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What is this slot called and what is it for on a Pentium 1 motherboard?
Here I give you the Asus P/I-P55T2P4 rev 2.1 board:
Thraka
Posted 2014-09-09T19:00:34.987
Reputation: 588
What is the brown slot near the CPU socket on a Pentium 1 motherboard, and what is it used for?
Answers
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That's CELP! Card edge low profile!
It's a type of slot (or socket) used for expanding the L2 cache on some early–to–mid 1990s computers. The card that would fit inside it was called COASt! Cache on a stick! The stick would be populated by SRAM memory chips.
The standard was originally defined by Motorola to be between 4.33 and 4.36 inches (110 and 111 mm) wide, and between 1.12 and 1.16 inches (28 and 29 mm) high.
The missing puzzle piece...
Samir
Posted 2014-09-09T19:00:34.987
Reputation: 17 919
1The question asked for the name of the slot, not the card. In the same article you linked, it calls the slot "CELP". I gave you an upvote anyway. :) – Jason – 2014-09-09T21:40:34.730
You quote from wikipedia " but with newer computers cache is built into either the CPU or the motherboard." <-- They had cache but his and perhaps that was an upgrade. His manual indicates it had cache -pipeline burst cache-on there even without any stick/card. – barlop – 2014-09-09T21:52:40.813
@Jason You are right, of course! The previous poster had already answered the question about the slot, pretty much. I didn't want to rub it in even more. :) He took the name from the manual. I worked on the identification from another direction. Because what goes into that slot is more important than the slot itself! ;) That's why the main article on Wikipedia is titled as COASt. But I couldn't have done it without his help. I hope you like CELP better! ;) – Samir – 2014-09-09T22:32:42.393
@barlop Good point! Installing some extra COASt was this "micro" upgrade (it's not like people were raving over performance improvements) of the 90s. It's not like there wasn't any cache on-board already. The computer wouldn't work without it. Meaning the slot would have been populated already, completely removing the need for an expansion slot in the first place. – Samir – 2014-09-09T22:37:55.497
Actually I already had found this information once the other answer said L2 Cache. Thanks for a picture of the card that goes in! Changing the correct answer to you, I feel it is more complete. – Thraka – 2014-09-10T00:30:47.547
Yeah... the missing puzzle piece! :) Well... it's not a contest, but if it was I'm sure I would win! Haha! Just kidding! ;) I did give credit to "frlan" and also up-voted his answer. Not that I wouldn't have checked the MB manual myself. I do that regularly when people run to me with their laptop problems, and expect me to know everything. But it's always easier when people come together and help out. – Samir – 2014-09-10T09:49:32.960
We can see 2 cache chips already soldered on the MOBO, so the slot was probably to be used to expand built-in cache. But there were also models without any onboard cache, often shipped with CELP stick in the box (I had one). – Agent_L – 2014-09-10T10:30:51.260
1IIRC this could also be L3 cache if you used the board in combination with an AMD K6-III. Back then CPU sockets were not specific to one company. – MSalters – 2014-09-11T12:03:50.407
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It's the L2 Upgrade Cache Expension Slot. Check Manual for details
frlan
Posted 2014-09-09T19:00:34.987
Reputation: 666
17Props, who would have thought to read the manual! – Blackjack00 – 2014-09-09T19:15:37.387
14Fun fact: a slot on a desktop motherboard for cache memory (not RAM) was never really seen again after this. Then in 2013 (17 years later), M.2 slots were introduced, which are commonly used for SSD caching. – Jason – 2014-09-09T20:53:14.663
I had looked at the manual to another board and I couldn't find it (it didn't even have a diagram) and just found this picture online. Didn't think to look for that manual instead.. Oh well, points all around :) – Thraka – 2014-09-09T20:58:19.323
What do you call the card that goes in there? I'm trying to locate a picture of it. I found one for an old Apple computer on Wikimedia Commons.
– Samir – 2014-09-09T21:16:29.743
@Blackjack00. I've owned about 3 computers so far, none were shipped with an instruction manual for the motherboard. – Nolonar – 2014-09-10T19:45:43.197
Most are shipping manual as PDF with drivers. Cheap vendors often even don't do that. Unfortunately – frlan – 2014-09-11T11:23:40.903
Humph! If one must to stoop to reading a manual it's obvious one is not a member of The Illuminati! One's subscription to "Modern Enlightenment" is therefore cancelled! :-) – Bob Jarvis - Reinstate Monica – 2014-09-11T13:03:56.590
This question appears to be off-topic because it is a guessing-game type question (see http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2012/02/lets-play-the-guessing-game/)
– Moses – 2014-09-09T19:49:35.52326@ϺОŞΣŞ That link says " hazard an answer based on the limited information provided" <-- It's not like he provided limited information. He provided the motherboard model and a picture of the slot. Not a 'vague description'. So the vague descriptions(which don't really apply here), were more an issue with the gaming/english/literature sites where they made popualr tags, see the blog post you linked to. – barlop – 2014-09-09T21:14:22.163
I just edited the title to be less-vague. – Thraka – 2014-09-09T21:21:05.450
3That picture brings back some memories... – None – 2014-09-09T23:12:23.150
3Just for the records: the motherboard is a "P/I-P55T2P4" by ASUS. – Samir – 2014-09-10T09:50:34.753
Interesting. I also have an Asus P/I-P55T2P4, but mine doesn't have this slot. – ntoskrnl – 2014-09-10T15:58:04.213
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@barlop A similar question I posted (https://superuser.com/questions/669399/what-is-this-small-port-on-my-laptop) was closed for same reason, and this was cited: https://meta.superuser.com/questions/6073/are-guessing-game-type-questions-allowed-on-su/6074#6074
– Moses – 2014-09-10T17:17:43.1631@ϺОŞΣŞ However the answer cites that "the question is geared to only help a single person." Mine isn't, I don't even own this motherboard. I was researching P5 architecture and kept seeing that slot. I couldn't find any info, and didn't even know what terms to use to search. Apparently others find this information helpful as they have up-voted the question. – Thraka – 2014-09-10T20:37:03.413
@ntoskrnl yours probably has the pins filled in to where the slot would go. Maybe your revision has the extra cache built into the board? – Thraka – 2014-09-10T20:40:24.747
Here is a useful image of common parts and their sockets for motherboards, unfortunately it does not contain a CELP (unless it is calling it a "601 Processor Direct Slot/Personality Slot") – Scott Chamberlain – 2014-10-07T21:57:50.703