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Win 95b on VMWare on AMD Athlon X2 issues.

Darth1701
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Darth1701

Darth1701

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Hi everyone.

I wanted to transfer my old Win95 installation to a virtual machine. I have VMWare Workstation 6.5. For the hardware version I choose 5.x because I read this would be best for Win95.

I used the CPU95FIX patch, the Windows version is Win95 B with USBSupplement

It worked on a Intel Core i5-2320 CPU at 3000 Mhz but it gives me a NTKERN error on a AMD Athlon X2 4850e at 2500 MHz!

I even tried a new installation, the output is the same: Fine with Intel, not working with AMD. Anyone can confirm this or even better have a fix for that?

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dencorso

dencorso

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It worked on a Intel Core i5-2320 CPU at 3000 Mhz but it gives me a NTKERN error on a AMD Athlon X2 4850e at 2500 MHz!

All that this fix solves is the frequency issue. Your own results show it works perfectly at 3000 MHz, so the issue you're having with the AMD Athlon X2 4850e is *obviously* not related to the frequency it's running at.

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LoneCrusader

LoneCrusader

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Hi everyone.

I wanted to transfer my old Win95 installation to a virtual machine. I have VMWare Workstation 6.5. For the hardware version I choose 5.x because I read this would be best for Win95.

I used the CPU95FIX patch, the Windows version is Win95 B with USBSupplement

It worked on a Intel Core i5-2320 CPU at 3000 Mhz but it gives me a NTKERN error on a AMD Athlon X2 4850e at 2500 MHz!

I even tried a new installation, the output is the same: Fine with Intel, not working with AMD. Anyone can confirm this or even better have a fix for that?

Verify that the NTKERN.VXD being used on the AMD machine is version 4.03.1213 as contained in FIX95CPU.

It SHOULD be, provided FIX95CPU is installing properly. However, NTKERN.VXD is not even used unless the USB Supplement is installed. When the USB Supplement is installed, it sometimes overwrites the NEWER version installed by FIX95CPU with 4.03.1212, which has a bug. This bug is documented in FIX95CPU's README.TXT.

It worked on a Intel Core i5-2320 CPU at 3000 Mhz but it gives me a NTKERN error on a AMD Athlon X2 4850e at 2500 MHz!

All that this fix solves is the frequency issue. Your own results show it works perfectly at 3000 MHz, so the issue you're having with the AMD Athlon X2 4850e is *obviously* not related to the frequency it's running at.

Actually it could be, if NTKERN 1212 has overwritten the 1213 installed by FIX95CPU. This is a documented bug as I pointed out to Darth1701. However, IF this is the case, I don't see how/why it is being overwritten on one machine and not the other... :blink:

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Darth1701

Darth1701

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Hello LoneCrusader,

thanks for your reply. Before I posted on the forum I already did some extensive testing.

Both test images (on the Intel Core and the AMD X2) are identical, NTKERN = 4.03.1213

I tried a clean install on both, only the Intel Core works.

What I did now is somewhat interesting: I took the working Intel Core image, made a snapshot inside Win95 and transferred the whole thing to the AMD machine and loaded the snapshot, I was inside Win95, rebooted on the AMD again and same error. But while I was inside Win95 I made some benchmark with an old SiSoft Sandra install. This is kinda surprising:

post-376300-0-96176100-1364972177_thumb.

post-376300-0-12575400-1364972189_thumb.

post-376300-0-93398500-1364972204_thumb.

post-376300-0-65216100-1364972219_thumb.

CPU and especially FPU is way off. P-Rating is 0 on the AMD and more correct on the Intel machine. So I can only assume it has something to do with the old VMWare version?

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LoneCrusader

LoneCrusader

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Hello LoneCrusader,

thanks for your reply. Before I posted on the forum I already did some extensive testing.

Both test images (on the Intel Core and the AMD X2) are identical, NTKERN = 4.03.1213

I tried a clean install on both, only the Intel Core works.

What I did now is somewhat interesting: I took the working Intel Core image, made a snapshot inside Win95 and transferred the whole thing to the AMD machine and loaded the snapshot, I was inside Win95, rebooted on the AMD again and same error. But while I was inside Win95 I made some benchmark with an old SiSoft Sandra install. This is kinda surprising:

CPU and especially FPU is way off. P-Rating is 0 on the AMD and more correct on the Intel machine. So I can only assume it has something to do with the old VMWare version?

Behavior when running under a Virtual Machine is sometimes unpredictable and is not always the same as behavior on a real machine. Can you try a native Windows 95 install on your AMD machine, just to rule out any discrepancy?

I have no personal experience with AMD processors beyond the old K6-II era. I moved to P4's and have been using them since. :unsure:

I will ask rloew to comment on this, as he uses AMD almost exclusively...

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dencorso

dencorso

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@Darth1701: What about installing VirtualPC 2004 on the AMD (or any other virtual machine provider, to have a second shot at it, without using VMWare)? I think you may have hit jackpot, when you guessed the problem lies on VMWare...

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Darth1701

Darth1701

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Behavior when running under a Virtual Machine is sometimes unpredictable and is not always the same as behavior on a real machine. Can you try a native Windows 95 install on your AMD machine, just to rule out any discrepancy?

I have no personal experience with AMD processors beyond the old K6-II era. I moved to P4's and have been using them since. :unsure:

I will ask rloew to comment on this, as he uses AMD almost exclusively...

I have already thought about installing it on the real machine. But I'm not so sure this will work because, I think, Windows 95 does not know how to handle the motherboard, onboard sound & graphics, ... and I'm almost certain there are no drivers for Win95 for that hardware :(

@Darth1701: What about installing VirtualPC 2004 on the AMD (or any other virtual machine provider, to have a second shot at it, without using VMWare)? I think you may have hit jackpot, when you guessed the problem lies on VMWare...

Yeah, that would be an option, I will think about that. On the other hand, VPC is a dead software with no future support. But just for testing purpose it really could be an option.

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dencorso

dencorso

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Yeah, that would be an option, I will think about that. On the other hand, VPC is a dead software with no future support. But just for testing purpose it really could be an option.

True. Then again, Win 95 fits that description, too, and VPC 2004 is free, reasonably easy to find and reputed to be 9x/ME friendly. But, in any case, the main aim here really is to test in a completely different VM. If it turn out to work well, you may decide to keep it in the AMD machines, you cannot know until you try it..

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LoneCrusader

LoneCrusader

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I have already thought about installing it on the real machine. But I'm not so sure this will work because, I think, Windows 95 does not know how to handle the motherboard, onboard sound & graphics, ... and I'm almost certain there are no drivers for Win95 for that hardware :(

This is only to run an experiment, you don't have to use or keep the resulting 95 installation. You don't even need the hardware drivers. All you need to do is find out if you can boot to the desktop after install (and installing USBSUPP) without getting the NTKERN error.

If you do get it, then NTKERN may a bug with AMD that doesn't show up with Intel. If you don't get it, then you will know that it is related to the VM software. ;)

Edited by LoneCrusader
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Darth1701

Darth1701

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Some update:

I tried to install it on Virtual PC 2004 and it worked, however some program I heavily use, does not work in the virtualized environment where it worked in VMWare 6.5 (on the Intel machine). So now I have to ask my boss about getting a upgrade for VMWare to 9.0 and hope it works there also on the AMD machine.

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Darth1701

Darth1701

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It seems now I'm in a total loss: I upgraded to VMWare Workstation 9.0.2 (the latest) and have redone all my steps. Win95 now boots and everything looks nice. SiSoft Sandra now shows some more accurate results:

post-376300-0-27639300-1365322263_thumb.

... BUT when I make a snapshot inside Win95 and try to restore it at a later time VMWare (or better the Win95-VM) just freezes. It doesn't react to mouse (in fact it doesn't even show the mouse pointer), keyboard and even commands from the VM GUI (like CTRL-ALT-DEL, Suspend, Power off). I have to kill the VMWare-vmx.exe to kill the VM and then start the VM anew and Win95 works again (after running Scandisk ...).

Anyone with Win95b and the same VMWare version can verify this?

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dencorso

dencorso

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Congrats, Darth1701... you're now the thread starter! :thumbup

That also means you can, if you use the full edit mode, change the title to something more descriptive, if you find the one I gave the thread too terse.

Let's see how this develops, but you certainly found out a quite intriguing issue, I hope we get to find a fix for.

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Darth1701

Darth1701

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Congrats, Darth1701... you're now the thread starter! :thumbup

That also means you can, if you use the full edit mode, change the title to something more descriptive, if you find the one I gave the thread too terse.

Let's see how this develops, but you certainly found out a quite intriguing issue, I hope we get to find a fix for.

The topic is fine, it describes the problem well.

One more addition: I can rule out the VMTools. It is the same with Tools 6.0.1 as with Tools 9.0.2 (in fact the real version is 7.[something])

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