Hello all,
I recently put a Newer MaxPowr G3/400 daughter card into my PowerCenter 150, and am loving it! Since the G3 card has a 1mb backside cache, I removed the 1mb cache SIMM I originally had in its motherboard slot.
I then noticed that the MaxPowr control panel gives me the following choices for motherboard cache: 1. On 2. Off 3. On if larger than backside
So I put the SIMM back in its slot, and selected "on", since it is not larger than the backside cache. I have not noticed any difference since putting the SIMM back...is there any advantage to leaving it in?
Because the motherboard cache is the same size or smaller than the backside cache, there is no advantage to having it installed, and it can cause a slight slow down. If it were larger, it could provide some performance improvement, hence the 'only if larger' option. For some PCI Macs, having one installed with a G3 card causes severe instability. I'd suggest pulling it or simply turning it off in the control panel.
Some incidental questions concerning the MaxPowr CP settings:
What would be the effect of changing the cache speed in the menu to faster or slower than the default 200 mHz(half of the 400 clock speed)? Advantages? Disadvantages?
Do NOT change the backside cache ratio. If you set it too fast, you will crash, and setting it slower will slow your system down.
How about the choice of "Write back - faster"(the default setting) vs.
"Write-through"? I guess faster is better, but guess I just would like to know what
these mean.
If you are having stability problems due to iffy RAM, sometimes setting the cache to 'Write through' solves them because it cause each write to memory to be executed independently.
The CP's default setting for "Memory timing optimization" is 70ns. I imagine some of my RAM DIMMs are 60ns, but can't remember ...some may be 70ns. Best to leave at 70ns setting?
Unless you are sure you have all 60ns memory and any interleaved RAM is with matched pairs, leave it at 70.
Most of these settings are there for tweakers. If you understand what you are doing and what push your system for all it is worth and put up with a little instability, go for it. If you want a smooth running computer, leave them as is.
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