Amiga.org

Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: ciVic on August 26, 2013, 08:52:13 AM

Title: Slow a4000/040
Post by: ciVic on August 26, 2013, 08:52:13 AM
Hi all,

I am wondering about the speed of my Amiga, it feels somehow slow. So I ran Sysinfo to see if everything works fine. As you can see in the attachments, it is very slow. But when I boot without startup-sequence speed is as expected (my 040er is overclocked). So there is a driver or anything that slows the Amiga down, or Sysinfo does not work. Does somebody know what it could be?
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: AmmoJammo on August 26, 2013, 09:03:01 AM
Why does sysinfo report the CPU as being at a different speed in each photo?
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: amiga1260 on August 26, 2013, 09:13:27 AM
Look in the user-startup and startup-sequence for someting that slows your 040.

Years ago a friend of my also has slowdowns with his Blizzard 1260. I simply input CPU cache in the startup-sequence and the 060 has its speed again.

What sort of expansions does your A4000 have?
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: magnetic on August 26, 2013, 09:27:47 AM
Def sounds like a problem in your SS sequence. Open an editor and post results here.
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: ciVic on August 26, 2013, 09:55:55 AM
Quote from: AmmoJammo;746303
Why does sysinfo report the CPU as being at a different speed in each photo?


I don't know. It should be 33.

I have 16 MB on board and a Mediator with Realtek 100 mbit and a Radeon 9250. Since the slowdown also happens without loading the Radeo Monitor I assume it is not the gfx card. But I will check the startup-sequence.
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: AmmoJammo on August 26, 2013, 11:13:53 AM
Quote from: ciVic;746308
I don't know. It should be 33.

do you mean 36? :crazy:
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: carls on August 26, 2013, 11:45:28 AM
Quote from: AmmoJammo;746313
do you mean 36? :crazy:


It's pretty common that SysInfo reports the wrong clock frequency. For example, when I had a 40MHz 040 it was reported as 44.40 MHz.
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: psxphill on August 26, 2013, 11:56:35 AM
Quote from: AmmoJammo;746303
Why does sysinfo report the CPU as being at a different speed in each photo?

VBR is different too. Something is way different between the two pictures.
 
It's not actually possible for sysinfo to know what your clock speed is. It just guesses and lots of things can affect that guess.
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: AmmoJammo on August 26, 2013, 12:00:05 PM
What is the VBR anyway? I saw it was different, but don't know what it is :p
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: carls on August 26, 2013, 12:17:34 PM
It almost looks as if fastmem isn't utilized when booting with startup-sequence.
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: nicholas on August 26, 2013, 12:57:00 PM
Post both your s:startup-sequence and your s:user-startup here.

Also post the output of 'version 68040.library' and 'showconfig' too.
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: spirantho on August 26, 2013, 02:17:17 PM
It looks like it's running in Chip RAM or Zorro II RAM, or some other very-slow-RAM. I'm wondering about the Mediator - I've never had one (Prometheus here), but I believe you can use the graphics card RAM as Fast RAM which will be very slow to read from (graphics card RAM is very fast write, very slow read). I assume you'd need to load the driver to enable this, but may be worth checking.

The first thing I would suggest is to find out what the highest priority RAM is in your system; I believe ShowConfig should tell you that (from memory)?

Edit: Also, what version is your SetPatch?
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: psxphill on August 26, 2013, 02:20:34 PM
Quote from: AmmoJammo;746316
What is the VBR anyway? I saw it was different, but don't know what it is :p

It's where the interrupt vectors are stored. Interrupts will be processed quicker if the vectors are in fast ram than chip ram, because fast ram is quicker.
 
If the vbr is different then when it was allocated the machine was in a different state.
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: ChaosLord on August 26, 2013, 04:11:37 PM
@ciVic

Either your fastram got turned off (or it is broken) or your CPU cache(s) got turned off.

Either one will drastically drop the speed of your computer.

Or maybe you removed your fastram and forgot to put it back in?
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: ChaosLord on August 26, 2013, 04:14:37 PM
@ciVic

My theory is this:

You told the Mediator to add 128MB of your gfx card RAM as fastram and you gave this ram a waaaay too high priority.

This is the essentially the same thing as turning off your REAL fastram.

The gfx card RAM needs to have a very low priority.  Or at least it needs to be 1 less than your real fastram.  Go for 5 or 20 less so you don't have this problem again when you buy an accelerator card.
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: nicholas on August 26, 2013, 05:08:04 PM
Quote from: ChaosLord;746331
@ciVic

My theory is this:

You told the Mediator to add 128MB of your gfx card RAM as fastram and you gave this ram a waaaay too high priority.

This is the essentially the same thing as turning off your REAL fastram.

The gfx card RAM needs to have a very low priority.  Or at least it needs to be 1 less than your real fastram.  Go for 5 or 20 less so you don't have this problem again when you buy an accelerator card.


+1

I agree, that sounds like the most probable cause other than something in is startup-sequence turning off the CPU caches.
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: mechy on August 26, 2013, 05:52:07 PM
Quote from: ciVic;746302
Hi all,

I am wondering about the speed of my Amiga, it feels somehow slow. So I ran Sysinfo to see if everything works fine. As you can see in the attachments, it is very slow. But when I boot without startup-sequence speed is as expected (my 040er is overclocked). So there is a driver or anything that slows the Amiga down, or Sysinfo does not work. Does somebody know what it could be?

Are the motherboard and mediator jumpers set right?

it sounds as if it is using chip ram and not fast ram.
Title: Re: Slow a4000/040
Post by: ciVic on August 26, 2013, 08:50:38 PM
Thx all! I have it! ShowConfig showed that sometimes I only have 3.5MB onboard fast RAM. I didn't noticed that with all the gfx mem. So I thought blizkick could be the problem or a driver since sometimes I have the full 16MB. But then I noticed a yellow screen during boot. So my fast RAM was not correctly inserted. I think that happend when I inserted the Mediator. Now my system is much faster, but 16MB is not very much and gcc needs very much. So thank you again.