Research on AM3+ board and chipsets: Resume

[ruthan]

I can confirm that M5A97 R2.0 +AMD slow pseudo 8core can boot Windows 98SE, but i can tell anything about Storage (im now using IDE mode it is slow for now, maybe because of other drivers) and GPU, Audio and Lan - work in progress.

I probably did mistake with Realtek LAN - 8111 is supported, but probably not all models i have 8111F. 

GPU - Geforce 7950 GT 512MB + unofficial drivers 82, i got strange Windows protection error - Configmg message. after drivers installation..
I also messing with Intel PCI-E 1000 CT Desktop network adapter - its seams that there are drivers, i could install them, but after reboot i got boot screen freeze,
could Intel PCI-E network card work in Win98 SE?

There also strange USB behavior, only in same mode i could see USB Fat32 flashdisk - even in USB3 port(Asmedia) and keyboard through USB to PS2 adapter is working,
even in save mode.
  WHat is not working and working in my other Win98 machines is USB audion soundcard, here is detected as USB complex device, not soundcard, i dont know 
if i need a driver?

I almost forgot how Win98 drivers hell looks like:)

Edited July 19, 2017 by ruthan

[ragnargd]

On 16.7.2017 at 2:22 AM, ruthan said:

I can confirm that M5A97 R2.0 +AMD slow pseudo 8core can boot Windows 98SE, but i can tell anything about Storage (im no using IDE mode it is slow for now, maybe because of other drivers) and GPU, Audio and Lan - work in progress.

What problems do you have when using port 5 or 6 in ide-mode?

On 16.7.2017 at 2:22 AM, ruthan said:

I probably did mistake with Realtek LAN - 8111 is supported, but probably not all models i have 8111F. 

I also messing with Intel PCI-E 1000 CT Desktop network adapter - its seams that there are drivers, i could install them, but after reboot i got boot screen freeze,
could Intel PCI-E network card work in Win98 SE?

The LAN 8111F is not supported by basic drivers. You may ask around here about how to use the DOS driver - i did never bother to do this, but others had success.

I never heard of intel pci-e cards to work.

On 16.7.2017 at 2:22 AM, ruthan said:

GPU - Geforce 7950 GT 512MB + unofficial drivers 82, i got strange Windows protection error - Configmg message. after drivers installation..

You need the commercial NVIDIA-driver-fix (for memory as well as for interrupt problems) from RLoew to make that card work.

I recommend you *start* with an old ATI x600 or x800, or perhaps ATI Radeon 9000 series, as those work without a problem on those boards.

Then, later on, experiment with NVidia-cards.

On 16.7.2017 at 2:22 AM, ruthan said:

There also strange USB behavior, only in same mode i could see USB Fat32 flashdisk - even in USB3 port(Asmedia) and keyboard through USB to PS2 adapter is working,

even in save mode.
 WHat is not working and working in my other Win98 machines is USB audion soundcard, here is detected as USB complex device, not soundcard, i dont know 
if i need a driver?

The USB-settings are delicate. You need this, as far as i know:

"USB Configuration"
Legacy USB Support [Auto] (<- this is the most important. You'll absolutely need NUSB (or perhaps an alternative from RLoew?) to get this to work!)
Legacy USB3.0 Support [Enabled] (may not be usable, but it's not that important, it will not get in the way with w98se)
EHCI Hand-off [Enabled] (you may try disabled, if you dual-boot, but that may, or may not work. start with enabled.)
SB USB Configuration
SB USB-Configurationoptions:
OHCI HC (Bus 0 Dev 18 Fn 0) [Enabled] [Disabled] (<-- you may have to play with these, start with [disabled])
USB PORT 1 ~ 14 [Enabled] | [Disabled] (<-- disable only, if all else fails...

You can start with using a PS2-mouse and keyboard, as this board allows that. Some USB-mice may work with an USB to PS2-adapter.

On 16.7.2017 at 2:22 AM, ruthan said:

I almost forgot how Win98 drivers hell looks like:)

That's why i recommend other PCIe LAN-cards (RTL8111C, RTL8111B, RTL8168B, RTL8111 and RTL8168 chipsets) and soundcards (i.e. soundblaster audigy 1/2 pci), or basically start with devices that have drivers for w98se AND w10, as such items usually a very cooperative, and have comparably new drivers of a good quality.

Those AMD-boards are the only boards i have still active with w98se, but of those i have three working.

[ruthan]

ragnargd - thanks for reply.

Quote

What problems do you have when using port 5 or 6 in ide-mode?

Well for me IDE is only for start, i every time hated IDE because of 133 MB/s limitation for all PCI devices and drives.
BTW you know any good disc benchmark for Win98 - CrystalDiskMark - seems to show some error numbers - like 5 000 MB/s etc.. Could someone compare speed of this chipset IDE with generic drivers and these is Rloews patch?

Quote

The LAN 8111F is not supported by basic drivers. You may ask around here about how to use the DOS driver - i did never bother to do this, but others had success.

I never heard of intel pci-e cards to work.

     Could you direct me to some more info about realtek Dos driver? I didnt count on that integrated NIC would work, but i wont to try it, it would be bonus.
     Intel  - i assumed that if exist driver for chipset, card will be work independently on if is PCI or PCI-E, because driver exist - i was probably wrong, i primary bought card for other system, so no many wasted.
 

Quote

You need the commercial NVIDIA-driver-fix (for memory as well as for interrupt problems) from RLoew to make that card work.

I recommend you *start* with an old ATI x600 or x800, or perhaps ATI Radeon 9000 series, as those work without a problem on those boards.

Then, later on, experiment with NVidia-cards.

  I dont have any ATI PCI-E card compatibile with Win9x i looked for some but i never found any X8xx card with passive cooling (at least in theory, i dont mind add 1 super Silent Noctua as in case of Geforce 7950GT) i have some unraid virtual machine, with passthrough of G7950 GT and its working fine without patch.

  Soundcard - im unlucky, i have Audigy SE (SB0570) - i one without Win98 drivers, i wonder Realtek HD is most common card, there is not any driver to emulate AC97 or SB with it?

[ruthan]

Ok update:
With Rloews patch and flashed Bios is Geforce 7950 GT working well, i just test few games i was ok, i only suffer classical microcomputer - even when are average FPS - 90, there are dips to 0,15,10 FPS, every cca 30,
i tested in all games - Q3, Unreal tournament 99, Warcraft III. 

Lasttime is i fixed it by Unofficial SP3 patch, this machine is still vanilla, even not EIDE DMA patches, even controllers are vanilla.  
I discovered by installation of some game demos, that storage performance is now poor, i didnt benchmarked it, but its something like 1-5 MB/s transfera, its really slow, even on old computers it was faster.

I wonder how is best way how to enable and install rloew Sata patch on this vanilla machine, im using internal port 5 a 6 for 2 HDD, no other devices and other sata controller. Picture of my present configuration added.

Sound with Sound blaster Audigy - SB0162 - playback device is now there, its working, but USB audio device is still not in playback devices (same device with other computer is working), i think that still problem is related to USB driver, without nUSB drivers wasnt USB card properly recognized, with nUSB was somewhat found but is not working properly, but im not even sure if nUSB controller is properly installed. I noticed on Win 7 that - after connection of USB soundcard was 4 USB devices recogniyed and installed.

[ragnargd]

On 19.7.2017 at 10:54 PM, ruthan said:

ragnargd - thanks for reply.

You are welcome. You slowly seem to get the hang of it, and your questions start to charter more territory - this is good. Just go on!

On 19.7.2017 at 10:54 PM, ruthan said:

Well for me IDE is only for start, i every time hated IDE because of 133 MB/s limitation for all PCI devices and drives.
BTW you know any good disc benchmark for Win98 - CrystalDiskMark - seems to show some error numbers - like 5 000 MB/s etc.. Could someone compare speed of this chipset IDE with generic drivers and these is Rloews patch?

Unfortunately, i know no reliable benchmark program running under w9x, and share your sentiment about CrystalDiskMark.

Because of the rather low speed of ordinary IDE, or SATA-HDDs on these "pseudo"-IDE ports, i exclusively use SATA II SSDs.

I had similar error messages as on your first screenshot (FIFO IDE) on my controller, and found a rather unpleasant way of removing it: I removed the SATA III SSD (a Vertex3 60GB), and connected a SATA II SSD (SuperTalent GX2, 128GB), and reset the controller (by removing the real-mode flag in the registry), and rebooted. Problem gone.

It thus were the controllers on the SSD that forced the mobo-controller into real mode.

The same problem may exist with hard disks.

I don't know a good way for you to find out if that problem relates to you, but if you have i.e. older HDDs, it may be worth trying - though it may be cumbersome, as it may require moving the installation, or reinstalling.

On 19.7.2017 at 10:54 PM, ruthan said:

Could you direct me to some more info about realtek Dos driver? I didnt count on that integrated NIC would work, but i wont to try it, it would be bonus.

You do have the links to Realtek? http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/

I opened a new thread requesting help in both our names...

On 19.7.2017 at 10:54 PM, ruthan said:

Intel  - i assumed that if exist driver for chipset, card will be work independently on if is PCI or PCI-E, because driver exist - i was probably wrong, i primary bought card for other system, so no many wasted.

I successfully use the Intel 1000 MT PCI Gigabit Adapter. If i find time, I may try out, if it works in an PCI to PCIe-Adapter.

On 19.7.2017 at 10:54 PM, ruthan said:

I dont have any ATI PCI-E card compatibile with Win9x i looked for some but i never found any X8xx card with passive cooling (at least in theory, i dont mind add 1 super Silent Noctua as in case of Geforce 7950GT) i have some unraid virtual machine, with passthrough of G7950 GT and its working fine without patch.

After all is said and done, getting an NVidia card to run is just so much better, esp. if you have RLoews patch, so, don't bother about ATI-cards.

On 19.7.2017 at 10:54 PM, ruthan said:

Soundcard - im unlucky, i have Audigy SE (SB0570) - i one without Win98 drivers, i wonder Realtek HD is most common card, there is not any driver to emulate AC97 or SB with it?

I found neither official nor inofficial drivers, and what crap i found, didn't work. I abandoned the idea of using the SE.

I now only use cards with the EMU10K2 chipset, my time is more valuable than the headaches with other chipsets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_Audigy

There usually is a good and cheap selection on ebay, i bought some there, all for under € 10,--

3 hours ago, ruthan said:

I wonder how is best way how to enable and install rloew Sata patch on this vanilla machine, im using internal port 5 a 6 for 2 HDD, no other devices and other sata controller. Picture of my present configuration added.

I never used RLoews SATA-patch, so i can't help you there.

My trick (as i already said) is SATA II SSDs on port 5/6 (Legacy-IDE mode), or, if that doesn't work, the same SSDs on the add-in card with the VT6421A chipset.

I don't know any benchmark results, but my machines are blazing fast with that solution, booting like *snap!*.

(Expect the next RLoew advertisment for his SATA-patch to come up in this thread in 3-2-1- ... ... sorry, couldn't resist...)

3 hours ago, ruthan said:

Sound with Sound blaster Audigy - SB0162 - playback device is now there, its working, but USB audio device is still not in playback devices (same device with other computer is working), i think that still problem is related to USB driver, without nUSB drivers wasnt USB card properly recognized, with nUSB was somewhat found but is not working properly, but im not even sure if nUSB controller is properly installed. I noticed on Win 7 that - after connection of USB soundcard was 4 USB devices recogniyed and installed.

There is only so much you can do with NUSB, it is meant for storage, and for nothing else.

If your USB-device is NOT storage, and does NOT have a distinct driver for w9x, i do not have any ready-made solution.

Other members of the community reported these devices working, so you have to ask them.

[dencorso]

6 minutes ago, ragnargd said:

(Expect the next RLoew advertisment for his SATA-patch to come up in this thread in 3-2-1- ... ... sorry, couldn't resist...)

Well, in this case I'd say it's support, not advertising, because @ruthan's already bought that patch, way back when...

[rloew]

@ragnargd T+1800

[loblo]

What's your USB audio device Ruthan? The fact it automatically installed under Windows 7 doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't use third party drivers.
 

[ragnargd]

On 21.7.2017 at 7:47 PM, rloew said:

@ragnargd T+1800

...look at my profile-pic... i already wear my hard hat... :-D

P.S.: I found your interrupt-fix to be necessary for getting my soundblaster audigy to run on AM3+ boards (installing the fix for their interrupt) - independent of of nvidia cards/drivers.

[rloew]

T+328800

Interesting. Apparently the Soundblaster Driver is not properly handling Interrupts.
Which did you use, FIXINTR, FIXINTR#, or FIXEOI?

[ragnargd]

17 hours ago, rloew said:

Interesting. Apparently the Soundblaster Driver is not properly handling Interrupts.

I have no other explanation.

17 hours ago, rloew said:

Which did you use, FIXINTR, FIXINTR#, or FIXEOI?

FIXINTR - as i'm lazy (and it works without flaw) - i'm sure using two FIXINTR# would have been "more elegant", but, well...

But i was easely able to pinpoint the problem (aka FIXINTR#), after removing the NVidia card.

I still have to test, if this is specific to a chipset (970A, 890FX) or board.

P.S.: FIXEOI ?  Did i miss something?

Edited July 26, 2017 by ragnargd

[rloew]

I discovered setups where FIXINTR and FIXINTR# stopped a system from Booting, so I developed FIXEOI as an alternative.
It was added in Version 3.0 of my Package.

Since it polls for missed Interrupt EOIs, it probably would not work well with a Sound Card, as it could cause pauses.

Try it and report the results. It may help understand the issue with the Sound Driver.

[ruthan]

Quote

What's your USB audio device Ruthan? The fact it automatically installed under Windows 7 doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't use third party drivers.

 Its working with other Win 98 machine - through Unraid, its cheapest USB audio from Ebay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/External-Virtual-USB-2-0-For-Laptop-Converter-Stereo-Sound-Card-Audio-Adapter-/222430921850?hash=item33c9ea847a:g:mbkAAOSwXYtYvRTx

Few better adapters are on the way, but i suppose that driver would be the same.

Edited July 27, 2017 by ruthan

[ruthan]

Just for info fixed missing USB playback device in multimedia control windows through all Microsoft and Microsoft MCI - Multimedia device re-installation from ADD new hardware wizard. After that i was able to play sound through Winamp wave-out codec, but still not in other windows apps i have to reinstall DirectX 9.0c and after that DirectSound playbacked started to work.

[ruthan]

I have tried next step - add second videocard, but i have problem force Windows 7 work with 2 Nvidia videocard and make newer Geforce 1030 as primary card. 
 Do someone tried 2 NV cards, or everyone using AMD / Nvidia combo?