Need help getting Win98 running properly (video card issue)

[TheGovernor]

I’d like to preface this post by saying that I’ve spent days reading through the posts on this forum but can’t come to a conclusion on how to proceed or understand what’s causing my problems. My brain is mushy reading about various patches and system.ini tweaks. With this in mind, I’d like to share my problem and see if anyone here can point me in the right direction. This forum seems awesome and I know someone out there will know what to do.

I’m building a “frankenputer” and am working with one of the hard drives running a dual boot Win98/Win2k. The hard drive is PATA (about 17GB) and I have it partitioned with about 5GB allotted to Win98. I’m running on an Intel D945PWM (945/ICH7 chipset) motherboard with the bundled NVIDIA GeForce 6200 LE (PCIe) display adapter. I also have 2 GB of RAM installed. I installed Win98 on the C: according to the instructions in one of the posts here on the forum with the necessary system.ini tweaks to avoid the “out of memory” errors. The OS loaded ok but installing devices was interesting. After days of messing around, and tracking down drivers, I still can’t figure out why the video card won’t cooperate. The driver seems to load ok, but the hardware is in conflict with “motherboard resources”. The video card hasn’t worked properly at all since it has conflicting resources and all I get is VGA mode. Overall, Win98 works but it’s fairly unstable and I have other, less annoying issues. Once I finally get the network adapter (onboard LAN) working, I don’t dare even think about messing with it otherwise it’s hell trying to get it working again.

The Win2k installation on D: works perfectly.

I drew up a complete memory map just out of curiosity and the memory range(s) that the video card is mapping to baffles me. Is there something about having 2 GB of physical RAM in the system while installing the OS that’s causing my problems? I don’t currently have any DIMM’s smaller than 1GB so trying to reload with 512MB isn’t possible (though I just ordered some out of frustration). I’ve linked the memory map for my particular board as well as the maps I created based on what Win98 is telling me.

D945PWM System Memory Address Map

Memory Map Based on Win98 System Properties

Display Adapter Memory Ranges

After sucessfully installing AutoPatcher, running himemx in config.sys and removing all devices in Safe Mode to attempt another reinstall, the system is all jacked up now. I’m considering staring the Win98 install from scratch since I’ve got it fairly screwed up at this point, I just don’t know where to start. Any advice on how to get the video card working in this machine and get a stable Win98 installation? I’ve read about rloew’s RAM patch, himemx, AutoPatcher, etc… just not sure what I need to do at this point.

Thanks much!
Tommy

[dajhorn]

It looks like the default memory area for this card isn't sensible, but Windows 98 doesn't know how to remap devices on the Intel 945 chipset.

You're probably stuck because Intel didn't publish a Windows 98 chipset update for this motherboard. Try your luck with a regular PCI video card instead.

[Steven W]

It may not be the exact motherboard, but I did get 98SE running on a 945:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/158239-installing-98se-on-emachines-w3629/

Try it with 1 GB memory if possible. IMO, you should give up on AutoPatcher too. Try the unofficial SP instead. As you can see, I just used the generic inbuilt Intel Graphics card and the VBEMP 9x driver, so your result may be different.

Quick advice (FWIW):

Get to 1 GB RAM

Reinstall

You're already booting -- no need to fiddle with HD settings.

Install this:

http://www.mdgx.com/files/48BITLBA.EXE

Reboot, see if you can get drivers going.

Don't mess with updates (Patchers and SP included) until you can get the drivers going.

BTW, the last official Intel Chipset driver will update a few drivers:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=8177&ProdId=816〈=eng&OSVersion=Windows%2098%20SE*&DownloadType=Software%20Archives

I had to do them manually.

You might want to check out:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/163405-slipstreamable-intel-chipset-inf-drivers/

Edited January 26, 2014 by Steven W

[TheGovernor]

It looks like the default memory area for this card isn't sensible, but Windows 98 doesn't know how to remap devices on the Intel 945 chipset.

You're probably stuck because Intel didn't publish a Windows 98 chipset update for this motherboard. Try your luck with a regular PCI video card instead.

I kinda feared that I was stuck with a "hard coded" graphics card, or something. Even though Intel never published drivers for ICH7, I used the drivers from here http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/163405-slipstreamable-intel-chipset-inf-drivers/ and they seem to load well. I'm looking at getting an FX 5200 PCI since it's a decent enough GPU (not looking to play any intense games or anything) and has drivers for Win98. Ughhh, this is frustrating!!

[Steven W]

http://www.mdgx.com/files/NV8269.TXT

the links in the file work too.

Edit: here too:

http://www.mdgx.com/files/nv8269.php

Edited January 26, 2014 by Steven W

[TheGovernor]

http://www.mdgx.com/files/NV8269.TXT

the links in the file work too.

Edit: here too:

http://www.mdgx.com/files/nv8269.php

Yep, already used those. Loaded fine but didn't help change the addressing. At this point, I'm thinking that it's not possible to use this MB/Display Adapter combo.

[Steven W]

Sorry to hear. BTW are you trying 98 or 98SE?

[TheGovernor]

I'm using 98SE. (Never even heard of 98FE until many years later, I liked Win95...)

Let's just say for the sake of argument I give up on trying to use the GeForce 6200LE and go with a GeForce FX 5200 on my 945/ICH7 with 512 MB of RAM, theoretically, this should be "fully compatible" with Win98 SE, right? Once I get everything loaded it shouldn't be hard to tweak the system.ini and add more RAM so I can use Win2k and XP as well.

This is turning into quite the project, especially since I really have no good reason to use Win98, I'm just doing it because it's fun...

[dencorso]

Make sure your GeForce FX 5200 has no more than 256 MiB of RAM onboard, too, if you want to avoid problems.

[TheGovernor]

So, I finally got my 512 stick of RAM and a GeForce FX 5200 (128 MB, PCI). Reloaded Win98 and as I suspected, resource conflict with "Motherboard Resources". I'm getting ready to throw this PC in the driveway and run it over with my truck. I'm also having resource conflicts with the floppy controller and onboard LAN. I have no idea why everything is conflicting, I have the ICH7 drivers from LoneCrusader and proper drivers for everything else. My mobo is an Intel D945PWM, not officially supported by Win98 but it shouldn't be giving me this much trouble, should it?

[jumper]

Have you tried disabling ACPI in BIOS? Disabling Plus-and-Play in BIOS? Selecting AGP/PCI video in BIOS? (un)reserving a VGA IRQ in BIOS? Reserving Resources in Computer Properties?

Adjusting the PCI Bus IRQ Steering?

Specifies that Windows programs IRQ steering. If you select the Use IRQ Steering check box, PCI bus devices behave more like Plug and Play devices. If you click to clear the Use IRQ Steering check box, then BIOS programs IRQ steering.

IRQ steering is determined by one of four routing tables. Windows searches for one of the selected routing tables in the order listed and uses the first one it finds.

Do not change the default settings for IRQ steering unless there is a problem with a PCI device. If there is a problem, click to clear the Get IRQ table using ACPI BIOS check box and restart Windows. If the problem persists, select the Get IRQ table from Protected Mode PCI BIOS 2.1 call check box and restart Windows. Select the Get IRQ table from Protected Mode PCI BIOS 2.1 call check box only if a PCI device is not working properly.

[TheGovernor]

I have none of those BIOS options, Intel BIOS is relatively useless. I also don't have an AGP port. I tried changing the IRQ steering options but all that did was disable some of my other devices. I also tried reserving resources but that didn't t help either. Any other ideas?

[Steven W]

Have you done a clean install after replacing memory/ video card? If not, I'd reset the BIOS to default options before doing, perhaps choosing compatibility mode for HD, if applicable. Do not reinstall over current install, do format and all.

Edit: My Motherboard only allowed two choices for the graphics card: 'On Chip VGA' and 'PEG slot' which I assumed (still do) means PCI Express Graphics slot. Sorry I didn't recall that earlier, hope your not in the same boat.

Further Edit: I may have had motherboard resource conflicts too, until I updated the drivers using Intel's update I pointed to above or the unofficial one (for the 865) I pointed to in my original post:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/158239-installing-98se-on-emachines-w3629/#entry1009973

I had to extract them and do them manually, I went into the device manager and updated that way. One at a time, yeah it's a pain, but it obviously worked for me.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Steven W

[DougB]

>>> resource conflict with "Motherboard Resources".

>> Have you tried disabling ACPI in BIOS?
>> Disabling Plus-and-Play in BIOS?

> I have none of those BIOS options

I first encountered similar problems when trying to install a video card on a Dell system where PnP/ACPI could not be disabled -- it gave me resource conflicts.

Try to reinstall Windows with the following command line:

SETUP /p i

It's worked like a charm for me and others on this forum... maybe it will work for you. Let us know.

- Doug B.

[jumper]

The manual, D945PWM_TechProdSpec.pdf, mentions a few things about the BIOS setup:

Try disabling these (in the Advanced submenu?):

- PCI Autoconfiguration

- System Management BIOS (SMBIOS)

- any unused on-board features

3.3.1 PCI Autoconfiguration

The BIOS can automatically configure PCI devices. PCI devices may be onboard or add-in cards.

Autoconfiguration lets a user insert or remove PCI cards without having to configure the system.

When a user turns on the system after adding a PCI card, the BIOS automatically configures

interrupts, the I/O space, and other system resources. Any interrupts set to Available in Setup are

considered to be available for use by the add-in card.

There are also 12 BIOS versions available at the Intel D945PWM download site:

Latest is "108".

Edited February 3, 2014 by jumper