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Date:      Thu, 1 Jul 1999 18:48:37 -0500 (CDT)
From:      "M. L. Dodson" <bdodson@beowulf.utmb.edu>
To:        Arcady Genkin <a.genkin@utoronto.ca>
Cc:        Guy Helmer <ghelmer@scl.ameslab.gov>, "M. L. Dodson" <bdodson@beowulf.utmb.edu>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD is painfully slow on my 486
Message-ID:  <199907012348.SAA00362@wotan.611.chedworth.hou.tx.us>
In-Reply-To: <879090rlwr.fsf@main.wgaf.net>
References:  <Pine.SGI.4.10.9907011656050.19092-100000@demios.scl.ameslab.gov> <879090rlwr.fsf@main.wgaf.net>

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Arcady Genkin writes:
 > Guy Helmer <ghelmer@scl.ameslab.gov> writes:
 > 
 > > I noticed a severe slowdown on some 486's after adding more memory. In
 > > particular, one 486 with 16MB RAM running FreeBSD 2.x slowed to crawl when
 > > I added 4MB of RAM.  I seem to remember a similar slowdown when going from
 > > 16MB to 32MB of RAM on a similar 486 running Netware 3.11.  In both cases,
 > > I suspect that the level two cache implemented on the motherboard was only
 > > able to cache the lower 16MB of RAM.  So, I tend to suspect the cache in
 > > your case.
 > > 

But the 386SX had no cache, and, I'm not misrepresenting
things, it was faster than the 486 on bonnie, and with IDE vs
busmastering SCSI (VLB BusLogic) on the 486.

 > > Is the 486 an Intel, or another brand?  There are a couple of Cyrix kernel
 > > config options that have to do with cache (see the LINT config file).
 > 

Mine was a very early genuine Intel DX-25.

 > It's an Intel DX4. But the way you explain it should make no
 > difference what OS runs the computer -- it should be just as slow
 > under Linux as it is under FBSD, right? But this isn't the case here. :^|
 > 

Yes, the slowdown was also obvious (even more so) under Windows
(3.1, I think).  If you have no hardware changes to accompany the
change to FBSD, then obviously this is not applicable.

Not that it affects the point I was trying to make, but the
memory upgrade I talked about was 16MB -> 32MB, not 8->16 (just so
people did not think I was putting in 16 1MB 30pin SIMMS).


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