ragnargd

LoneCrusader, as well as the Trader, say/show a PCIe card. Technically, it's perfectly doable, so i'm waiting. I'll report.

I DID get the driver for my NIC from Realtek directly, so all is fine... :-) But thank you anyway!!! For the soundcard, i think drivers will either be on an accompanying disk, or can be acquired directly from CMedia.

Well, the network-card is NOT fishy. It has a Realtek 8111B chipset, and from all my components, made the less fuss. The soundcard... well, if LoneCrusader said it's fine, it is fine. The page where i found the driver is definitely fishy... or was pwned (just more likely). Just why someone put a trojan into a driver of such an obscure item, that goes just beyond me. On the other side, he had a near-hit with me...

I own the network card, having two of them. Very nice. I have the drivers slipstreamed into my installation folder... When trying to download the drivers for the Soundcard from some "Dynamode" site, to see if it's actually a w9x-compatible driver, i caught a version where the readme.txt is actually an executable. Thank god i was using linux, so it just crashed because of lack of rights and wrong platform... ... Never let your guard down... (now, again, something to sink my forensic-teeth into...). Unfortunately, the soundcard does not get delivered to Germany for that price - ah... found it... ordered two. Let's see.

Can you be bothered to provide some info on that card? Like, i.e., chipset, or even a name that google can digest? Needs not be today, if there are more important things on your mind...

Yeah, the multi-boot-addiction, i know just too well how you feel... I'd really like to see how you fare with Z77, as my own experiments (the same on P67) failed miserably two years ago (i never bothered to report it here). I still own, as an alternative, the ASrock P67 Extreme 4, which has a good layout, with two PCI-slots available even if you put in two 2-slot-GPUs, able to carry the i7-3770K, and two convenient PS/2-ports. http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/P67 Extreme4/index.asp With my knowledge from today, I's say to expect problems when activating USB2, so you might need a USB add-in-card if you want to use those (that's why the PS/2-ports really are an asset here and on every board worth trying), which eats a PCI-slot. WIth then just one PCI-slot free (which you will want to use for a compatible sound-card), this forces you to put in a sata-add-in card into an PCI-to-PCIe-adapter for booting w98se, if you want to boot W10 or anything modern from the onboard-ports with full AHCI-support as well. Works, it just is something to think about. I don't remember if activating the AHCI-SATA ports with SSD/HDD attached makes your system hang during installation, but i think that was the case with me, so that may require some messing around with on/off/disabling those during installation. This forces the 8111E onboard-lan to be used, for lack of free slots, but, well, since we now have the knowledge how to use the NDIS2-driver on those, it's possible. Still i'd not necessarily invest money in that platform, as components (Z77/P67 MoBos and CPUs, even RAM nowadays) are rare and really expensive, on the brink of being on the prohibitive side. My FX 8350/AM3+ is not as fast, and uses much more power when working, but is just so much more convenient, with onboard-sata and onboard-USB2 working out-of-the-box, that i can accept that. And it boots all OS as well (i still have one port free, and consider putting some linux on it again as well, like, i.e., Steam OS).

I took out my pocket-calculator and my informatics ABC, and, yes, i easily admit the thing about "amount of RAM" is of course right. This was just lazy me ignoring the effect of RAM-eating graphic-cards (as the limiting factor in practice) before the "theoretical" side. Bear with me... @98SE Still, now, even more that the theoretical maximum and the practical side is equally sorted out, i just don't understand where listing those data might get us to. (My problem is, i assume, that my command of the english language is still too low to get the fine nuances.) What I DO think is, that a more detailed listing, is i.e. @ruthan did for the 865 sort of boards, would be of great help for old and new users alike, as everyone has its specific needs, and in the end, besides the patches, it all boiles down to the right choice of $things... Perhaps in the new stickied topic about "Modern Mainboards" started by @Tommy a more detailed approach could get us there? (and yes, ethusiastic new users like ruthan and 98SE missed some discussions and therefore attempted things and started discussions that were already closed books for the old boys, but yeah, at least i still get occasionally overwhelmed by the treasures of MSFN hoarded in one big unsorted dragon-heap of gold sooo big the arkane jewel can easily get lost... unless you are a dragon... and even then... )

Thank you, i missed that. So, DDR4 itself need not be an issue. This is closing in more and more on the chipset of my board (or, perhaps, AM4 in general, but as long as i'm the only one trying...)

I invested quite some time using different media (SATA-SSD, IDE-SSD, classical IDE-HDD), but it all remained the same, and the exactly same disks worked without any fault in my other systems. I basically installed on AMD FX boards, tested thoroughly, and then built in the disks into the AM4 system. So i also came to the conclusion, especially if the errors appear in DOS already, that there is a problem in the communication between the DDR4-memory-controller, and the OS, or a problem in the line of this. This also explains all the upcoming behaviour (scrambled video-memory, 157MB Ram, errative detection of components, etc.). This all pretty goes along with your observations of the other systems you mentioned. Sorry if i did not watch all your posts, but did you do any experiments with boards that have DDR4? At the moment, summing up the data collected, at least my board will never run w98se beyond what can be seen on the screenshots.

Let's get back to your topic. I use no other w9x operating system than W98SE (ME and W95 allowing a bit more memory, afaik, even though RAM plus swapfile never allow usage above 3.5 GB, no matter what, which RLoews patch is no able to break -at least he said so, if i did not get him wrong). I never used a (aka THE RLoew ) commercial patch for all my systems, instead using W98IOPAT.EXE/HIMEMX.EXE (<-- i learned this is not Ushers method... mea culpa...), which is working for any amount of memory (i borrowed 64GB and put it into an ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0 board to prove it), limiting memory for W98SE to 1GB, which is good enough for all my gaming needs. The most memory i got stable out-of-the-box on W98SE was (and is) 1.5 GB, always on older systems using DDR400 having 3 or 4 memory slots. When i put in 2GB on those DDR400 systems, things started to get shaky, depending on the mobo and applications used, also i could install, and the system basically booted. I never owned more that 2 * 1GB and 2 * 512MB of DDR400 memory, and my systems never supported more than that (so for the famous ConRoe865PE i would have to buy some to get to 4GB). On boards since Intel P35 chipset, and VIA 880 <xyz>, putting in more than 1GB of Ram had my systems hang either during installation, or when i installed a graphics driver latest, so since then i used W98iOPAT.EXE/HIMEMX.EXE (which, also not widely known, is measurably faster than himem.sys on many occasions). You probably know the thread: So, taking the hard ~3.5 GB barrier as a technical limit of the 16bit/32bit hybrid architecture of all w9x systems, and all known tricks just making us get closer to that limit on our systems, while all the same using the same tricks allows us to (theoretically) use systems with any amount of memory, as long as we mask it to w9x ... ... i basically do not understand, what is it you want to achieve?

The file was damaged. After replacing it, this seems better now. I'm not able to start any setup procedure (/P I or not), Setup.exe always complains about "sector not found", and dies. I exchanged all parts (Controller, sound, SSD, GPU), but to no avail. Windows 10 is running rock-solid meanwhile (i dual-boot via BIOS atm.) I then copied my Installation from my ASRock 890FX Deluxe5, and was able to boot into w98se, as before. Some screenshots as an attachment (Reporting AMD Ryzen with 157,0 MB Ram... ) - the scrambled Pixels are like that on the Desktop... this is an installation with inoff. SP3.0 and NUSB, and (normally) drivers for all add-in-cards (7600GT, sata-pci, SB Audigy, LAN) already installed - they are just not used, imho because all those bridges don't work. But i have the gut-feeling the missing bridges are not the cause, but just a symptom of a more fundamental problem. Activating the driver for the 7600GT will thrash the System irrevocably. Something important is definitely broken, and i have no idea what it is. (@RLoew: The files i sent seem basically identical in the critical aspects). Hardware.7z

lol. Or FIRST use your patch on NVidia-cards to use their full Memory, THEN install them. X * 2.

Thanks for the heads-up! I tested from both ready Installation, as well as from fresh sources. The ready Installation got me into the operating System, the fresh Installation led me nowhere. So for a while i'll stay with pre-installed Systems. I still suspect the problem with the missing identification of the PCI-bridges to be crucial. The PCI-to-PCIe-adapters work great in W10 and ubuntu, delivering full functionality, and they seem to be invisible to w98se on other machines (and i absolutely need them for the compatible SATA-add-in), so i'll continue with them (perhaps waiting a bit with the Audigy because of the Mechanical Challenged Position (tm) ...). I'll experiment with Usher and alternatives, as per RLoews analysis, i did not get into protected mode at all, and that may still hint for a problem with memory-management. Trying out all those things will take time, of which i do not have very much atm. Memory looks good, at least on Ubuntu (memcheck). I'll try a new Installation on a compatible machine with "setup /p i", and try to transfer that to the AM4-board. Thank you to all of you until now!

Small advance: All hardware tested, and found to be working. See also post about "PCI-to-PCIe-adapters work...", which is helpful for all experiements with boards with too few or none PCI-Slots (not restricted to AM4):

The most performance i get out of my AM3+/8350FX/GTX7900 combo (and the Titan/970GTX for XP/W10 in the second 16x slot <-- one of these is to replace the 770GTX). The best AGP-performance comes under XP with an ATI 3850 HD. I just couldn't care less. This is all about comprimise, and for everyone the MMV. My systems are there to multi-boot, because i have already enough machines cramped into my room - and w98se (and XP) is rather a secondary use on those (even if building them takes the most time). So, for me, the performance on W10 (or Ubuntu or, upcoming, ARCH Linux on my real workhorses) is the one most important thing. THEN good w98se performance comes second. That's why Quad and moaaaar RAM rule for me. The AM3+/8350FX/GTX7900 combo (esp. with the fine SSD to boot) delivers more than enough speed for all games i know under w98se. The one legacy system i kept is an ATI 9700 Pro AGP 256MB with a nice-looking passive cooler (exactly this combo: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/zalman-zm80a,594.html), an AMD 3000+ on Socket 754 (µATX) with a nice looking passive cooler (this one: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/10-mammoth-cpu-coolers,1053-23.html without the fan), and a Terratec Soundcard. At that time, this was cheaper, faster and better than the usual NVidia/Intel/Soundblaster-combo - and therefore a little bit more bad-a**... ...and is my only system that doesn't even carry XP. Why should it. It's perfect. Older ASRock-boards have always been of lower quality, only very recently (since Z77 chipset) they are on par with Asus and the like. Most here praise them for ASRocks "i use old but cheap parts", as exactly that cheapo-attitude resulted in boards that can still run w98se at all, and are still available. It's one of those incidents... and it's not by chance that those compatible AM3+ boards are mainly by ASRock. It was the same with ABit, somehow (anyone here remember the glorious BP6, Dual-Celeron with that ***** components?). I was never able to do ANY kind of overclocking on ASRock boards until recently. My true love never belonged to hardware. It's the games, and, to a certain - but smaller - degree, w98se itself, for the nostalgia.

Right... ... BUT ... ... if i had put on my glasses, that premature declaration of love would not have happened to me. No Quad-support on BOTH the GA-8I865PE775-G-RH and the DFI board. The ConRoe865PE still stands out for AGP plus Quad-Support and 4GB Ram, only bested by VIA PT880 Pro/PT880 Ultra for SATA II and DDR2 Support.

I own three such boards, with the VIA chipset (ASRock 4coreDual etc.)... I got them working with w98se, xp and w10 just right, but still... some alternative would have been nice, right? The intel chipset is just better to handle, native drivers directly from Gigabyte and such... If i could get my hands on one of those GA-8I865PE775-G-RH ... <-- corrected, because to Quad-Support... (still, some chinese trader hoarding this ConRoe865PE board in his backyard, trying to sell it for an absolutely too high price, even if you consider collectors, and then with that typo... it remains funny, even on second sight...)

Nice find! Except for some shady yandex-site, there is no hint that mobo ever hit the market... although it is mentioned on vogons...

Ok, did W10 installation: Everything (esp. RAM) seems to be ok. The Ryzen 1600X seems to have the same single-core speed as my i7 3770@stock. I won't tinker with RAM-overclocking, as that might irritate ole w98se... Everything is blinking in RGB (Ram, Wraith Spire RGB, Mobo), which is nice... If all the new shiny parts (DDR4/PCIe 3x/x370 chipset) aren't the cause, it may still be my hardware, although i can't say which part of it (with Ubuntu or W10 all parts seem to work fine). I have some doubts about my 7600 GT PCIe 256MB, and my slowly ageing SATA II SSD, so i'll try to get some spare parts to rotate. My vacations end today, and i have to do a quite difficult certification for my job (OSCP), so i will meditate a bit about the situation, and go slow. So don't expect much progress in the next time...

The big difference is, the ConRoe865PE can use 4GB of Ram, while the 775i65G can only use 2GB. That qualifies the ConRoe865PE a little bit more for use with W10 64bit, and helps with XP as well. The two more PCI-slots are not essential. Otherwise, it's essentially the same board, just a tad older. If ASRock would have given the 775i65G just two more memory-slots, it would have been just perfect... (Although I'll buy neither most probably... three PCs and two Laptops with w98se are enough for me... unless i open up a club for legacy-LAN-parties...)

Hi, when i saw that ruthan owns the ASRock ConRoe865PE, i thought "well, i want to have one as well!". None to find on ebay, or elsewhere. Gosh... But then, using the old technique of typo-squatting, i found where they are. They are not in heaven. They are in China. All 211 of them. Duh... https://www.aliexpress.com/item/asrock-C-onroe865PE-775-High-quality-perfect-test/32808945751.html I don't know if i would recommend buying there... but for some spare coins... Cheers... (see at ASRock: http://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/ConRoe865PE/index.asp#osW98) (Interesting lists at our friends at vogon: AGP on socket 775, incl. Core 2: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=50665 PCIe on Socket 478: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=50655 )

@RLoew: Ok. I'll do a health check by installing Windows 10, and running some diagnostics. I'll also refresh my installation-sources.

So, i have to patch system.cb, and then i do not need himem.exe... well, i'll try that for sure (just maybe not yet - or should i?).

@RLoew These are all the files that are changed in some way (except for three DLLs - why new DLLs???) Using setup /p i produces exactly the same result. Using the pre-built installation got me to a better state, for which i have few explanations. (NUSB? System doesn't init in that setup-stage, but a already installed system is beyond that, and so can start at least? Ushers method/w98iopat doesn't work as expected? SP 3.0 fixes things?) I will try again with a pre-built image, and try to find out, why the PCI(e)-briges are not being identified, and if that can be fixed somehow. I just have no idea, how to. NETLOG.TXT BOOTLOG.TXT SETUPLOG.TXT SUHDLOG.DAT BOOTLOG.PRV SYSTEM.INI WININIT.INI

@dencorso + jaclaz: §1 Jaclaz is ALWAYS right. §2 And if not, §1 sets in automatically I'm always eager to learn: How will himem.exe be used in safe mode without patching io.sys?