I noticed a jumper on my a3000 motherboard to change the memory timing between 16 and 25 mhz. So I thought what would happen if I set it to 16mhz timing while running at 25mhz. So, I changed the jumper - and the machine refused to boot. I did some quick math and determined that if 25mhz timing required 80ns ram, running at 16mhz timing would require close to 50ns ram. Obviously the 80ns ram I had wasn't fast enough. I found some 60ns 256x4 FPM dip ram from an old pc video card. I swapped the memory out for the 60ns ones and hoped it would be close enough. With the 60ns ram, the machine booted up and seemed to work fine. I ram some memory tests for 30min and no errors detected!!! The speed at FPM/16mhz timing is even faster than the static column I previously had - see benchmark below.
Relative speed as tested by sysinfo 3.24
25mhz FPM 1.00
25mhz Static Column 1.08
25mhz FPM - 16mhz timing 1.12
I still have a set of 8 60ns chips if anyone is interested...
