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Windows 9x on ASRock A785GM-LE


Tommy

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Well, we might not be completely working yet. I tried installing my Nvidia Geforce 4 MX4000 card, the setup program doesn't recognize it and when I go ahead and install it the manual way, I get a Windows Protection Error about CONFIGMG.

The IRQ driver for ACPI does not need to be removed in order to get to the desktop though, just the main driver. Apparently disabling it in the bios doesn't cut it off 100% either since I reinstalled it with the new setting and it still is recognized. So it's some sort of advanced power management system that I can't disable for some reason. But sadly I don't know if the reason my card messes things up when you install the drivers is because of the ACPI I deleted or if it's another reason. Anyone know? At least we're farther than we were before!

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Yeah, but now you've hit jackpot! :yes:

Install once more using the "setup /p i" (KB186111) and then use my instructions to remove APM (this post and a few following it) too, if that's not enough. But do read both references I've given here before proceeding. It's been a long time since I've seen boards giving problems with ACPI, but they sure are part of the 9x-specific issues (one not partaken by -- or not as serious in -- Win ME).

But do add Xeno86's patched VCache.VxD to the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32 folder before the 1st reboot. You actually need it, despite the fact the problems it solves are not the one you were struggling with, after all.

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My Patch won't install before the Second Boot because it expects the VMM32.VXD File to be already packed.

You can boot to DOS and run WININIT, or let Setup run until it fails and then install the Patch.

Disabling ACPI prevents the PCI Bus from being enumerated. To get the missing Drivers you need to Manually Add the "PCI BUS" Driver using the "Add Hardware" Control Panel App. It is in the System Driver Section.

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Thanks to both dencorso and RLoew for their help in this project!!

I am posting this from the machine that's given us all these headaches and troubles, using Windows 98! I have full color display, sound, 1Gig of RAM, and it actually runs quite nicely!

@rloew: If I wanted to add the second gig module in my machine, I would need your patch, correct? Would I need to do anything other than install the patch?

@dencorso: I followed your instructions almost to a T, except a few things weren't there so I was able to skip them but the machine is running great. The third part of setup started up just fine. I disabled APM and ACPI completely and my machine actually seems quite stable. I really should sometime reinstall it on my SATA drive with IDE emulation and see how well that goes as it seems to work fine that way but luckily my onboard network chip which is a Realtek RTL8111DP has a Windows 98 driver since my board only has two PCI slots and I bought an ATI Radeon X600 thinking it would work and it probably does, but derp me didn't realize that the DVI connector is totally different than what I even own so I can't plug any monitor I own in it as of right now.

But for right now, my specs are as follows.

ASRock A785GM-LE motherboard

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ running at 2GHz

1 Gigabyte of RAM

80 Gigabyte Western Digital IDE hard drive

NVIDIA GeForce4 MX4000 PCI running with 128MBs of onboard video RAM

SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 sound card

Realtek RTL8111D/P 10/100/1000 onboard network adapter

and....

Windows 98 SE!! :thumbup

I cannot believe exactly how much smoother Windows 98 feels on a machine like this. It's actually quite awesome! I'm happy beyond words now. :)

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Thanks dencorso! I'm pretty proud of myself for sticking with it. Windows 98 was always one of my favorite operating systems and I knew there was a way to install it on here. It's actually working quite good! I installed the unofficial service pack 3 and KernelEx so far on it. I'm using the installed version of Firefox 3.6.28 which works out good too. I might use a later portable version of Firefox for things that doesn't support the earlier Firefox. I just wish I knew how to fix the ugly font in it along with it changing words into all capital letters.

One day for my next project I might attempt to either install Windows 98 on my Dell Inspiron laptop or my Dell Vostro, which I'm leaning more towards the latter choice. I know the Dell Vostro will be quite a challenge because it's completely SATA so I'll have to rely on flash drives for my Windows 98 installation source. But I'm still going to try it regardless! :whistle:

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@rloew: If I wanted to add the second gig module in my machine, I would need your patch, correct? Would I need to do anything other than install the patch?

If you want to make use of that second Gigabyte, definitely.

Considering the Gigabit Network you have, you will probably need the /M option.

Gigabit Ethernet sometimes causes issues even with less RAM. The /M Option fixes it.

As far as your Video card is concerned, you can get a DVI adapter to use with your Monitor.

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Since my thread got split, I will repost this bit of information as it pertained to this board/computer only to this point.

Except one thing happened to my other 98 install, I got a VFAT initialization error and it wouldn't load Windows. Luckily a scanreg /restore fixed it up, but it baffles me why this happened. Has this happened to either of you?

My computer actually locked up while I was playing around with TeamViewer and KernelEx, so I'm not sure if that's what caused this particular problem or if something else weird could've happened. Doing the scanreg /restore allowed me to go back in time a bit so I have to reinstall my drivers but at least the system isn't halted during normal mode anymore.

Edited by Tommy
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If the VFAT error recurs, you may need the RAM limitation patch, installed with the /M switch, despite having just 1 GiB RAM, due to the way some Gigabit Ethernet controllers use memory. Telltale symptoms of that are VFAT errors. See the quotation below, from an old post by RLoew.

The VFAT Error is the most probable symptom of DMA memory starvation. The Registry and NIC Drivers use this memory and them VFAT can't get enough. I built even larger Registries to test out my fix for this problem.

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Well, I ended up just reinstalling Windows 98 which I really didn't want to do but I think it was for the best as it just felt a little shaky after the VFAT error. If it *does* happen again, I will give RLoew's patch a spin and see what happens. I'm still in the process of getting the machine completely rock solid again, especially disabling ACPI and APM completely but it was getting too late so after I got the drivers in, I went to bed. I'll probably work on it later today and see what I can do with it. But honestly, it feels more stable than what my Windows 2000 machine does as long as you don't push it too far. At least Youtube finally feels a lot more stable on it and it's not impossible to watch stuff on it.

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Good news update!

I was messing around with some drivers and I happened to download the all in one chipset drivers for my board. I had two USB drivers missing, the SMBus controller missing, and PCI Card (???) missing. Turns out even without forcing it, Windows 98 will accept the Windows XP drivers for the USB devices which happens to be host controllers and the SMBus controller so now the one and only device on the list that doesn't have a device driver is the PCI Card. I'm not even 100% sure what that is. I want to believe it's related to the onboard audio which is hi def but I really don't know. But I've had no ill effects installing the XP drivers nor did it complain about it, I did a search and it found the driver on its own, I didn't force it. So hopefully I can sorta figure out what that last driver could be as I'm slightly OCD when it comes to devices not having drivers installed.

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