On  3 Feb 98 at 19:32, Tom Kelly wrote:

> Regarding this subject, I want to know the same info on my Micron
> Millenia(12/95)133.
>
> It has a Micronics M54Hi motherboard.(MB754-70057)(09-00236-36-REV
> B2) Phoenix Bios 4.04, M-M54Hi-9PM(This is the bios with the HD
> cylinder head calculation glitch in it.  Can't recoginze drives in
> the 3.276G to 4.0?G range)
>
> The chipset, 82430FX consists ot the 82437FX System
> Controller(66mhz), Two 82438FX Data Paths, and the 82371FB PCI ISA
> IDE Xcelerator(PIIX)(33mhz???)
>
> From what I have been able to learn the 82437FX supports 128M of
> main memory.

> Why would the 82437FX be rated at 66mhz and the 82371FB rated at
> 33mhz?

  The system controller has to run at motherboard speed: 50, 60 or 66
MHz.  [Some motherboards will also do 75 and 83 MHz.]  The PCI
"Xcelerator" only needs to run at PCI speeds, which were only ever 33
MHz when the 430FX chipset was current.  [There is now a 66 MHz PCI
spec; your chipset can't handle it.]

> The MB has a 12ns 256k SRAM.(L2 cache?)

  Right.

> Also two MT58LC32K36D7LG chips.  The best I can discover is that
> each is a 7.5ns 1Megabit Syncronous SRAM.   What do these do?

  Hmmm.  I make these out as 32Kx36 bits; i.e., 128KB with parity.
Two of those sounds like 256K of L2 cache.  But I presume your 12ns
rating above comes from some other components.  Is one of these a
COAST (Cache On A STick) module?  I know some VX boards came with
256K cache on board, but inserting a COAST module (256K or 512K)
would disable the onboard cache.  Not familiar enough with FX....

>   So what will happen to the operation of my computer when I go
> from 24Meg of main memory to 80Meg?

  You have probably seen lots of messages about how the VX and TX
chipsets don't cache above 64MB.  Well, I believe the equivalent
limit on the FX is 32MB.

>   Also, I thought this chipset would support busmastering, but in
> Settings/Control Panel/System/Hard Disk Controllers/Intel PIIX PCI
> IDE Controller...Bus Mastering Not Supported?????

  I believe Intel's bus-mastering drivers support PIIX2, PIIX3 and
PIIX4.  Yours may be the original PIIX.  You might see if you have
better luck with bus-mastering drivers from "Triones".

David G


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