M919 Fake Cache and Reproduction L2 COASt Modules

Recently I got this Quantex 486DX computer with a PC Chips/Alpina M919 v3.3B/F motherboard. Turns out it's infamous for having fraudulent Level 2 cache! A few companies were doing some shady crap back in the day with fake/dummy cache chips. Not only that, but it goes so far as to lie and say that the cache is actually working when it's not, and apparently there's even some kind of lockout where you can only use their proprietary 256K COASt module. Wow... Luckily, a modern reproduction of the M919 256K cache stick exists and I've got one. Let's try it out!
Here's where I bought the new cache stick: www.ebay.com/i...
And more info on the reproductions: www.vogons.org...

[@LGRBlerbs]

Looks like I got the CMOS battery issue sorted! Turns out a battery selection jumper (J4) was missing on the motherboard that meant the CR2032 wasn't being recognized. Sweet 👍

[@LGRBlerbs]

Manual can be found here: archive.org/details/m919style486vip/page/n1/mode/2up

[@skillaxxx]

This is the most fascinating 486 I've ever seen; it seems it modifying & upgrading it can be a whole series on its own ;)

[@vonempalmeolmos]

I was already wondering if there would be an update on that. That was quick!

[@kpanic23]

Classic RTFM moment xD

[@sugaryhull9688]

@@kpanic23 With computers this old, it's more like FTFM ("Find the Fucking Manual"

[@RossHouck]

Love this video Clint. Any chance you could give us a "History of Shady Hardware" type video(s) on the main channel?

[@TheGamingTree]

I've been dying for a Tech tale for years now

[@aserta]

I second this motion! Shady hardware history is very cool.

[@markstech3812]

I'd love that.

[@trevorpomroy550]

I would really love this too!

[@michaelblair5566]

I used to build PC's back in the 1990's. Never heard of this!

[@attack0nmem0ry]

"I hope this video wasn't boring...", he says. Lol. Clint! We're your subscribers! We're your Patreon backers, man! We love this stuff. 🍻 Always keep it going. Cheers.

[@jrevillug]

Exactly. It's blerbs. We're here for the blerb.

[@TheRealCodyCola]

Agreed

[@cptcrogge]

Exactly :D For 99,99% of the people on this planet it would be boring af though xD

[@summer_xo]

This and main LGR are my fave KZbin channels. Adrians Digital Basement second.

[@daftbence]

It was boring for me tbh, but I'm here to help Clint with whatever I can, which is watchtime, liking, commenting and praying for the algorithm to bless him :D

[@Eyetrauma]

This whole arrangement seems like it was cooked up by the kid in school that'd put more effort into not doing homework that it'd have been easier to just do it in the first place. On a completely unrelated note, I love Speedsys' UI, there's something so cool about that style.

[@danem2215]

"I'd do work all night if it meant nothing got done"

[@Spillerrec]

The fact that the real upgrade is proprietary makes it look more like a scam if you ask me. They make the buyer think it already has L2 cache which makes them look better compared to similarly priced hardware, and for the customers that actually needed it they force them to buy their specific (and probably overpriced) upgrade when they find out they were mistaken. Taking the tin foil hat on, bricking the motherboard if you try use a generic L2 cache might have been intentional as well.

[@KrzysztofC-1]

So basically they sell you cache twice, clever. I did have a motherboard with fake chips too, I remember how plasticky they were, like a real cheap plastic instead of what chips are made of.

[@LGRBlerbs]

Yes, exactly! Tapping on them makes it obvious how fake they are, it's like they're made from the same type of thin plastic you get on a cheap toy.

[@AaronOfMpls]

@@LGRBlerbs Heck, up close on video, they do look a bit Rubbermaid-y...

[@daemonspudguy]

@@AaronOfMpls That's almost an insult to Rubbermaid.

[@JVHShack]

I currently have a PC Chips 486 PCI motherboard with the fake cache, though I can't remember what model it is. M9__ is all I can remember. These 486 motherboards were manufactured at the beginning of the "PC Chips lottery" when multiple brands were stamped onto only a few different motherboards. There was Shuttle, Amptron, PC Chips, and ECS mostly, but all of them (iirc) were just cheap computer hardware.

[@ledieppe]

@@LGRBlerbs Ever think about just unsoldering those and removing them from the motherboard? I mean that shouldn't affect anything at all and your children's children (or whatever this computer ends up in 2100) wouldn't be fooled? Also might be interesting to see one cut apart?

[@alistairblaire6001]

I'm more surprised that someone designed a clone of the cache chip for this board

[@AmstradExin]

Well, this board was sold by the millions and this fake-cache was known from day 1. I'm surprised he never heard of these boards or how cache even works. Now he knows! :D

[@TheTurnipKing]

Also it's relatively easy for hobbyists to do this this kind thing with modern tech and online services.

[@NightRidersUrbex]

TBH, I just needed that video to know about it :-/. And guess what, same thing going on in one of my retro-rigs. But since the reduction in memory speed by swapping from EDO to standard is overcompensated by adding REAL cache just slightly, I don't bother to do smth about it. Deep inside I am a little annoyed, though...

[@harshbarj]

This was INSANELY common back in the late 486 and early Pentium days. I have three different mobos with fake cache chips. ALL look like that with traces that just join the two chips. Sad part was, this was normally done on boards that were actually otherwise high end. My best and fastest 486 board with PCI and VLB also has fake cache. The fix was to just use a COAST module (all mine came second hand with one already). Most of these boards also used a graphical BIOS.

[@nickwallette6201]

One thing I noticed about my PC Chips 486 board is just how thin it is. Thing flexes like crazy when handling VLB cards. They really went out of their way to make the cheapest crap they could. But the crazy thing is, it actually works and is a half decent board...

[@harshbarj]

@@nickwallette6201 That's Pc Chips for you. They were generally considered low end boards. Though generally they did still work just fine.

[@CptJistuce]

"otherwise high end" Yeah. That's the great dichotomy of the fake cache plague. I gather that most of the fake cache boards were actually manufactured by PC Chips and rebranded by other companies(my boxed with manual fake cache board has NO manufacturer marks of any kind). And the M919s were actually fairly nice boards when done right, but PC Chips was ABSOLUTELY willing to do things wrong to meet a business customer's desired feature set and price point. "We want your M919 VIP board, because having VESA and PCI both is hot, but we want it cheaper. If we didn't want cheap, we'd be making a Pentium." "Do you care about L2 cache?" "Not really, no." "Then we have just the board for you!"

[@greggv8]

@@harshbarj They got better, to the point where some were quite decent. That was a while after the fake cache era. I put together a lot of Socket 7 boxes with PC Chips boards.

[@fenixlolnope361]

@@nickwallette6201they were the asrock and biostar of their day. Cheap shit that lasts forever and works fine if you don’t break it!

[@Ganiscol]

The "Write Back" labeling on the dummy chips seems to imply that you're expected to write back to PC Chips. 🤩

[@MrDuncl]

They should have been more honest and label them as Write Only Memory.

[@HalNeinThousand]

10:05 Seeing high-framerate DOS-era 3D graphics is such a trip.

[@RetroTechBytes]

These PCChips boards are so strange. Honestly, I don’t understand why they went through the effort of putting together a really solid board-decent chipset, decent VRM, and VLB/ISA/PCI compatibility-all to just add fake L2 cache. The M912 v1.7 is also somewhat similarly-afflicted, but what’s really weird is that not all of them have this issue. Some have fake “Write Back” DIP-28 modules soldered directly to the board, and others, like one I own, actually are equipped with DIP-28 sockets for cache chips! The best part is the shady chipsets, which claim to be UMC8498Fs, but some of which have a UMC sticker, rather than a silkscreen. I think PCCHips wasn’t the only company to pull this stuff, as I’ve got an MTech R407e, which was sold as having previously had 256kb of fake cache, whereby half of of the cache was real, half was fake, and the BIOS reported 256kb. Sure, I get that the manufacturer is saving money, but why? The board worked great with 256kb of real cache installed too-that’s the real kicker. As for the M919, it’s a real good board. I know CPUGalaxy had success with his in overclocking, and it’s unofficially capable of a 60MHz FSB. They’re fast, too, but the fake cache mars their reputation; it seems like they’d be heralded as really good boards if it weren’t for the shadiness that surrounded their marketing. One other thing: the PCI bus has an automatic divider such that-at 40MHz FSB-the PCI bus runs at 20MHz! As much as the M919 is legendary and infamous, it sure is one weird board. Don’t know if it helps, but I saw you found the manual and, for quick reference, Ultimate Hardware 2019 has a good jumper manual: www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/582. RedHill has some info on this board too, and it was apparently not well received by the shop, due in part to PCChips’ shady business practices: redhill.net.au/b/b-96.html.

[@TunsaMcHaggis]

half the time the chipset was fake as well, the pc chips bullshittery goes pretty deep

[@InfernosReaper]

Make a few good products to get an okay reputation then put out a bunch of trash to exploit that and the ignorance of others. Most people wouldn't even think to check if the L2 cache were real or not and, as we've seen in the tests on this video, most people wouldn't even be able to see much of a difference in practice anyway.

[@p0k314COM]

PC Chips was not strange - it was lowest quality on market, typical China products. Nothing was below. Cheap but terrible on any level. It has been trash product already on production line.

[@MrDuncl]

I have a board with the soldered in fake DIL chips. I guess they wanted to lower the price / increase profits and not fitting expensive cache chips was a way of doing it. The whole saga seems like a precursor to VW's Dieselgate, although PC Chips didn't end up having to buy back all the motherboards.

[@RetroSwim]

The PCChips M919 is very much *INFAMOUS* for this! :D With that expansion module it's nowhere near as bad though. I'm glad a reproduction is available!

[@lauram5905]

Hey, I was born the day that bios was built!

[@slowpoke101_]

happy birthday

[@joshuagibson2520]

Someone else in the comments too. They said it was also the launch date of Doom!

[@ttvp]

@@joshuagibson2520 They probably meant to say Doom 2, as 10/10/94 was indeed the release date for that. Not too far off from Doom which released the year earlier on Dec 10, 1993.

[@EricJorgensen]

Yeah i had one of these. i plugged the wrong COAST module into it once, let some smoke out of the module. Those fake chips just have like metal combs in them. I broke the top off of one of them and have a picture here somewhere. I think my M919 went in the trash about 15 years ago.

[@markambrose1910]

I have never cared about anything in my life as much as Clint does his early 90's PC's. I need purpose. Clint, you are amazing!!!

[@jhfgjtjutyiuod]

Those chips really are hollow, they are nothing but a plastic shell, you can pull the top off of them with your fingertips and inside are 4 metal strips with the legs stamped into them. Where I live (Tasmania) you could not get the COAST module you are showing off, lord knows I tried at the time. I had this horrendous motherboard back in the day when I bought my first PC (instead of building one myself) and this crap is what I got saddled with. Was almost enough to make me give up on PC's and go back to just using my orphaned Amiga's. The one bright spot was it made me determined to never get ripped off like this again and I learnt how to build my own PC's and use quality components when doing so (never gave hardware much consideration prior to this since you didn't have to worry on the Amiga).

[@babyboomertwerkteam5662]

Oh hey, another Aussie. Hi from your neighbour Victoria :)

[@guerillagrueplays6301]

Jee-ZUS! I feel like it's a good thing you're the person who took this system home: I'm pretty sure almost anyone else woulda trashed it on running into all the issues you've had with this thing!

[@the_kombinator]

LOL. I assemble much, much more deranged systems. Hell, I even sandblast/paint some of mine. One 386 was even in a machine shop.

[@Choralone422]

I remember reading about the fake L2 cache MB's. Part of the reason why PC Chips had such an awful reputation in the mid to late 90's. Even when they rebranded themselves as ECS later on the stigma partially remained. Also, adding L2 to a 486 system doesn't make a huge difference in most DOS based programs & games (with some exceptions of course) but it does make a noticeable difference in Windows, especially Windows 95. I had a 486 DX2 66Mhz based machine from 1992 that I had upgraded to an AMD 5x86 133Mhz CPU (running at 120Mhz due to MB issues) and adding 128KB of L2 to that machine via socketed chips on the board made a nice difference in Windows 95 back then. Hardly noticed a difference in DOS. I had the option of adding 512KB of L2 to the board but it would have cost much more than 4x the cost of 128KB and being a broke teenager at the time I couldn't afford it.

[@vespasian606]

Cyrix processor and EDO ram. You really lucked out there.

[@TheBrokenLife]

Completely calamitous cache catastrophe, Clint! Criminal!

[@lo1bo2]

Curious comment, clearly.

[@TheBrokenLife]

@@lo1bo2 Clever compliment!

[@lo1bo2]

@@TheBrokenLife Compelling conversation closing.

[@TheBrokenLife]

@@lo1bo2 Can't comments continue?

[@NeilRoy]

I thought I had cash, turns out I didn't. Story of my life.

[@DavidWonn]

I so badly want to add 0 kB of cache to my PS/2 after seeing this.

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

The reproduction is from the real one not the fake

[@jakethreesixty]

The AMBIOS date was 10/10/1994, the day I was born, and the launch date of Doom II. Neat.

[@SlavicCelery]

October is a great and terrible month to be born in. Once you realize we're valentine babies.

[@jakethreesixty]

@@SlavicCelery an old man I knew once made the joke "why is there so many October babies? Because February is so cold" 😂

[@jakethreesixty]

I arguably have the GOAT of birthdays because I can say I'm 10/10

[@CardCaptorKaren]

I had a horrible feeling seeing the title of this one that the charity had scammed you fixing up the thing with fake parts. It just being a scummy board manufacturer is a weird relief.

[@Christopher-N]

Now, let's not jump to conclusions and immediately blame the charity. The manufacturers who designed and populated the motherboard are ultimately to blame for it.

[@rpavlik1]

@@Christopher-N that's what the comment said. Don't jump to conclusions 😜

[@tony359]

I was told about this ‘fake cache’ situation with PC Chips mobos and found your video. Amazing! How that’s even possible really escapes me! I have a socket 7 motherboard with cache issues, my chips are also suspicious (can’t find any mention online and they’re labelled ‘PB CACHE’) but they intermittently get very hot so something’s happening inside. I’ll check the traces but they seem legit. Nice video!

[@simontay4851]

I hope the manufacturers that used fake cache got sued for millions of $.

[@MrDuncl]

By the sound of it they would just change the name of the company so they could pull the same trick again. They must have been annoyed when the Pentium II came out featuring built in cache and they lost their competitive advantage.

[@Gazdatronik]

1995 was the first year credit cards overtook all other forms of spending. We live in a cacheless society.

[@futurepastnow]

PC Chips: Probably Counterfeit Chips

[@nathanosullivan8816]

I like how the BIOS message is technically accurate "write back cache on" - the setting is enabled, there just isn't any to use.

[@theuglycamel8122]

Just wanted to thank your for your blerbs and build videos. Sometimes creating problems just for the sake of solving them is all that keeps us same! You've inspired me to drag out projects I'd long given up on... Thanks again!!!

[@doodles113]

I had a 486 back in the day with a similar motherboard....with AMAZING 20mb memory (16mb FPM, EDO has some compatibility issues,plus 4mb 30pin simm´s i had laying around...) What a good old times....Learned A LOT with this machine!

[@Carlos_S_]

Blerbs is the real LGR channel, love these videos, keep'em coming!

[@CaptainNedD]

I really want to know what the unfathomable content is.

[@dennett316]

It's impossible to know what it is...it's unfathomable!

[@technerd9655]

I was gonna ask the same thing! 🤣🤣🤣

[@Pierreandandre]

Was not boring at all. I always enjoy all that you do. Very informative. That scam cache is absolutely ROTTEN. lol

[@smcilia]

This charity buy has turned into a content factory! Proof of karma if I've ever seen one!

[@symb0lz1]

I got duped by this as a poor paper boy saving my quarters for that motherboard!

[@PeTTs0n88]

Huh, such a fascinating and oddly dumb thing - I only dealt with prebuilt PCs back when (mainly Compaqs, a few Dells) in 486, Pentium and compatibles times, so I didn't get to scratch the fun (albeit sometimes stupid) sides of components until the Socket A/370 era. Granted, prebuilts with their ginormous amount of proprietary bullcrap wasn't exactly always fun either. Nice video as always, Clint! An AudioDrive (ES1868F is such a lovely chipset) would be a "slight" upgrade for that awful Vibra16! ^^

[@unbearifiedbear1885]

I didn't understand most of that and that's why I subscribe to LGR

[@VideosfromNH]

Wow, what a mindf**k. Of course it has cache. There's two chips on the board that say 'WRITE BACK". They even have part numbers,.

[@mokwella]

I think you have finally explained to me an issue that I was having with a computer back in the day - and that I never solved.. man.... I want to say that was 25 years ago.

[@Vaasref]

The fact that that BIOS looks better than modern Dell BIOS is incredible.

[@ruxandy]

Hey, Clint! That "Write Back Cache On" POST message most likely refers to the internal Cyrix 8 KB cache (which is, in fact, write-back). The guys at PC Chips probably thought that mentioning it on the POST screen would be a "clever" way of deceiving customers without technically 'lying'. :-)

[@Flashy7]

Don't rely on cpu benchmarks for cache performance testing. Cache makes memory access faster, but an old test software may only do some simple calculations in a loop that only uses a few bytes from the memory.

[@LGRBlerbs]

Good point! I often notice more of a performance gain in certain games than I do old benchmarks.

[@PileOfEmptyTapes]

@@LGRBlerbs Yeah, I might try DN3D or something. Web browsers are a good test, too - Mozilla would run a fair bit smoother while using the very same DX/2-66 after swapping out a slow VLB board for one with roughly doubled main memory performance, and that's with L2 cache already in. I also found a lowly Pentium 133 to be surprisingly snappy if decked out with 512K of L2 cache + tag RAM on a GA-586HX even with just fast page DRAM in it (I had gotten a good deal on 128 megs of FPM at one point, and this was my NT4 machine as well).

[@loginregional]

PC Chips... the BANE of my existence. I had a few machines at the cyber cafe, Pentiums and such. PIA!

[@sneekeruk]

I must of had the same motherboard in around 96/97, got it off a friend who had a dx4/100 from new, then fitted a cyrix 5x86/100 and with the cyrix installed it wouldnt boot at all with the l2 cache enabled, but still gave an improvement over the dx4. I got it because it had vlb and pci, so I could still use my vlb card from my 486 until I upgraded to a 2mb diamond stealth 64 pci.

[@GodmanchesterGoblin]

Fascinating. This was genuinely useful. I have one of these boards, but without the fake cache and with the original COAST module. I bought it in the 90s and ran a standard 486 I think. I occasionally use it when I need real DOS for some old engineering software that I have. Currently I have an Intel DX4-100 along with 64MB EDO RAM on two modules, but I am honestly not sure that I have all of the CPU links set correctly. CPU voltage is set to 3.3V, but I shall have a play with the others to see if the cache performance is affected. The user manual was limited in detail and clarity of information. I need to find those benchmarking programs that you showed.

[@jeff15]

I can feel the love. This video was awesome. It wasn't boring at all. Amazing work. New sub here. Can't wait to follow-up!!! Thanks.

[@eiv-gaming]

Quite a sick setup. I love the term "would run on a toaster". Would love to see you build a 486 powerhouse inside a gutted toaster. Floppy slots where the bread should go etc. Awesome vid anyway my man.

[@Chaos89P]

I've seen something similar called the "Nintoaster." It's now even HDMI compatible.

[@eiv-gaming]

@@Chaos89P NES inside?

[@Chaos89P]

@@eiv-gaming Yup

[@the_kombinator]

YOu... you would need a very large toaster. Unless PC on a card.

[@freelancer42]

Reminds me of those fake USB thumb drives that report as having 2TB capacity but are really just a 16GB module inside.

[@Leahi84]

How the hell did they get away with that back then, and where were the class action lawsuits? Were these so rare back then that that few people bought them to matter?

[@brandonnesfan]

It was before the days of the internet, it was alot easier to get away with tomfuckery like that

[@RetroTinkerer]

So nice that you got it all sorted out so quickly, I also was scratching my head 3 years ago when one of these boards landed in my hands, I was like cool a PCI + VLB 486 motherboard I have to have it! Everyone in my FB retro group was like "ohh you got one of these fake cache motherboard"! I end up purchasing a pair of 8MB FPM modules for this board (and a pair for a DELL 486 VLB one) as all but a pair of 16MB EDO RAM modules worked with the L2 cache enabled but the memory performance was slower than with FPM LOL, apparently is a fast board so your overdrive should work great on it, my board runs nice both with the AMD-x5-133 "p75" 486 and the 100MHz Cyrix 5x86. Ohh I catched a glimpse at that small box and it's so nice to see that Startech make a screw kit that include these old nylon AT standoffs!!! Thanks

[@the_kombinator]

FPM generally works better in 486 boards.

[@unbearifiedbear1885]

**BEEP** * **BOOP** * **GRRRRRRRRRRN** 🔺 _American Megatrends_ - is there _anything_ more nostalgic in the world?! 😂

[@BRUXXUS]

"Victim of fake cash." That's a very clever pun.

[@leonardjwright]

I remember in the early 200s when case modding was a thing you could get rounded IDE cables to better cable managed the case. That could be fun. Because that 486 needs all the airflow it can get!

[@cromulence]

Bart Simpson: "I boost my frame rates with a cache on a stick."

[@xanshark]

This is unfathomable content.

[@homerotl]

I must know what is in that 3.5" disk. Please!

[@PaulFisher]

You almost have to give it to the manufacturers for the sheer contempt they have for their end users. Not only faking the chips but also rigging it so it looks like you can enable it? The cable company wishes they could stoop so low.

[@TheDemocrab]

I'm happy to see more info on these after reading about it on that Red Hill guide. It's so dang interesting seeing some of the old scams!

[@MrMarkalroberts]

Over a quarter of a century ago they were still doing the same type of thing they do today. That restores my faith.

[@nnnnikt]

This was awesome - I, too had heard often of these fake caches but never seen one.. in the flesh... thankya kindly for yet another epic vid.

[@onimacleod]

this was a triumph, I'm making a note here "Huge success"

[@Panzer_the_Merganser]

It’s hard to overstate My satisfaction

[@EatingCtrlV]

I'm more excited about this series then any other story arc on youtube.

[@SUCRA]

I've been searching forever for that cache module, I've been handicapped by the lack of it in the #486QuakeRace. Thanks for another video, Clint.

[@scargo02]

FWIW I have the 3.2 version of the M919 (with the same reproduction 256k cache module and AMD DX4-100/16k write back cache) and the 3.4B/F (with original 256k cache module and Am5x86-133) and both are rock solid with 60ns EDO RAM. Both CPUs run at stock speeds with the memory timing in BIOS as fast as they'll allow which make them surprisingly quick (relatively, of course). With as much flack as these boards get they're surprisingly solid!

[@Ascyltos]

I heard about this ages ago back in the days when Red Hill Hardware was a thing. PC Chips were best avoided. In the Pentium MMX era they used shit Chinese knockoff chipsets and called them "VX Pro" or "VX Two" to make you think you were getting a real Intel VX chipset board.

[@clementjovet6332]

That floppy is actually a backup of the PC Chips R&D. Yes. It fits

[@nuitarik]

An tech tales on these fake chips would be amazing!!

[@LadyLexyStarwatcher]

Any other situation this would be rage inducing. Here it is an amazing show case piece and hilarity.

[@999thenewman]

Is this an example that business executives can market computers as having a feature when in reality people are being sold a bunch of nonsense?

[@AmEv7fam]

Blast processing?

[@evergreengamer5767]

great video huge fan of the m919 also great to see the reproduction modules finally came to fruition saw ppl on vogons talking about this years ago. Looking forward to video with the POD83 the m919 is not the best board for it but also not a bad one and you can do some pretty neat on the fly overclocking with the board, though few POD83 will oc w/o modification to the vrm. Also its not keeping cmos cause looks like the jumper is missing on the 2 center pins where external battery goes

[@dreammfyre]

Truly outrageous.

[@williecdog]

Jem!

[@RisingRevengeance]

the music's contagious

[@sierraboney1394]

This might very well be a newer version of the board I had back in the mid-late 90's, for the first PC ("It's ST" 486 DX2/50 with 4mb ram) I ever built myself. I'm fairly certain mine didn't have VESA slots (not 100% on that though, maybe it did and i'm not remembering) and that it had fake Write Back cache chips but through hole versions (which I didn't know were fake until quite a long time after i'd bought it)! I assume it has a rigged bios. I'd still like to find one just for the sake of it! I found a webpage/blog that some one made a while ago where they had a PcChips board with fake Write Back through hole chips, so they removed them and sliced them in half to find they were pretty much just solid plastic with chip legs and no core whatsoever, so they replaced them with proper cache ram chips and it actually worked fine and detected them (and in fact performed really well), so those ones at least had all the correct traces running to and from them!

[@MrDuncl]

I have a board like you describe somewhere. The tops of the Write Back Cache chips look wavy I assume they only go into the plastic a couple of mm. Unfortunately they are soldered in so it would be a big job to replace them all.

[@whosonedphone]

I was thinking "man, that's a hot rod". After watching the video I realized it's a hot dog.

[@whosonedphone]

I still want my color dot matrix printer greetings hotdog banner replica.

[@thcollegestudent]

I mean, I feel as though I've learned something. The nerve! To sell you a board with fake cache and then offer an upgrade lol

[@philclemow266]

Unfathomable Content!

[@jek__]

This video wasn't boring, you earned a new subscriber in me! Now to be fair I already follow the main LGR channel and youtube just recommended this to me, so I was pretty much guaranteed to subscribe regardless lol. Still, its interesting that they make those entirely fake chips, did people not notice immediately? I guess before the internet mass scamming was easier

[@jenzGuitarist]

I've never heard of "Fake-Cache" before i bought my M912 PCChips Mobo (which is actually quite fast /w real l2 ;)). Mine got real L2 socketed onboard though (And oooh yes, i've tested it thouroughly ;)) - but i find this topic of fake cache (or chips in general) very interesting. Thanks for this blerby blerb! :-)

[@HoldandModify]

“An empty slot, is an unhappy slot.”

[@neophytealpha]

My first video card oddly enough had the same memory chips that were on a 286 motherboard I was given. On the video card and the motherboard the chips were socketed, so I pulled the chips from the board and added it to the video card. It bumped the video up to a whole 1M. Used on a 486 DX2 66 system. Quickly upgraded to a Pentium 2, and an All in Wonder, with a sound blaster live platinum. Kinda made big jumps.

[@DevilishDesign]

The first PC I built back in 95 was a DX4-100 on one of these boards. Luckily it did come with one of the real cache modules though. The fake cache scam was pretty well reported at the time from what I remember. I'm sure Computer Shopper / PCW (UK) had a lengthy article on it with X-Rays of the chips, showing nothing inside the platic case. DIP style chips were also faked on some boards.

[@LGRBlerbs]

It's all so bonkers, haha. How did anyone think they'd get away with it‽

[@DevilishDesign]

@@LGRBlerbs I think one positive outcome was that it educated a lot of people about what cache RAM was :)

[@Lemon_Inspector]

They actually make dummy ICs that are used for things like testing manufacturing equipment or teaching people how to solder. They're like normal ICs but without the actual silicon chip inside, and are presumably made with the same industrial process. The fact that the manufacturer didn't even bother spending a few cents on a *good fake* feels like adding insult to injury.

[@AskemoX]

I was starting to question what happened that Clint haven't posted in a while. Now I understand the big project is coming together :)

[@LGRBlerbs]

_SEVERAL_ big projects. It's been a busy couple weeks over here!

[@AskemoX]

@@LGRBlerbs I am happy everything is alright with you and can't wait to see them :)

[@joshuagibson2520]

He did a recent LGR thrifts on the main channel. Might want to check that out if you missed it.

[@AskemoX]

@@joshuagibson2520 Nope, the last video is cottage living from a week ago, that is why I was wondering what happened :)

[@joshuagibson2520]

@@AskemoX aaah. I see. I skipped that one. Never got into the Sims. I'm sure I'd love it, but I already waste a ton of time on other frivolous activities. Lol.

[@s3vR3x]

ha. the guy that cloned the cache module sold me the original cache module on ebay. I later bought one of the reproduction ones from him. Nice guy

[@ugzz]

This was pretty in depth for a blurb! LOVE IT! Keep em coming ;^) !

[@VintageModernRemixes]

Always love that pretty GUI BIOS

[@SeraphimKnight]

I can't fathom what you got on that floppy.

[@joshuarichards2421]

Wish you had made this video a couple days ago. Just sold an m919 cache module on ebay... woulda sent it to you for free. If I come across another, I'll keep you in mind.

[@me3333]

It's like my bank account, at first glance it looks like I have cash, but when I dig deeper I find out I'm broke...

[@Jimbaloidatron]

There was also fake DIP cache memory chips, so you could have had a good mobo with real sockets, but end up buying fake chips or specifically paying for the cache option. So prevalent was it, the company I work for produced a diagnostic test for detecting fake cache for our customers.

[@megadeth-1a885]

So bizarre. My dad and I were just talking about our first gaming PC today. The Quantex! He custom ordered it from a PC mag. Strange world.

[@Luna_Femboy]

I know this is odd to say online but i like sitting and smoking a joint while watching this guys videos, i love your videos man!

[@the_kombinator]

Do the same on my channel, I assemble 3/4/586s fairly routinely.

[@Luna_Femboy]

@@the_kombinator Ill come check ya out!!

[@the_kombinator]

@@Luna_Femboy I'm about to start a 386 build live ;)

[@RyanMartinez]

De-solder those "chips" and see if they really do have any kind of function... See if the motherboard works without them once and for all. LOL

[@thegreatmrp]

OMG You have legitimately blown my mind lol I didnt know about this problem.... I had a couple PCChips mobos back in the day as a teen buying at the computer fairs that came around. Buying pcs on a mall job salary in 1996 lol as a highschooler... couldnt be picky lol, but I still feel cheated lol.

[@32mlucas]

Having a cpu with 16kb or more L1 cache rather than 8kb makes the L2 less necessary, thats why the improvement wasn’t very big. If you try with a regular 486 DX33 the difference will be greater

[@falagarius]

Georg Schnurer, Ponytail legend!

2 years ago I fried my M919 when I put a standard COAST in the cache Slot. I would like to have seen this video then. Later I found another m919, but luckily never dare to put it again. Btw tried yo buy the slot from the ebay link but 7 hours after this video is online are sold out :( Greetings from Argentina Clint!

[@locnar1701]

Speaking of CDROM shenanigans... My brother bought a Creative labs 18x CDROM and SoundBlaster live combo pack sometime around 1996 with his first paycheck. I am not sure of the exact model, but it had a fancy new 18x CDROM from Creative. He got it installed, did the setup, it sounded great. Then he pressed eject on the CDROM tray and the tray came out without the disk... We looked at each other from the front of desk it was on. I was on the left and my brother was on the right, the computer between us. 5 seconds later the disk shoots out of the drive's open tray and Frisbees across the 14x10 room and hits his stereo system with a loud thud. "And that is going back to the store" he said.

[@brzzzaaaPP]

I like stories...

[@Brian.S]

The fake cache chips remind me of the pipes labeled GNDN in the original Star Trek series. Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing.

[@DarthPizza777]

boring video? NO WAY, I loved it!!

[@Inkvisitor]

Very scummy! Nice that there is an upgrade path though. I had similar trouble with my DVD drive. A small crack in the eject motor gear will completely seize up the drive and you almost have to break things to get the tray out again. Or unscrew the logic board a little and wiggle things out. The drive is a Toshiba SD-M1202.

[@dreadpiratesidebeard9471]

Warranty call: "My software started saying there's no cache... and yeah, when I put my finger on those two chips marked Writeback.. they're really hot."

[@stanleyreynolds7800]

Wow, a PC Chips motherboard that still works! I used to routinely throw them away. Personally, I'd put a 6 volt battery on the header. Lots of them came with a velcro strip so you could attach it to the power supply.