Turbo button

Case buttons including turbo button
The LED display showing the CPU clock frequency, in MHz, of an Intel 80486 based computer. The turbo button is the small button below the segment display; the amber light above is a secondary indicator of the turbo button state.

On IBM PC compatible computers, the turbo button selects one of two run states: the default "turbo" speed or a reduced speed closer to the Intel 8086 CPU. It was relatively common on computers using the Intel 80286,[1] 80386 and 80486 processors,[2] from the mid 1980s to mid 1990s. The name is inspired by turbocharger, a device which increases an engine's power and efficiency. When pressed, the "turbo" button is intended to let a computer run at the highest speed for which it had been designed.[3]

  1. ^ 20-MHz 286 PCs, PC Magazine, June 27, 1989
  2. ^ Turbo button, Computer Hope, 10-17-2017
  3. ^ "Intel486 SL Microprocessor SuperSet Datasheet" (PDF). datasheetarchive.com. 2021-01-19. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-10-21. Retrieved 2022-10-21.