'Turbo' Button...

Status
Not open for further replies.

Him

Fully Optimized
Messages
3,191
Ya'll remember the old machines with a Turbo button on them? The computer would lspeed up when you hit it. Do they simply overclock the computer a little bit?
 
ive never seen this before but i presume its like when laptops slow themselves down to save power then speed up again when its needed only the old machine doesnt really know when its underload so uve gotta press the button to get it to run at its best settings? just a theory as i say ive never seen them before
 
You've never seen them before? Well, they are super old, but were rampant in their prime. This is pre Pentium here. My 486DX didnt even have one, but my mom's 386DX had one. I remember playing a game nicely on the 386, and then I turned off turbo and the game barely moved. Turned it back on and the game resumed normal gameplay.
 
I know what you're talking about, when I was in like grade 1 the school computers all had the turbo buttons, however I don't even know if they worked or what they did since I don't recall any difference in performance when they were pushed, but this was like 10 years ago so I have no idea.

Ironically my engineering course I took a while ago salvaged computers that were going in the trash, and they were the same retro pentiums with the turbo buttons. We got to take them apart and rebuilt them (we finally got a budget passed and we get good AMD64s next year :D) since that was all the school had that they wanted taken apart since they were basically trash. I had no idea which pins on the board to connect the turbo button too so the mystery remains unsolved.

Google, however, uncovers the mystery.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/case/switchTurbo-c.html
 
Google DOES answqer it! You gotta love Google, can find anything.

on a side note, the website that you posted is really cool. Got some interesting stuff, check it out.
 
funny, just the other day I was in my basement looking at an old PC my uncle build about 10 years ago. It had a turbo button on it and I was wondering wtf it was. Well now I know.

btw, that site you posted has a link to a 200 page guide on how to build your own PC. I'm planning on building my first one soon so that could be very useful..:)
 
my 486 didn't have a turbo, but my 'new' Cyrix 180MHz has a turbo button, i had the case open, and when i pushed the turbo button, the fan on the tiny CPU heatsink came alive!
 
I just noticed that my backup p2-350 has a turbo button on it too :p I was playing with it and didn't notice any difference except for a light that go's on when you push it :confused:
 
never had a machine with the button on it personally, but I do remember it.

hey when your machine totals only 100MHz, 12Mhz makes a difference :p
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom