4 athlon guru's

[elleon30033]

if you even understand this question, consider yourself a computer guru cause this one is way over my head. I recently downloaded an H. Oda program that allows me to get details on the operation of my L1 and L2 cache on this 1ghz slot a athlon classic i have. THe prog is wcpuid and this Oda guy is some kinda wizard, man this guy is amazing. Anyway, the program shows that my "tlb", translation lookaside buffers are off in my L2 cache (L1 is fine). Both the instruction and the data TLB's are off with no entries for the 2M/4M byte pages in my L2 cache. Does this mean i am not using my L2 cache at all?
What might cause this reading? Am i taking a performance hit as a result? How can i correct this problem? I wish i could attach the results ...would i run into copyright issues if i do? any help would mean a lot. thanks:confused:

[Shent]

Spec.

[elleon30033]

oooook, i'm assuming you mean system specs. 1 ghz athlon classic processor, 12.6 and 8 ghz matrox/fujitsu hd's, rage 128 xpert 2000 w/32mb @ 100chip/105mem, dvd hitachi, mitsumi cdrw, 512mb 133 RAM, compaq headphone/mic, intel webcam, canon bj printer, altec speakers...onboard sound...MSI 6191a MOBO with AMI v 1.6 bios flashed recently to accomodate the 1ghz athlon, EV 700 gateway monitor...that bout does it...

[elleon30033]

maybe this will make it clearer. if you don't see an attachment, i blew it....

[gibsinep]

looks like u blew it

[elleon30033]

Gib, very funny. I don't know what happened. i Tried to post the wcpuid chart from a copy i made to a floppy. It would only copy as a word document and i tried to upload it as *.* soooooo go figure. Now, can you answer the question or are you cutting another hole in your case for another fan? ROTFLMAO...J/K, really, why is my L2 cache off?:(

[gibsinep]

No i dont knwo the answer at the moment. I am done cutitng holes in my case for know. When u can cool a t-bird 1.33 to 30C Idle and 35C fUll for 9 dollars and the use of a dremal. Then u can make fun of my cooling

[elleon30033]

I have an athlon 1ghz classic running @ 1.8 v. I would never make fun of your cooling (that is serious business). I was just trying to get a laugh outta you .....

[gibsinep]

Well Mission accomplished i luaghed

LOL

[elleon30033]

Ok, now, would the guy working on his masters in computer science specializing in CPU architecture please give this the once over and tell me why why why....LOL, man i wanna solve this so i can move on to the next puter problem. This one has got me stuck HELP!!!!!!!!:D

[bigparsnip]

I think this is normal, as all of the chips I tried it on come up with the same thing, but I dont realy think it is of any concern.

What I think it might be related to is something I remeber reading when the athlons were first introduced many moons ago. It was incorperated into their design, that they could cope with huge level two cache moemories of about 8Mb (I think, it may be about half that, but I cant be bothered to look for the article). So all of the athlons have the ablility to address more than the 256kb of L2 cache they have, but as there is not this ammont installed. the memory pages are disables, or just inactive. So there is nothing wrong with your CPU, it is dooing just what it should.

PS. I'm not doing a marsters in compiter science, but I am reading engineering at cambridge, and I have done a bit on microprocessors and digital circuit design;)

[elleon30033]

Bigparsnip, thanks alot. I have the athlon classic with 512k L2 @ 1/3 speed but i understand exactly what you are saying. It was very well explained and i appreciate you taking the time to make it clear. Best of luck with your studies and you really should think about elect. engineering if it is still an option. You seem to have a true aptitude for it. Whew, i'm relieved (now let's see what we can explore next on this puter...LOL)

[Shent]

Ok sorry it took so long to get back to you i had to go look for that info. Your systems fine and everything is as it should be
Panic over.

Shent.