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(failed) Ryzen and Fall of the Roman Empire... sort of...

ragnargd

By ragnargd
in Windows 9x/ME

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ragnargd

ragnargd

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Posted (edited)

Hi, Folks,

long story short:

I tried the Ryzen/AM4 platform, and failed.

(This was to be expected, but, hey, until you try out, you never know.)

----------------------------------------------------------------

Reasons, short and sweet:

----------------------------------------------------------------

The memory management of DOS (and W98SE in consequence) is not compatible with this board/chipset, possibly due to "memory fragmentation" (ask RLoew about this... ), which is not a problem for, i.e., WIndows 10 64bit.

This shows in DOS already, as i wasn't able to start setup, as the partition-data weren't recognized.

And later, with an "imported" W98SE, only 157MB showed up, and the standard-VGA showed a scrambled desktop, which also points to problems with handling the meory correctly.

All other symptoms are a mere consequence of this.

The PC, enhanced by a powerful GPU and a nice RGB-case, will be a convincing birthday present for my son... :yes:

----------------------------------------------------------------

Components used:

----------------------------------------------------------------

Ryzen 5 1600X

16 GB DDR4 3200 Ram

ASRock X370 Gaming X (for the 8x/8x constellation for Dual-GPU-stunt, and for two separate PS/2-ports)

Geforce 7600 GT 256 MB (Rloew patch for Interrupt problems installed, just in case, but also without)

PCI SATA Controller with 60GB Sata II SSD SuperTalent GX2 and IDE DVD on PCI-to-PCIe adapter

SB Audigy on PCI-to-PCIe adapter.

Some w98se-compatible PCIe GB Lan.... i don't care yet...

----------------------------------------------------------------

What worked:

----------------------------------------------------------------

DOS with Ushers XrAyeRs method.

PS/2-keyboard

Then booting into w98se...

PS/2-Mouse

SSD/DVD (sort of)

----------------------------------------------------------------

Symptoms of failure:

----------------------------------------------------------------

Setup in DOS wouldn't start, not accepting partition-data (by my experience, a problem that can only be attributed to memory-problems, once HDD-problems were tested for).

I did an import of an already installed and ready-patched W98SE with drivers of all used components (as far as possible).

Only 157MB showed in System.

Starting with standard VGA, the screen was already scrambled, though readable.

Hardware-detection failed for most components: Many devices were found by name, but except for "motherboard ressources" and some "bridges", few was detected or equipped with some kind of driver or setting finally (even though w98se tried valourously).

A long list of yellow questionmarks and blue motherboard ressources in System, that's it for the most of it.

I tried to activate the NVidia-driver for the 7600GT. It said it would. Result: Screen switched to black, and stayed that way.

Going to safe mode brought back the scrambled screen.

---------------------------------------------------

@RLoew: Thanks for your steady support and assistance!

That's it, next platform... :w00t:

Edited by ragnargd
Documentation of failure.
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ragnargd

ragnargd

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2 hours ago, rloew said:

 

23 minutes ago, rloew said:

Did you use  SETUP /p i  when you installed Windows?

(For anyone interested, read here: http://www.thpc.info/how/switches9x.html#defp)

In short: No.

I started with a copy of an existing installation from my spare 890FX board, that had all necessary drivers for the cards already installed (i installed all of them on that machine to ease the process).

Perhaps that was not the best way to do it, it was just how i installed new systems most successfully in the past (usually that was better than fresh and full installations).

I'll just try full fresh setup later this night with that option. :-)

(I did just find a collection of $things of another w9x-fan: http://www.tmeeco.eu/9X4EVER/GOODIES/ )

(Hell, did anyone know a good webserver for w98se even existed? http://aprelium.com/abyssws/ )

(Just have to learn to edit posts again on msfn with the new software running)

Edited by ragnargd
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ragnargd

ragnargd

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Result of fresh installation with setup /p i: Windows doesn't even start.

Of course I applied ushers method in the usual way when the system hang, as the usual cause was to be circumvented (16Ram...), but it hang none the less after applying the patch.

And i tried safe mode thereafter as well - in vain, system hangs already in "dos-mode", no windows starts.

 

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98SE

98SE

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20 hours ago, ragnargd said:

Hi, Folks,

this was to be expected, but, hey, until you try out, you never know.

I tried the Ryzen Platform:

Ryzen 5 1600X

16 GB DDR4 3200 Ram

ASRock X370 Gaming X (for the 8x/8x constellation for Dual-GPU-stunt, and for two separate PS/2-ports)

Geforce 7600 GT 256 MB (Rloew patch for Interrupt problems installed, just in case, but also without)

PCI SATA Controller with 60GB Sata II SSD SuperTalent GX2 and IDE DVD on PCI-to-PCIe adapter

SB Audigy on PCI-to-PCIe adapter.

Some w98se-compatible PCIe GB Lan.... i don't care yet...

---------------------------------------------------

What worked:

DOS with Ushers method.

PS/2-keyboard

Then booting into w98se...

PS/2-Mouse

SSD/DVD (sort of)

--------------------------------------------------

Starting with standard VGA, the screen was already scrambled, though readable.

Many devices were found by name, but except for "motherboard ressources", none was detected or equipped with some kind of driver or setting finally (even though w98se tried valourously).

A looooooooong list of yellow questionmarks and blue motherboard ressources in System, that's it.

I tried to activate the NVidia-driver for the 7600GT. It said it would. Result: Screen switched to black, and stayed that way. Ouch.

Going to safe mode brought back the scrambled screen, but... heck...

---------------------------------------------------

@RLoew: Your turn... (although you didn't sound very motivated... for a good reason, i suppose... ;-)

Finally someone had the courage/$$$ to get an AM4 with Ryzen to do a 98SE test.  This result was what I expected as well being the end of 98SE for gaming on AMD.  You had mentioned even the later AMD 900 series chipsets already didn't work properly.

However don't lose hope that this is a wasted motherboard I have some other OS tests for 2000 and XP if this motherboard can't do 98SE.

You could also try clean install of Windows ME as a last resort to see if it somehow works.

Describe this DOS with Ushers method test you did?

What does this scrambled VGA screen look like?  Do you have a camera phone to snap what this looks like?

Did the VGA card and the SB Audigy PCI sound card show up in the Device Manager?  Are you able to install the SB Audigy 98 driver and working audio output?

Did you do a SB Audigy DOS driver test with a DOS game?

What about the Network PCI card in 98SE does it work?

Do any of the USB ports work with USB mouse / keyboard?

If not do you have a USB 2.0 PCIe card to test USB ports?

Weed back your install to just one PCIe graphics card 6800 256MB for a single video card test.  This one should work with a modified PCIe 98 driver and not deal with the 512MB video memory issue.  Use the VGA port on it.

 

Edited by 98SE
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ragnargd

ragnargd

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(at TheFinder: You just pop up when i need you most... like+1 ;-)

I prepare ease-of-use by editing msdos.sys

---

;FORMAT
[Paths]
WinDir=C:\WINDOWS
WinBootDir=C:\WINDOWS
HostWinBootDrv=C

[Options]
BootMulti=1
BootGUI=0
DoubleBuffer=1
AutoScan=1
WinVer=4.10.2222
Logo=0
orig_diag_BootMenu=<nil>
BootMenu=1
;
;The following lines are required for compatibility with other programs.
;Do not remove them (MSDOS.SYS needs to be >1024 bytes).

---

Then i boot to "Safe Mode commandline only" - i know the right time to do this is once my system hangs during installation of w98se ... :)

---

I then use xRaYeRs method by:

  1. copy W98IOPAT.EXE to my root directory
  2. copy himemx.exe to c:\himem.exe
  3. copy himemx.exe to c:\windows\himem.exe
  4. start w98iopat.exe and follow the instructions printed on the screen (editing c:\config.sys and c:\windows\system.ini)
  5. Add ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 to c:\windows\system.ini

This just works well in 100% of the cases (on four different 775 boards, two different AM2+ boards, and seven different AM3+ boards, all of them having minimum 4 to maximum 64GB of Ram).

---

I also have one DOS-directory in my path, with all DOS-files from DOS 7 and from the windows\command directory, and a dos-only copy of msdos.sys, autoexec.bat and config.sys, so when i have to reinstall, i have a working dos ready to start from. I also use NDN (a norton-commander clone).

Edited by ragnargd
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ragnargd

ragnargd

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@98SE:

I usually start with a disk-image/copy of another w98se-installation, which normally is a tried and true method.

In this case, what makes me scratch my head most is the PCI-to-PCI-to-PCIe bridge the system sees during hardware-discovery, but does not know how to deal with.

I suspect this has something to do with the implementation of PCIe on the new AMD chipsets.

This makes all the compatible-between-w98se-and-W10 cards difficult to serve with a driver beyond real-mode, i suspect.

Even if i won't get W98se to run on that board, it's not a waste, as it will be my new main system anyway.

I'll also experiment with getting XP to run on it, but just not yet.

I'll just now gather the boot-logs RLoew was asking for (and have a look at them myself, of course), i didn't have the time for that yet... ;)

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dencorso

dencorso

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Posted

Of course, jaclaz is right (ain't he always?) ! :yes:

On 3/31/2010 at 4:57 AM, Usher said:

The main job with Win9x was to add settings to SYSTEM.CB file used in safe mode instead of normal SYSTEM.INI.
Anyone want to hack SYSTEM.CB to use with > 1GiB RAM? Just merge with your SYSTEM.CB settings quoted below: 


[386Enh]
EMMExclude=C000-CFFF
MaxPhysPage=20000

[vcache]
MinFileCache=2048
MaxFileCache=65536

 

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ragnargd

ragnargd

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@dencorso + jaclaz:

§1 Jaclaz is ALWAYS right.

§2 And if not, §1 sets in automatically

I'm always eager to learn:

How will himem.exe be used in safe mode without patching io.sys?

Edited by ragnargd
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ragnargd

ragnargd

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@RLoew

These are all the files that are changed in some way (except for three DLLs - why new DLLs???)

Using setup /p i produces exactly the same result.

Using the pre-built installation got me to a better state, for which i have few explanations. (NUSB? System doesn't init in that setup-stage, but a already installed system is beyond that, and so can start at least? Ushers method/w98iopat doesn't work as expected? SP 3.0 fixes things?)

I will try again with a pre-built image, and try to find out, why the PCI(e)-briges are not being identified, and if that can be fixed somehow. I just have no idea, how to.

NETLOG.TXT

BOOTLOG.TXT

SETUPLOG.TXT

SUHDLOG.DAT

BOOTLOG.PRV

SYSTEM.INI

WININIT.INI

Edited by ragnargd
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dencorso

dencorso

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Posted

The main point of Usher's Method is having access to Sae Mode with > 1 GiB RAM
So, since SYSTEM.INI is ignored, when entering in Safe Mode, it's necessary to also edit SYSTEM.CB, which is respected, when entering in Safe Mode. In fact, it works brilliantly for more than 512 MiB to about 2 GiB. With > 2 GIB the system gets more and more unstable, if only using the MaxPhysPage and MaxFileCache directives, without any patched files... although some machines will boot and work for some time, before giving one an BSOD. himemx.exe will delay more the BSOD, in the same conditions, byt only the RAM Limitation Patch is able to deliver a really stable system with > 2 GIB RAM, in my experience (and my list seems to support this as well).

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