2.2.16 doesn't enable write allocate or MTRR's for machines with the K6-2+ processor. Write allocate is cited as an important performance item to enable on the various motherboard related newsgroups. Many people are installing K6-2+'s on boards that support the chip's electrical requirements but don't adequately set it up in the BIOS. New laptops appearing on the market that contain this chip may or may not have the same problem. My patch is tiny and was extracted from 2.2.18pre. My source RPM is at http://linuxsavvy.com/staff/jgotts/k6-2+/kernel-2.2.16-4.src.rpm and two much more detailed messages were sent to redhat-list today. It might be nice to slip this patch into the next bug fix kernel RPM's for 6.2 and 7.0 unless 2.2.18 is out by then.