server. Situations changed and I no longer required the Linux box so I decided to replace my AMD K6-2/333 with the new system. I installed Win2K and everything works but it was really slow. So I decided to upgrade to a faster HD, WD 30GB 100MHz, 7200 RPM. This is when I realized something was dreadfully wrong with the system. The WD drive included a floppy disk to configure the HD. This disk takes over two minutes to boot on the 500 but only 25 seconds on the 333. I proceeded to remove all cards and the HD from the 500 and test booting it again. It still took over two minutes. I then disconnected the HD in the 333 and tried booting. Again 25 seconds. I also installed Win98 on the 500 and carefully studied to the boot process. When booting there would be some I/O for about 5-10 seconds and then none for over 30 seconds. I removed the heat sink fearing that I had the wrong processor but it was labeled appropriately. I then reseated the processor just in case that was the problem. Boot time still over two minutes. I also went through the BIOS to ensure the PNP CPU was set to 500MHz and looked for anything out of the ordinary with no success.

Any ideas what the problem might be?

Thanks,

Qnerd

 

[Guest]

There is really annoying boot delay on Win98 SE2 on both my laptop and desktop. Both are Celery A with BX chipset based. The delay (about 30 sec) happens always when the network card is installed and configured on Windows, and there is no network available.

This can be tested by disabling n/w interface from current hardware profile and rebooting.

The ethernet does not explain slow bootup time with the config floppy. Has anybody got any more ideas?

What kind of integrated chipset do you have on the 500? How does the machine perform once it has finished booting Win?

Sami

 

[qnerd]

I'm not for sure about the MB chipset. I'll have to check it this evening. Once the system has booted into 98 it is quite sluggish. My 333 is faster. I had similar results with NT 2K.

Qnerd

 

[hammerhead]

Does your motherboard have an integrated Network card? As mentioned earlier that explains the pause during boot-up.

Is the system sluggish before you install the correct video/audio/UDMA drivers in Windows? (I'm assuming Windows isn't installing them automatically).

The integrated socket7 boards tend to hit performance a little but not to the extent you are suffering.

The only similar problem I've seen resulted from the cache being set to writethrough instead of writeback in the BIOS. But that was years ago on a 486, don't think it could apply to newer machinery.

 

[karl]

As people have said previously, the network search that Windows performs during boot up, is quite likely to be the cause of your 30 second delay.
However that does not explain why the same hard disk problem should take over 4 times as long to run/install on a quicker computer. Although it may seem daft, I've seen a huge difference in the performance of different floppy drives which may account for this difference in loading times, but unlikely.
You also said that the general speed of the computer seemed to be a little sluggish in comparison, which is interesting. My only thought, that would cause this kind of performance degradation, would be the disabling of either the L1 or L2 cache. Although other settings in the BIOS would cause the computer not to run at optimum speed, such as memory timings, but not to such an extent to actually cause such a hit in performance.
So my only suggestion would be to check that neither the L1 no the L2 cache are disabled. Failing that.... try swapping components from one computer to another, and see if you can find any parts that are causing your quicker computer to run slower

Best Regards,
Karl

 

[qnerd]

The MB is a generic PC100 SYSTEMBOARD. It is Super Socket 7 (M598LMR). The mainboard uses the SiS530 chipset.

 

[qnerd]

The MB has the option for an integrated NIC (add-on board to MB) but I do not have one.

It is slow before and after the additional drivers are added.

 

[qnerd]

Thanks for you input on this problem. I just had the case off to check the chipset and when I tried turning it on all I get is a blank screen. I haven't had the unit on since last Thursday, the day I took it to the shop because of excessive slowness. The guy pushes me into a TBird upgrade because he doesn't have any replacements and I agree to try a new system but the benchmarks are terrible. 7 MBytes/sec seq disk read (I have a ATA-100 7200 RPM drive)!! I take it back the following day and get my money and my previously booting piece of crap. Keep in mind I have a 1 yr parts/labor on this unit and I was upgrading as a favor. This guy refuses to fix or replace the unit!!! Now it doesn't boot. Maybe I can get VISA to resolve this!

Again thanks for your help.