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Turbo Button??
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Posted by: Bobaroo
WTF does a turbo button do on a computer? My cousin just gave me a pretty old computer and it has a turbo button, my old gateway also has one. So what do they do?
Posted by: Foogar
makes it go faster in the 1/4 mile...
I could be slightly off here, but...
Something to do with the 'newer' computers of that age being too fast to run some programs so they were slowed down by default. Turbo button made things run the way they should for power freaks tho.
Try running the old floppy based game Ninja Gaiden on todays computers and you'll see why they did it.
Posted by: Kdr Kane
Old DOS games ran off of CPU speed rather than the motherboard timer. Basically, games didn't run in real-time. They ran as fast as the computer would go.
You had to turn off the Turbo button to make the system bus and the CPU to run at 8 Mhz for computers that would run at 20 Mhz or so. Otherwise, the game ran at incredible speeds and you couldn't keep up.
This was true in the original Wing Commander game. I bought a 25 Mhz 486 computer with 256 KB of cache ram. Not only did I have to turn off the turbo button, I had to disable the on board cache so I could play the game at a somewhat normal, but still, faster speed than designed.
Posted by: SKYHN
My old 386 machine has a turbo button. It became useless though when I upgraded to a Pentium 133mhz chip and mobo. Quite usefull for running old games though on my old system.
Posted by: Bobaroo
well this turbo is always on and no games are installed on the comp. It is a P133, and my bro just plays Snood and types on it.
Posted by: SKYHN
More than likely the turbo isnt on, it just seems that it is. Was the computer upgraded from a slower CPU to the 133mhz one? Cuz thats how mine was and after I got the new CPU and Mobo, the turbo was always "ON" but it didnt have any function because it wasnt hooked up, just the light was.
Posted by: Bobaroo
Oh, I have no clue about this computer.
Posted by: JANNA
turbo was only used on 486 and earlier computers to cut the system speed by half. newer computers like P1 and up do not have a turbo function altho a lot of the cases at the time that comp was made probably have a turbo button but it isnt connected to anything on the motherboard.
Posted by: steadyeddy
They are leftover from machines of five to ten years ago, the turbo switch still remains on many cases, even though it really serves no purpose any more. In the early days of the PC, there was only IBM, and there were only a handful of different speeds a PC could run at. Early software was written by programmers who believed they were writing it to run on a machine of a specific speed. When newer, faster machines would come out, some of this software (especially games) would stop working properly because it would run too fast. Turning off the "turbo" function of the PC (which meant anything that made it run faster than an IBM of a particular era) would make the machine run slower so this software would work. In essence, it was a "compatibility mode" feature, to slow down the machine for older software.
Now, there are dozens of different combinations of processor types and speeds. Software cannot rely on knowing what the speed of the machine is, so most programs use speed-detection algorithms to determine how fast the machine is. The turbo button no longer serves any useful purpose, and in fact on many motherboards there either isn't anywhere to connect it, or there is a place but the motherboard does nothing when you press the button. The best use for this button is to never touch it, or use it for some other purpose. Some older machines will still slow down when the button is pressed, and if you press it by accident your machine will lose performance; it can be surprisingly hard to track down the problem, since it seems that the front of the machine is the last place anyone appears to notice anything.
Hope this helped
Posted by: TueurDelite
well
Posted by: SKYHN
I have a game called "Power Monger" which some of you probably know about. I love that game but I cant play it on any machine I own because its designed to run on a slow PC. Wish there was some way to run it, its a good game.
Posted by: TueurDelite
sorry about last post i made  i was posting it when i lost my internet connection.
i wanted to say : well i Had an P1 100 and i had the turbo button . it was working but ... i never saw a diference in the speed
Posted by: Swilo
SKYHN, there are several programs that will eat CPU cycles so games liek that will run "normally" again. Try searching for "CPU Killer" or similar things on places like download.com.
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