galahs

Alright I am basically going to recommend this system. The 2nd Hard Disk will allow the Swap file to be placed on a separate drive than the Windows and Program installations increasing performance. With big renders there is often a lot of Swap file activity. (Prices from http://www.centrecom.com.au. Links give further product details) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Asus P5PE-VM motherboard - $81.40 http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/produc...oducts_id=19619 Intel PENTIUM 4 651/ 3.4GHZ/ 2MB CACHE/ 800FSB/ LGA775 - $134.20 http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/produc...oducts_id=22182 Corsair DDR 1GB PC-3200 Value Select RAM (VS1GB400C3) - $128.70 Seagate Barracuda 80Gb 7200 rpm Hard Disk - $54.90 Seagate Barracuda 80Gb 7200 rpm Hard Disk - $54.90 ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 256Mb (AGP) - $90.20 LG GSA-H10NBB DVD Re-Writer (16x/Dual Layer Beige) - $43.00 1.44Mb Floppy Disk Drive (Beige) - $15 ATX Midi Case H306 (500W) - $40 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Total: $643 (Australian $ incl GST = Aprox $480 US) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not a bad price or a top notch Windows98 system. Basically I will just disable HyperThreading in the Bios and will enact option 2 & 3 (below) to be sure, to be sure! If it wasn't a 'business' computer I would have gone for 2GB of RAM and just carried out step 2 and given it a try as there have been a few people who have had success with more than 1GB. But anyhows..... Wow, I'm exited! This Win98 beast should fly!!!

What is the Fastest Win98 Processors? Intel Pentium 4 660 3.6 GHz Intel Pentium 4 3.73Ghz Extreme Edition Intel Xeon 3.6 GHz AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2400 MHz L2 - 512 KiB AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (E6) 2400 MHz L2 - 1024 KiB The biggest problem I could foresee was that these chips might require a specific Chipset, that is not compatible with Windows 98 ????? Based on Win98's shaky support of PCI-E, you would need a board that supports AGP 8

This leads me to compile a list of compatible processors with Win9x The basics are: - Multiple CPU's are not supported. - Hyperthreading isn't supported but can be turned off in the bios. - Dual Core is not supported. Only one CPU core is detected making it a waste of money. CPU's that are compatible with Windows 98 INTEL 486 Pentium Pentium MMX Pentium Pro Pentium II Pentium III Pentium III processor Extreme Edition Pentium 4 Pentium 4 supporting Hyper-Threading Technology - Must Disable Hyperthreading in the BIOS Intel® Pentium® 4 processor Extreme Edition supporting Hyper-Threading Technology - Must Disable Hyperthreading in the BIOS Celeron (Covington - PII) Celeron (Mendocino - PII) Celeron II (Coppermine-128 -PIII) Celeron II (Tualatin-256 - PIII) Celeron 4 (Willamette-128 -P4) Celeron 4 (Northwood-128 - P4) Celeron D (Prescott-256 - P4) Celeron D (Cedar Mill-512 - P4) Pentium II Xeon Pentium III Xeon Xeon Xeon supporting Hyper-Threading Technology - Must Disable Hyperthreading in the BIOS Xeon MP (32-bit) supporting Hyper-Threading Technology - Must Disable Hyperthreading in the BIOS Xeon MP (64-bit) supporting Hyper-Threading Technology - Must Disable Hyperthreading in the BIOS AMD K5 NexGen K6 NexGen K6-II Athlon (K7) Athlon XP (K7) Athlon 64 (K8) Athlon 64 FX (K8) (MAX = FX-57 - 2800 MHz) Duron "Spitfire" (Model 3, 180 nm) Duron "Morgan" (Model 7, 180 nm) Duron "Applebred" (Model 8, 130 nm) Sempron - Thoroughbred B/Thorton (130 nm) Socket A Sempron - Barton (130 nm) Socket A Sempron - Paris (130 nm SOI) Socket 754 Sempron - Palermo (90 nm SOI) Socket 754 Sempron - Palermo (90 nm SOI) Socket 939 Sempron - Manila (90 nm SOI) Socket AM2 Operton K8 CYRIX Cx5x86 6x86 6x86L 6x86MX 6x86MII MediaGX CPU's to avoid with Windows 98 Intel Pentium D - May work but one of the processor cores will not be available Intel Core 2 Duo - May work but one of the processor cores will not be available Intel Core 4 Duo - May work but three of the processor cores will not be available Intel Xeon Dual Core - May work but one of the processor cores will not be available Intel Xeon Quad Core - May work but three of the processor cores will not be available AMD Athlon 64 FX - (FX-60 - 2600 MHz and above) May work but one of the processor cores will not be available AMD Athlon 64 X2 - May work but one of the processor cores will not be available Win98 COMPATIBLE MOTHERBOARDS ASUS P5PE-WM (865G Chipset, AGP 8) Supports: Intel® Core2 Duo/65nm Pentium D/Pentium 4/Celeron CPU Gigabyte GA-8I865PE775-G-RH (Northbridge: Intel® 865G/865PE Express Chipset) Supports: Intel® Pentium® 4 /Pentium® D Processor

Thanks for the Chipsets Fortunately they don't want it to run the latest software, just existing legacy CAD programs they have. And anyone familiar with 3D CAD will know you can never have enough CPU, RAM and Graphics Acceleration. So building a top of the line Win9x system should see a nice jump in performance over the Pentium III, 256MB RAM systems they are using now.

Well unfortunately Hyperthreading is not supported on Win9x. 2ndly, a good graphics accelerator is important as the CAD program uses OpenGL acceleration for rendering onscreen models. I would consider AMD but have no idea of compatible motherboards, processors or chipsets. Any suggestions?

Oosps I forgot another important part. How much RAM should I use. I know Windows98 can in theory support upto 1GB with a few system setting tweaks, but remember the prime importance of my mission is an enterprise stable system. Would 768MB be a good compromise?

I have been asked by a Manufacturing firm to come up with a new computer spec to replace their old machines. They need to machines to run Windows 98 SE and Win2000 (dual boot). They want a fast machine (both Graphics and Processor) for CAD work which runs on both Win9x. They stressed they want it to have the least amount of compatibility problems as they have tried running Win98 on new machines and have had lots of problems. I was thinking along the lines of: CPU: Pentium 4 650 - 3.40GHz (HyperThreading will have to be turned off in the BIOS settings) MOTHERBOARD: ASUS P5PE-WM (865G Chipset, AGP 8) http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&amp...amp;modelmenu=1 HARD DISKS: 2 x 120GB ATA130 Drives (I know there is a solution to the 137GB problem but I don't wont to risk it in a business environment) GRAPHICS CARD: nVIDIA 6800 (Quadro doesn't support Win9x) or a ATI Raedon 9800 SOUND CARD: SoundBlaster Audigy 2Z or maybe just a SoundBlaster Live (then again the onboard sound is probably up to the task) add a DL DVD Burner and a Floppy Disk drive and they should be set. Thoughts?

That's excellent news!

I always thought Dual Processors were compatible with Windows 98, just it ignored one of them Also how much RAM does Alex have? Could that be the problem or maybe that the Xeon has too much L2 cache?

Wow. I honestly though Adobe would leave windows 98/Me users high and dry. I'm glad I was mistaken. Does anyone know if Acrobat Reader 5 has the problem too?

lol, my system has 256MB's. It was a typo. Flash 7 works great BUT..... some web pages wont even display with Flash 7 any more I ran Prime95 for 5 hours with no errors. I can only find virtualpc software (bohcs) that emulates a pc (to allow mmx, sse sseII to be done in software) but I don't want to reinstall another copy of windows just for that (a requirement of the program). Another mmx emulator exists but only for Linux. Maybe a Pentium II 333MHz Overdrive chip might be this ol things last hope. I love her too much to put her into retirement just yet. She's been such a trojan horse of stability. Its use has slipped from high end gaming use, to office work, to internet use over the years. I also have two Pentium 4 machines for real work, but this girl together with Windows 98SE has been a fantastic internet access machine. And people with their Pentium 166's laughed at me when I bought a Pentium Pro 200 for 4 times the price of theirs. Well, I think 10 years of service without too many compromises has proven the price was well worth it! Long live the Pro!

I had already tried wiping every trace of Flash content from my computer using both that un-install tool and then manually hunting down the remains both in the windows folder and registry and then reinstalling it. Bad news is I still get the error. I also have the suspicion it might be the Processors lack of MMX as it seems to only run into errors if a large multimedia file attempts to run and only if it was made with Flash 8 or 9. From memory I think Adobe claim the minimum system req to be a Pentium II which of course does have MMX. I have no troubles on YouTube however. p***es me off that more and more websites are made using only Flash. Very bad for accessibility. Their web designers should be shot! Looks like my trusty PPro is finally running out of puff, but boy its done well to last this long! I also have Win2000 duel booting on it, so I might give it a go on there and see if it makes any difference.

Here's my error log from a Microsoft Windows Vista page: IEXPLORE executed an invalid instruction in module FLASH9B.OCX at 016f:300512e8. Registers: EAX=02994b60 CS=016f EIP=300512e8 EFLGS=00010246 EBX=00000002 SS=0177 ESP=00649dec EBP=00649e20 ECX=029c6060 DS=0177 ESI=029c6100 FS=22af EDX=30206708 ES=0177 EDI=00000005 GS=0000 Bytes at CS:EIP: 0f 77 8b 46 38 db 80 88 00 00 00 51 db 40 64 51 Stack dump: 0064a32c 029c6100 029c5780 00000000 00649eec 029c6100 0064a32c 3e800000 fe6fb8d8 00000000

I use Win98 SE on a Pentium Pro 200 with 256MB or RAM. Since updating from Flash Player 7 to Flash Player 9 I have been having lots of crashes when trying to access different websites (especially intense multimedia based sites) I commonly get the error flash9b.ocx has caused an error etc etc. I have had the errors in Firefox, IE 6 SP1 and Opera 9. I reverted back to version 7, the problems go away but I can't access some sites now as they require version 9. Would this problem be a hardware (driver conflicct, lack of MMX processor for example) or a Windows 98 issue? Win 98 SE DirectX 9.0c WMP 9 Java 1.6 Pentium Pro 200 26MB Ram Voodoo 4 Graphics Ensoniq SoundScape Audio

So this driver is so you don't need to install any 3rd party drivers for your computers USB ports, be them built into the motherboard or as an add-on PCI card?

The question is.... will they now update version 6?

I guess what I was originally trying to say was... I like the idea of GAPE's patch, but I don't like how it adds other UNOFFICIAL patches like different icons, registry tweaks etc. If it was JUST the Microsoft updates I would be happy. Users could then tweak their other settings and files themslf if they so felt like it, but at least their system would be as up-to-date as Microsoft left it.

Gapes Unofficial Service Pack is great but I was just thinking, maybe it would be good to have a new Service Pack that just updates Windows 98 SE with OFFICIAL updates from Microsoft. No tweaks, no new un-official patches, no new icons, just an update that updates your copy of Windows 98 Second Edition with every OFFICIAL update Microsoft released up until it dropped support for Windows 98 Second Edition in September 2006. That way we can have a new base level. Windows 98 Second Edition + All Official Patches from which to work from. That way the process to reinstall Windows 98 SE would be for example: Install Windows + Drivers Install IE 6 SP1 Install DirectX 9.0c Install Media Player 9 Install "W98SE Official Patches" Install "W98SE Unofficial Patches" I like the idea that users could easily update their system to the exact spot where Microsoft left off. Then they can decide if they wish to install any unofficial updates to carry on keeping their system up-to-date. It also simplifys the update process which would really help new users keep their Windows 98 SE system in shape. Thoughts?

I have no idea if I need this patch. What is MD Data Access Component Update 1.2 and who needs to update it?

I remember when Windows 98 SE came out, Australian Windows 98 users could upgrade to the newer version for $13 AUS. ($17 US)

I continue to use Windows 98SE because it does what I need it to do. Really its that simple!

Just for our own sake (of building a Win9x archive) here is Nvidia's ForceWare (Drivers) Release Notes: http://www.nvidia.com/object/81.98_9x_supported.html

WinZip, one of the best pieces of utility software ever made for Windows has now OFFICIALLY dropped support for Windows 95, 98, Me and NT in its latest, version 11 release. The good news is it appears to still install OK on Windows 98 if you accept the following warning. WinZip now allows you to unzip RAR files

Great to hear! I usually only install: Windows Installer 2.0 IE6 SP1 + June 2006 cumulative update DX9c October 2006 Build Media Player 9 + update I use Firefox & Opera for Browsing and Thunderbird for emails I have a Firewall & use AVG 7.5 Anti Virus This being the case, am I leaving my self open by not installing any other critical updates?

So are you saying you don't recommend the 2225 update if everything is working ok with 2222?