Level 2 cache activation code?

[Svante Signell]

Hello,

I have recently upgraded my dual MSI-6120 from 2xCeleron (Mendocino)
300 at 450MHz with 2xMSI-6905 slot 370 to slot 1 adapters to one Celeron2
1.3GHz (Tualatin) using a Slot-T adapter card. The plan is to equip the
mobo with 2xPIII or preferably 2xVIA C3 Nehemiah (when SMP capable). 

The problem is that the latest MSI BIOS (v2.0) for the mobo does not
support Coppermine/Tualatin processors. The single GNU/Linux kernels
boot without problems but _extremely_ slowly, at least with a speed
reduction by a factor 10. hdparm -tT gives around 20/2 compared with
250/25 with the Mendocino CPU(s). For example uncompressing the kernel
takes minute(s) compared to seconds. After some trials and web searching
I suspect that the problem is with the level 2 cache not activated by
the BIOS. 

I see the you have code in the linuxbios for activating caches. 

i) Does this code work for 440BX motherboards?
ii) Is it possible to extract this code and try out after the kernel has
booted (slowly), to verify my assumption?
iii) Is there some other tool available for cache activation?
iv) One interesting continuation would be to try to replace the MSI
(AMI) BIOS with linuxbios, but as a first step I think this would be a
little risky.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Svante