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I have a motherboard that uses an Intel Triton II 430HX motherboard, which is supposed to support caching over 64 MB of RAM, but my PC still slows down with more than 64 MB

Explanation: The system uses the Intel Triton II 430HX chipset in its motherboard, which is designed to allow caching of over 64 MB of memory. However, the system exhibits a slowdown when using more than 64 MB of RAM, similar to how a board that only caches a maximum of 64 MB would slow down in this situation.

Diagnosis: Unfortunately, once again, "el cheapo motherboard syndrome" is probably to blame. While the 430HX chipset supports caching up to 512 MB of RAM, it only does this if an optional second tag RAM chip is added to the motherboard, or if a larger single RAM chip is used in the first place. Some vendors do not add this chip, in order to save a buck or two. It is sometimes possible to correct this situation.

Note: How much actual cache you have doesn't affect directly how much memory you can cache. Even if you have 512 KB of cache, this doesn't mean you can cache more RAM than if you only had 256 KB. See here for more on this little-known limitation.

Recommendation:

• Check the motherboard and manual to figure out whether your board has the 11-bit tag RAM that is required for 512 MB of cached RAM. If it doesn't then continue here for possible solutions.
• If you do have the tag RAM, then there is either a problem with the components, or something is misconfigured. Troubleshoot the system memory and troubleshoot the cache to make sure that there isn't some sort of problem that is responsible for the slowdown.
• Troubleshoot the motherboard.

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