Computer turbo button

Lysander · 4 May 2008 at 10:38

Whoever had one of these? My brother used to have a PC with a 'turbo' button on it, which would throttle the CPU from 8Mhz to a mind-meltingly fast 25Mhz.

Faster than the speed of thought.

Duke · 4 May 2008 at 10:39

Yep used to have one that went from 33 to 66 or something

Adz · 4 May 2008 at 10:39

I had one but it was disconnected

.

gumbald · 4 May 2008 at 10:43

Whoosh. They had them on all the cheap keyboards left over from the olden days when I started secondary school. Never had one at home.

Some of the old school cases too come to think of it.

A.N.Other · 4 May 2008 at 10:43

Yeah, I can remember having a case that had one, but it wasn't connected up

Defcon5 · 4 May 2008 at 10:46

So could you run it in 'turbo mode' all the time? or would it throttle back when it got a bit toasty?

Lysander · 4 May 2008 at 10:51

Defcon5 said:
So could you run it in 'turbo mode' all the time? or would it throttle back when it got a bit toasty?

That's what I never understood. Why just not always run it at 25? It was probably just a gimmick, rather than an extra boost that was available when running demanding applications like... Minesweeper.

Freefaller · 4 May 2008 at 10:55

I always thought it was for enabling or disabling the maths coprocessor? Hence the differences between an SX and DX machine - the latter one having the coprocessor the other not?

My turbo button got me from 8 -> 16MHz - I think it was 286 with 4MB of RAM :eek:

I had a 10mb HDD, I was so leet in those days

Turbo mode was enabled to turn it off as some programs couldn't cope (timing loops etc...) with the fast speeds.

Will Gill · 4 May 2008 at 10:59

Freefaller said:
I always thought it was for enabling or disabling the maths coprocessor? Hence the differences between an SX and DX machine - the latter one having the coprocessor the other not?

My turbo button got me from 8 -> 16MHz - I think it was 286 with 4MB of RAM I had a 10mb HDD, I was so leet in those days

Turbo mode was enabled to turn it off as some programs couldn't cope (timing loops etc...) with the fast speeds.

thought it was 8bit coding and it couldnt cope with 16bit "turbo mode"

im still drunk so could be waaaay wrong

HangTime · 4 May 2008 at 11:01

Yeah my mate had one that toggled between 8mhz and 25mhz.
In the good old days when you had a LED display on the front of the case showing CPU speed.

hardc0re_tid · 4 May 2008 at 11:03

Wikipedia said:
On personal computers, the Turbo button changes the effective speed of the system. It usually accomplishes this by either adjusting the CPU clock speed directly, or by turning off the processor's cache, forcing it to wait on slow main memory every time. The button was generally present on older systems, and was designed to allow the user to play older games that depended on processor speed for their timing. Systems could also use the keyboard combination of ctrl-alt-+/-, '+' switching turbo OFF and '-' switching it ON. Of course, calling it a "turbo" button when its function slows the system down can be a bit misleading, but the button was usually set up so the system would be at full speed when the button was "on". A turbo button is no longer seen on most mainstream personal computers.

Freefaller · 4 May 2008 at 11:13

Ohh so I wasn't far off it was a timing thing - of sorts!

Spyhop · 4 May 2008 at 11:20

That's what pins 111 and 112 on Core 2 CPUs are for. Not many cases implement it.

Lunatic Dreyfus · 4 May 2008 at 11:55

It's just as well they got rid of the 'Turbo' button. If they hadn't I would have been compelled to blurt out "Vtec kicked in... yo!!!" or quote Captain Picard and declare "Engage." every time I pressed it.

Sinny · 4 May 2008 at 11:58

When i was in college we found an old PC with one on, so we modded it and sprayed it, now it really does look like its a turbo pc :cool:

Freefaller · 4 May 2008 at 11:59

Lunatic Dreyfus said:
It's just as well they got rid of the 'Turbo' button. If they hadn't I would have been compelled to blurt out "Vtec kicked in... yo!!!" or quote Captain Picard and declare "Engage." every time I pressed it.

Freeman · 4 May 2008 at 12:07

Whenever we pressed the turbo button it always slowed the PC to a grinding halt. Maybe it was broken or something.

Meridian · 4 May 2008 at 12:11

My understanding of the issue (and I'm old enough to have lived through when those machines were new) is that it was about compatibility of certain software. Default was Turbo on, but where older programs struggled you could turn the speed down by releasing the Turbo button.

M

BigglesPiP · 4 May 2008 at 12:27

I always thought it was just a placebo.

Kol · 4 May 2008 at 13:24

Meridian said:
My understanding of the issue (and I'm old enough to have lived through when those machines were new) is that it was about compatibility of certain software. Default was Turbo on, but where older programs struggled you could turn the speed down by releasing the Turbo button.

M

As I remember it.

Computer turbo button

Capodecina

Capodecina