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@tillewolle In the past I had a very resistant VIA-board. At last I succeeded with the 5.10.00.6240 driver from Biostar (my board was Asus!). A working download link is on this page: https://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php/cpu_export.php?S_ID=5

@tillewolle At least you know an AC'97 driver is needed. On a MSI-forum about the same problem as yours, I found a link to A3.52 http://www.opendrivers.com/download/driver-11088.html Another idea on that forum was to try Win95 drivers.

@tillewolle The risks are all yours. I wold suggest this one, your hardware (C51G & ALC655) and your (main) VEN/DEV are mentioned. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.driverguide.com/driver/amp/detail.php%3fdriverid=732403

@tillewolle Before starting with an experimental HDA-driver, you should be fully sure your board has a HD-audio codec (chip). If I search about sound for your motherboard, all I can find is ALC655. This appears to be an AC'97 codec. Did you try all Win98 drivers for this codec already?

@jaclaz Thanks for the tip. I tested the latest version of the program using Win98se and on two machines, with following results: 1) Can be used for Part I, Part III and Part V installations (no UUID changes in these parts!). A Reboot is always necessary. 2) Letter Assigner changes letters in MD-DOS already, assignments are found to be NOT compatible with SMARTDRV.EXE - Warning: Unable to use a disk cache on the specified drive (not mentioned in the HELP doc's). So speed gained for ALL drives in MS-DOS Compatibility mode, is lost by using Letter Assigner for assigned drives. This is less severe in Part V: the USB 2.0 drivers don't use Smartdrive; for some "Administrator" activities (starting Windows with USB-controllers disabled), the root partition in USB legacy mode is still cached by Smartdrive. 3) Letter Assigner checks for the Windows partition with UUID entrances in the file LETTERS.INI. In Part II and Part IV the UUID of the Memdrive is ALWAYS different from the UUID of the Windows partition on the USB boot drive. Since it's a goal of the project to have always access to this partition, the results with Letter Assigner are not compatible with starting Windows from a USB legacy drive after installation on a Memdrive; and the other way round. In the first case the C-drive will vanish after LETASSIG.EXE is started during execution of AUTOEXEC.BAT. In the second case I had a very, very bad crash while booting Windows on the Memdrive. It should be possible to replace LETTERS.INI-files before, but for sure this will not be easier than just calling SMARTDRV.EXE and SUBST.EXE in a batch file, with the right drive letters. 4) If the Windows volume is commented out in LETTERS.INI, assignment of other volumes is still working. The program gives only a message during execution of AUTOEXEC.BAT: Bad descriptor: ;;C=(1234-5678) Bad descriptor: ;;W=(8765-4321) Bad descriptor: ;;/WD=(8765-4321) The new volume mapping has been set up. Volume D was mapped without problems to X (except Smartdrive caching)! 5) Volumes on real USB 2.0 drives are changed roughly in the same way as Device Manager operates. Only in case of a non-removable USB drive, Letter Assigner is special. Using Device Manager the USB drive has first to be set as "Removable", to change drive letters. After first reboot the drive can be set back as non-removable, new drive letters will be still there, but a second reboot is needed first. With Letter Assigner there is just one reboot needed. In the Registry (in HKLM\ENUM\SCSI\..somedrive..\) only one line "UserDriveLetterAssignment"="XZ" is added, while "CurrentDriveLetterAssignment" is changed to ="XYZ" (if XYZ are new volume letters of an USB hard drive with three partitions). With Device Manager there will be three other lines in the Registry-entrance left, but they are only needed in case of a truly removable USB (flash) drive and do no harm otherwise (as far as I observed). 6) Labels changed, by Letter Assigner are NOT compatible with the GRUB4DOS "vol --write"-command.

Congratulations I have been reading our old thread, once you mentioned (page 7?) there was a difference according playback of system sounds after replacing one of my ALC883 specific HDAICOUT.HDA with a newer one.

Part V: Windows 98se on USB 2.0 with Grub4Dos Memdrive as bootchain If the MS-DOS “Volume Serial Number” of the Memdrive isn’t changed, Windows will boot further from the USB boot drive – partition with identical serial. The “outmapped” USB boot drive is invisible to IO.SYS while booting from the Memdrive, so not mounted in MS-DOS. If the Memdrive is (almost) identical to the USB boot partition, Windows doesn’t care. It´s really nice to see BOOTLOG.TXT, on the primary (boot) partition of the USB drive, starting with Init Success usbmphlp.pdr. Installation of USB-drivers should be finished before (see Part IV). In MENU.LST of Part IV only the UUID command has to be deleted (or commented out). “Rebooting” the Memdrive is only possible before starting Windows. BTW: “Reboot to MS-DOS mode” is impossible (Memdrive is not accessible anymore), no restarting Windows and no normal shutdown. "Restart" is the only option left, turning off the computer after a full reboot from ""Command prompt only". BTW2: USB 2.0 boot drive cannot be removed anymore. BTW3: Not all programs are working if Windows is on an USB drive with removable bit (no IOCTL ??). USB hard drives gave no problems. BTW4: On my hardware and with Grub4Dos the primary partition as Memdrive bootchain is max 3406MB (with minimum 16BM memory left for Windows 98se and 32MB for Grub4Dos!). On a SATA-II drive in an USB 2.0 caddy, my “best” load speed was 38MB/sec. (with “usb --init”). BTW5: This part can be combined with a logical partition. Desired fixed drive-letter should has been set one “higher” in Device Manager (logical partition “slips” one “down”). BTW6: For automation I start GRUB.EXE with a batch file after renaming HSFLOP.PDR and importing USBCTLYS.REG in the registry to enable the USB-drivers. To boot Windows from an USB legacy drive I use another batch file with “:USBLOGICAL1” (see Part IV), further CHOICE to load SMARTDRV.EXE for USBPRIMARY1 only, enable HSFLOP.PDR and disable USB-drivers by importing USBCTLNO.REG in the registry.

Hm. sounds no good. Better test first following files against their (updated) originals: mmsys.cpl, winmm.dll, msacm32.dll, msacm.dll and mciwave.drv. Q77694 gives: "Alternately, modify the size of the buffer in the SYSTEM.INI file. The numeric parameter on the "WaveAudio" line in the [mci] section specifies the size of the buffer. The following is a sample of the SYSTEM.INI file: [mci] WaveAudio=mciwave.drv 4 A four-second buffer is the default setting." Thanks to Jeff Parsons Q-collection. So, the numbers 2-9 are possible values.

@cc333 Interesting to hear about your Dell. I did a quick search in the ALSA community, this is a nice short article to read, it's about (HD-)audiochipsets and pop's&click's: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.10/sound/soc/pops-clicks.html For HDA2.DLL: check if energy savings are disabled ALL!

@Dave-H, Interesting results. Did you experimented with the wave-buffer? It's in "Sounds and Audio Devices" (somewhere). Regarding different mediaplayers: on some of them audio output can be chosen. In VLC too, as far I remember. Try difference between normal HDA output and Direct Sound. I can't test much at the moment, because of my USB-project and no full Win98se installation available. About pop's and click's in WinXP/Win10: are you using Window's "universal" driver, or Realtek's?

Wave can play uncompressed sound only. Compressed files are decompressed by the player. On Win9x System Sounds are 22050 Hz only: Radio Quality. Maybe the driver has problems switching frequency of your ALC883. How sounds a System Sound with a WAV in CD-quality? Another possibility is playing with the Wave-buffer, I found 5 seconds best (default is 4 seconds). Further: on my system Playback of media-files is best with Direct Sound output (software emulation only). I think thats not possible in case of System Sounds. About pop's and click's: all HDA-codecs are producing them, but most drivers are programmed to switch sound off during the load-phase.

This is not a true statement in general. Two out of three HDA-chipsets I was able to test, worked out-of-the-box (with HDATSR.EXE in AUTOEXEC.BAT). One HDA-chipset needed my quasi-general HDAICOUT.HDA (download on page 8 of the thread mentioned), the file for "Codec Index=$0" (=HDAICOUT.HDA.000). If there is silence only, setting the right "Output Widget" in HDACFG.INI is important - the driver has no a Widget Parser. Sadly there is no list of $-values - could be made if enough serious testers were available. I have fairly good system sounds, maybe because of some heavy tweaking. About using the driver at all: it's written by Watler for Win3x, Stereo-Playback for max 16 bit & 48 KHz only. Installation on Win9x is easy, in case of WinME it's much more complicated (no Real mode). Further: use of this driver can give serious stability problems.

You have to rightclick on ERU.EXE, hold the button and drag to your desktop. Then you can choose "Create shortcut" ,or something like that, in the menu shown by Explorer. Dragging works in Progams too.

@Wunderbar98 Thnx for sharing, nice story. Since Windows 9x uses other configuration files too, I prefer ERU. It came with the Windows 95cd, but its free software and still available (as ERUZIP.EXE). Files backup'd can be edited too in ERU.INF.

@jaclaz Thanks again. I will will thorough test 0E in final testing of Part VII. Although tempting, I have not yet decided to reuse my project for other flavors of Win9x, or try running Windows 3x on a Memdrive. For the time being this project is very time consuming, for now I have to return to final testing of Part V.

Thanks for clarification. I'd run some time-consuming tests with my MBR-aware tools while on the Memdrive. Indeed, Grub4Dos and Win98se doesn't care if the bootcode is made empty. But my USB Legacy BIOS definitely needs the bootstrap code to boot the USB-drive. I've read that post several times during my Part VII-research . Please, can you clarify why my project won't be affected?

@jaclaz Thank´s a lot for elaborating. As far I can judge your first mapping gives same result like mine, only mapped to (hd2). And a corroboration of mine, isn't it. Your second mapping gives a memdrive with two partitions, second active. Give also very interesting testing-possibilities! Grub4Dos readme states (in update 4): "Here win98.img is a partition image without the leading MBR and partition table in it. Surely GRUB for DOS will build an MBR and partition table for the memdrive (hd0)". I admit I could find my desired mapping nowhere, but by trial-and-error it was a very easy job in comparison to other parts of my project. Can you explain the MBR copy-part? The bootcode-part (before partition table) of my MBR-dump of the Memdrive looks different to the original (but I can't read MBR-code).

I just remembered the speedtest was cited on Vogons (don't know why). https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=12102 One of the links should work.

@jumper NN 3.04 is Netscape Navigator 3.04 (16-bit). Runs in Windows 98se too (but NOT with normal internet connection). Conforums is not on Google anymore. Try this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20180413181223/http://win3x.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=net&num=1517876379&action=display&start=49

@jumper If you found my sentence hard to understand, see correction above. In case you are interested in the test, see: https://web.archive.org/web/2018*/http://win3x.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=net&num=1517876379&action=display&start=49

@jaclaz Thank´s for posting. I did as you asked. Can´t post pictures anymore, so here is the full screen "written-down" (except txt after hex). Not sure if you only want the partition-table of the Memdrive. I can upload full MBR-dump's of the Memdrive and/or the USB-bootdrive - if needed. Booting command-list Found 1 USB devices. Device Num: 0x80; floppies_orig=0, harddrives_org=1, floppies_curr=1, harddrives_curr=1 FAT32 BPB found with 0xEB (jmp) leading to the bootsector probed C/H/S = 64/255/63, probed total sectors = 1028160 00000001BE: 80 01 01 00 0C 01 01 40 3F 00 00 00 41 B0 0F 00 ; 00000001CE: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; 00000001DE: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; 00000001EE: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ; 00000001FE: 55 AA ; Can you elaborate please what you ment with your comment: "maps the first (primary) partition to the whole device (i.e. it should be a superfloppy), unless there is something else going on , the (hd0,0) reference should not be valid. It should be: map --mem (hd0)+1 (hd0) to map the whole disk." I am afraid I don't see the problem, why "not valid"?

Advantages: 1) Changing User Agent, custom and with presets. 2) Sending real or custom referer (not tested). 3) Cookie Management (not tested). 4) No download problems (speed is not the highest). 5) Still available (in the first half of 2018 I did a speed test with NN 3.04: out of 8 "compatible" tested web proxies, proxycrime is the only one left.

Part IV: Windows 98se on Grub4Dos Memdrive with full USB 2.0 access In this part, after booting Windows on the Memdrive, there will be full access to the USB-bootdrive – mounted as regular USB 2.0. After renaming USB.IN_ back to USB.INF, installation of NUSB 3.3, and adding mbrint13.sys ; Grub4dos to IOS.INI [safelist], the Memdrive should be booted first to “Command prompt only” with changed MENU.LST: ------------------------------ MENU.LST ------------------------------ # comments always BEFORE a command title Boot IO.SYS chainloader (hd0)+1 rootnoverify (hd0) title Win98se on Memdrive with USB 2.0 access # only one USB-drive allowed during boot errorcheck off # "usb --init" is not ment to be used on an USB-hub (Grub4Dos Readme) usb --init # for one “real” floppie-drive; if needed map (fd0) (fd1) map (fd1) (fd0) # USB-bootdrive (hd0)should be “outmapped” by Memdrive map --mem (hd0,0)+1 (hd0) map --hook # without second mapping 3½” floppie can be seen as 5¼” by Explorer; if needed map (fd1) (fd0) map (fd0) (fd1) map --rehook # mandatory, without changed UUID “open files blue screen” while mounting USB boot-partition # USB boot-partition not visible from “Command prompt only” anymore uuid --write (hd0,0) B00D-1D20 vol --write (hd0,0) U20MEMDRIVE # not critical, for other possibilities see Jaclaz 09-22-2017: # https://msfn.org/board/topic/177102-solved-as-is-windows-95-issues-with-grub4dos/?do=findComment&comment=1145058 root (hd0,0) chainloader /io.sys title Reboot IO.SYS on Memdrive uuid --write (hd0,0) B01D-1D20 vol --write (hd0,0) R20MEMDRIVE # critical, otherwise Memdrive can be rebooted only once (experimental) root (hd0,0) chainloader /io.sys ------------------------------ After booting Windows on the Memdrive, all USB-Controllers and already attached USB-Devices can be installed in Device Manager. If not there yet: SYSTRAY can be started from START --> RUN. All changes can be copied “down” to the Windows USB boot-partition. It should be possible to remove the USB 2.0-bootdrive, or insert it again, in the normal way. Without Memdrive, Windows can only be started in Normal Mode after disabling USB-Controllers (in Safe mode, or with a REG-file from “Command prompt only” before booting Windows). See attached REG-file as example (machine-specific). USBCTLNO.REG To enable USB-controllers again, following REG-file has to be imported in the Registry before booting Windows on the Memdrive. Example in attached Reg-file (machine-specific). USBCTLYS.REG Importing REG-files can be automated with attached batch-file (together with batch-commands for one logical drive already). USB20.BAT BTW: After booting Windows on the Memdrive, it’s important - according to my experience - to wait ALWAYS before starting any program until Mouse’ Hour-Glass has been vanished. Also it’s a good habit to run Scandisk before copying anything from the Memdrive back to the USB boot-partition. BTW2: Max 400-500MB, more space with Drivespace and/or logical partition (fixed drive-letter for logical partition on Memdrive has to be obtained with Device Manager). BTW3: If no CD/DVD-drive available, Windows 98se files should be copied to USB-bootdrive before. Other possibility: at least all files mentioned in in USB.INF, MSMOUSE.INF and KEYBOARD.INF has to be copied to their destination first. Afterwards they can be skipped ("missing files" installation-dialog). USB-Mouse/Keyboard is not available during installation of USB-Controllers (one PS/2 Input-Device should be available during install).

I am using http://proxycrime.com as last resort. See my post of april, 23 thread posted in next post by @Goodmaneuver

Part III: Windows 98se with PCI-devices (except USB) on legacy USB 1.1 In Part I detection of PCI-Bus is omitted, but not disabled: MSDET.INF hasn’t changed. Part III continues the installation of Part I. Full installation will be accomplished in Part IV. After renaming USB.INF to USB.IN_, PCI-Bus and dependant PCI-devices can be installed with Wizard New Hardware, no reboot in between. Before final reboot, Standard VGA must be deleted in Device Manager; all USB-Controllers should have yellow exclamation-marks. BTW: The Part III installation can be run from a “Part II”-Memdrive. Same method, same limitations.