Windows 98 machine being a pill

[dencorso]

Get a cheap multimeter and measure the +5 V and the + 12 V in real time from a molex. That's how it's done. Then you can move on to a monitoring app if you like, but if what you read on the multimeter is OK, that's that.

[Drugwash]

Let's get one thing straight: by the new regulations - whoever may be enforcing that - the negative 5v (-5V) pin is no longer required in power source units. If you look at the main 20 (or 24) pin Molex on the motherboard, there may be a missing pin - that means the -5V output does not exist, in which case the software may yield weird results for that particular output.

 

One possibility is that both the old and the new PSU are somehow defective as in not-so-accurate voltage output and they may both produce system lock-ups or other unusual behavior. Get a fairly precise multimeter and measure each voltage on the main Molex while the board is running (careful not to produce a short-circuit!)

 

Does the video card have an additional power socket on it and if so, is it connected to the power unit? It may drain too much power, more than the PSU can offer. If that's the case, test with an older, more "gentle" card. Careful with drivers!

 

Also check CPU temperature over time, the thermal grease between cooler and CPU may be missing or dry, the cooler may be improperly mounted, the fan may not provide enough air flow.

[bpalone]

I vote for Power Supply issues.

I had one that tested as fine with a tester, but was found to be WEAK after more issues appeared. It started as you describe, random lockups, etc. Inspected MB and found bulged capacitors, so decided then and there that that had to be the issue (may of been part, but it wasn't it at the time), so replaced the MB and decided to upgrade the CPU to a dual core at the same time. Machine would not boot, wouldn't even get to the BIOS checks. Figured I had a D.O.A. O.E.M. CPU and just put the old CPU in.

Everything seemed to work just fine with the old CPU and new MB. Then a couple days later the old symptoms appeared again. At that point, I figured that the only thing left is that the power supply was laying down under load. It's stated wattage was well above what was possibly being called for by the hardware. So, I replace the power supply and haven't had an issue since. Or, at least until something fails.

If at all possible, I would try a NEW power supply. My case was not with 98 but with 2K and Linux, but if it is the power supply, it doesn't care what OS is there.

[farfigs11]

I've had a MB not work right when the 3.3v was around 3.16 or lower.  The PC I'm using right now has a capacitor problem.   With a capacitor problem it's usually temperature related.   It either works when it's cold or warm-only after letting it idle for about 3 min. before booting.  Either case it will usually lock up in DOS at some point.

[Drugwash]

I've succesfully replaced capacitors on motherboards and video cards. Too bad I'm so far away, I could've helped or at least you could've sent me the faulty boards instead of dumping them.

[Tommy]

Thanks for the tips everyone. I probably won't get to this machine at least until next week. I should check the CPU just because I do think it was running a little hotter than I liked it to. Also, the video card is an nVidia GeForce 6800 AGP, it does not have a power connector for it so there's no way I can plug in something else, but even though the card was almost new when I bought it less than a year ago, I've wondered if it has a problem with it.

[Tommy]

Alright, so I decided to start investigating the problems of this machine. To my (somewhat) horror, I found the Dell Power Supply that I put into this case only outputs a huge whoppin' 200Ws of power. So my first reacting is eek. I decided to take out the video card (GeForce 6200) and I replaced it with a lot lower end nVidia Vanta video card. Surprisingly, the machine seems to work a lot better! Of course I can't make it my permanent solution because it doesn't support the resolution I need it to and it seems to not like direct 3D on Windows 98, but that could be related to something else. But the machine even shuts down automatically now instead of popping up a message saying error writing to device aux like it had been for a while now. So at this point, I don't think it was quite the power supply but the video card that was being a bit problematic. I can't rule out that it's not slightly defective either as I started having a few issues with it on the other power supply as well. But while testing this card, no blue screens, perfect shutdowns, and no blank screens while booting. So I'm starting to think it could be a bit problematic, especially since one of my friends said the capacitors on that card are known to be stinkers and even though they look perfect, that doesn't always mean much. I'll keep replying to this thread as I make more findings.

[Tommy]

Okay, I think I've narrowed quite a bit of this down to the video card itself.

 

So to be exact, it's a PNY NVidia GeForce 6200 AGP with 256MBs of DDR2 vram. This one to be exact: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4116644So with that being said it not really having the easy resources to test this out since I don't have a lot of AGP computers. So here's what I did to try and solve the problem.

 

After switching out a few cards (PCI for some reason will not work in this computer.....), I've had successful shutdowns with no issues. So I thought for *beeps* and giggles, I found a 300W power supply, which is actually required by the manufacturer. Fair enough! Easy swap (almost)!

 

So I put the card back in and....same problems!! Random lockups and problems shutting down. Now I still didn't remove the RAM because it didn't seem to start having issues until I added the 2GBs of RAM in the machine so I don't know if that's still a factor or not. But all the other AGP cards I put in (much lower spec than this one), all worked out just fine! So except for trying out the RAM, is it a possibility that the card itself is just defective?

[Drugwash]

Maybe 256MB of video RAM are too much for this particular hardware configuration. It would explain why it works with lower-end videocards (assumingly with less video RAM). Which means the 6200 card itself may not be faulty but just inappropriate for this system.

 

Also, as I mentioned to Dave-H in another topic, each card may use different memory ranges and IRQs. Try to manually change configurations in Device Manager > Display > ... , if allowed (and reboot afterwards). AGP aperture, video IRQ assignment and other possibly related settings in BIOS should also be revised and tweaked as necessary. Just write down the original settings before you change anything (for both BIOS and Device Manager) in case anything goes wrong, so you can restore them.

[submix8c]

re - PCI Video Cards.

 

I will venture to say that there's a BIOS setting in it (since an "older" Socket 478) that needs "flipped" to look for "PCI First", instead of "AGP First". Some of the older ones don't "automagically" detect that you've inserted a PCI. Also betting that having *both* PCI and (functional) AGP will allow for the PCI to show up in Device Manager, although there may be Resource Conflicts.

 

I've run into this "oddity" before. The method (AFAICR) is to insert both, flip the BIOS while using AGP, Save, Shut Down, Remove the AGP. Also (AFAICR) only really older AGP-slot MoBo's have a "jumper" instead of BIOS setting.

 

In fact, some "stupid" BIOS actually has built-in (AGP) video and no AGP slot (built-in *is* "AGP" of sorts) but still has this BIOS setting.

 

(memory gets fuzzy on this, but that *seems* to be the case "AFAICR"...)

 

Here's the referenced Topic -

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/173500-ati-graphics-crashing/

[TELVM]

In case it's a driver problem, the Nvidia drivers that work best with W98SE on my dinosaur PIII with a 6200 AGP are the 77.72 .

[Tommy]

Edit: I'm having some major funked out issues....please delete my double posts!
 
Thanks for the tip, I didn't even see it because this thread is a bit glitched due to the forum having difficulties when I was posting last night, I don't even see the post I left drugwash last night either. I might look to see about that BIOS setting as well.

Sometimes computers do notice changes but I have run into this before where it doesn't always detect PCI and only looks for AGP and failing that, it goes to onboard which I don't like since I have it on a widescreen television and I need the 13--x768 capability which certain cards don't seem to support, or at least the drivers don't. But moving on from that. All the cards I put in are of lower specs, an NVidia Vanta with only 16MBs of RAM, a Matrox Millennium G400 with 32MBs of RAM, and now a current NVidia GeForce2 MX400 with 64MBs of RAM. All of which seem to run better. It's definitely not a power supply issue so to speak as something else is going on. It could even be a glitched install of Windows 98 now for all I know. I never used to mind reinstalling OSs on the whim but as I've aged I really don't like doing it as much anymore as it seems there's more to back up and then getting it all set up and going again later on. It's more work than I like sometimes. But it seemed the other computers I used this Nvidia Geforce 6200 in also had shutdown problems in 98 so I think that's always expected. I actually took the heatsink off the card today and noticed that the thermal compound wasn't smeared on as nicely as it should've been so I did move it around a bit. It was surprisingly liquidy as over time it just kinda hardens up. I haven't tested it since so I don't know if it could be getting a bit hot as well but I don't necessarily think that's the case. I'm not fond of it not having a fan on it even though it has a plug in which you could plug on in but for 256MBs of RAM, that's quite high not to have at least some bit of air cooling on it. At least that's my opinion.

I haven't booted the computer up at all today so I don't know what sort of mood it is in but the GeForce2 acts better in my opinion. I can't jack up the settings so much in my Zelda games like I could with the 6200, but it's still passable. I'd rather have something that works and is stable than something that'll poop out on me while doing something.

Edited March 5, 2015 by Tommy

[TELVM]

... Geforce 6200 ... ...  I'm not fond of it not having a fan on it even though it has a plug in which you could plug on in but for 256MBs of RAM, that's quite high not to have at least some bit of air cooling on it. At least that's my opinion ...

 

I concur    :