From Bugzilla Helper: 
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3; Linux) 
 
Description of problem: 
L2 cache not detected in i686 at boot time - tualatin p3 smp systems 
do dot know if kernel is using L2 cache, regardless of detection. 
 
Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 
2.4.18-19.8-0 smp 
 
How reproducible: 
Always 
 
Steps to Reproduce: 
1. boot up 
2. read boot log 
3. look for cache entries 
4. only L1 (32K) detected 
     
 
Actual Results:  same - no l2 cache 
 
Expected Results:  l2 cache reporting 512K for cpu 0 & cpu 1 
(no it's not turned off in the bios either) 
 
Additional info: 
 
bootlog output: 
<6>Memory: 2059968k/2097088k available (1451k kernel code, 32508k reserved, 
1067k data, 200k init, 1179584k highmem) 
<6>Dentry cache hash table entries: 262144 (order: 9, 2097152 bytes) 
<6>Inode cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 8, 1048576 bytes) 
<6>Mount cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes) 
<7>ramfs: mounted with options: <defaults> 
<7>ramfs: max_pages=258024 max_file_pages=0 max_inodes=0 max_dentries=258024 
<6>Buffer cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes) 
<4>Page-cache hash table entries: 524288 (order: 9, 2097152 bytes) 
<7>CPU: Before vendor init, caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000, vendor = 0 
<6>CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K 
<7>CPU: After vendor init, caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 
<6>Intel machine check architecture supported. 
<6>Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0. 
<7>CPU:     After generic, caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 
<7>CPU:             Common caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 
<6>Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done. 
<6>Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done. 
<6>Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK. 
<4>POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX 
<4>mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch.au) 
<4>mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel 
<7>CPU: Before vendor init, caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000, vendor = 0 
<6>CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K 
<7>CPU: After vendor init, caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 
<6>Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0. 
<7>CPU:     After generic, caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 
<7>CPU:             Common caps: 0383fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000 
<4>CPU0: Intel(R) Pentium(R) III CPU family      1266MHz stepping 01 
<4>per-CPU timeslice cutoff: 91.43 usecs.