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Author Topic: Slowdown With 128mb Ram  (Read 120 times)

elmerf

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Slowdown With 128mb Ram
« on: November 10, 2004, 10:34:00 PM »
I put a SmartXX v2 chip in a 1.4 Xbox, installed the usual, and everything was fine.

Debugging was a little slower than on a real devkit, but still extremely usable.

I sent the Xbox to FriendTech to have the ram upgraded to 128MB, and now everything is MUCH slower.

Both debugging and Xbox Neighborhood have slowed to a crawl.  They do still work correctly, but they are much, much slower.

Has anyone seen this?  Is there a known fix?

I seem to remember seeing a post somewhere mentioning that CPU cachable-region is only set to 64MB on a retail box, can anyone confirm this?

Thanx.
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elmerf

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Slowdown With 128mb Ram
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2004, 02:00:00 PM »
For future reference ... the problem was in the CPU's MTRR register settings in the BIOS startup code.

Comparing Cromwell's startup code with Gueux's was enough to find the problem.
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dhau

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Slowdown With 128mb Ram
« Reply #2 on: November 22, 2004, 01:47:00 PM »
Hi elmerf,

Thanks for the great findings. I ordered extra DRAM to upgrade my box to 128M a while ago. If I won't be scammed by seller, I'll hopefully solder the four extra dram chips to my 1.1 motherboard.

Could you please provide your recomendations as to which debug bios is the best for 128M systems?

Thank you in advance!
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elmerf

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Slowdown With 128mb Ram
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2004, 10:35:00 PM »
AFAIK none by default.

You can modify the TATX debug BIOS to initialize the 128MB properly, the tools that you need are on xbins.

I'm afraid that I can't go into any more detail, for various reasons.

If you're an experienced programmer, then I've given you enough information to fix the problem.  If you're not, then you probably don't need the extra memory, and I'd advise you to leave your system at 64MB.

I'm not trying to be insulting, but really, you can do a LOT of fun stuff within the 64MB.

If you really want the 128MB, then my information, plus xbins, plus the knowledge on the xbox-linux site, will together allow you to make a BIOS that will work.
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dhau

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Slowdown With 128mb Ram
« Reply #4 on: November 25, 2004, 11:07:00 AM »
Thanks a lot for the clues. I think I'll be fine. I also consider to try and add a switch, which would disable four extra dram chips, so it will be switching between 64 and 128 Megabytes.

This post has been edited by dhau: Nov 25 2004, 07:08 PM
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cykiller

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Slowdown With 128mb Ram
« Reply #5 on: November 30, 2004, 09:53:00 AM »
QUOTE (dhau @ Nov 25 2004, 02:39 PM)
Thanks a lot for the clues. I think I'll be fine. I also consider to try and add a switch, which would disable four extra dram chips, so it will be switching between 64 and 128 Megabytes.

That would be pointless, as most if not all MS excutable files defaults are set to 64. Use elfs method for debug with 128. Other than that, it's a pointless project.

:evil:
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