win ME on athlonxp-nforce2-400fsb

[Rodney Dawn]

How would this setup work for windows ME.  (I have a modern Ryzen runing win 7 for everyday use)

Anyway building a Win ME machine as I have a lot of programs thst don't like windows 7
specs as follows

MSI K7N2G-ILSR - Motherboard - ATX - Socket A - nForce2 IGP - FireWire - Ethernet - onboard graphics - AC97 audio

CPU Athlon XP Barton core 3200+/400fsb/512k cache  (Thermaltake copper socket 462 cooler with vantech tornado fan, Artic silver Ceramique thermal paste)

WD Velociraptor 120gb IDE ATA133 HDD

generic aluminum hdd cooler with 2x 60mm fans

LG IDE DVDRW

2x 512mb DDR400 PC3200 Mushkin Silverline ram (1gb total)

Ati Radeon X850 AGP 256md GPU

Realtek AC97 onboard sound (Not HD version)

(Onboard Nforce 2 LAN not used as I have no way to use it, router is wireless only (verizon jetpack)

generic PS/2 keyboard and logitech ps/2 optical mouse

EVGA 650w 80+ gold PSU single 12v rail, 6x molex and 4x Sata power connectors, 6 pin PCIE connector, 4 pin cpu connector

..............................

I would like opinions on how this system would work for windows ME, and also if anyone knows of a compatible wifi card with wireless N connectivity it would be greatly appreciated. (Jetpack only supports wireless N and wireless AC, 2.4ghz N and 5ghz AC respectively no option for b/g support)

 

[MERCURY127]

Possible problems: 

- Too much memory, if u see black screen with protection error - remove one 512 module;

- WiFi, for 9x not exist good drivers with 11n support.

[Rodney Dawn]

Thanks. figured there might be ram issues, but after setup is complete, adjusting vcache should make both sticks usable if I'm not mistaken.  used to run ME exclusively on an 1800+ up until a couple years ago, and I know I had it working with 1gb of ram the last few years but that was with a fx5500 gpu
system worked well enough for the most part, just had to search harder for compatible software. 

the win 7 machine is a AM3+ with 16gb DDR3 1600 R9 390x 4gb, phenomII 975BE, wd 1tb SSD ASUS BD/RW drive Tplink Archsr AC usb wifi.
Using 7 on it because most of the hardware has no win9x drivers, and because needing 64bit support.  I like win 7 but I still prefer ME which is why I'm building the athlonXP 3200+ machine.

Any working wireless N driver would be good enough, as I need to be able to connect to the internet, but don't have to have a persistant connection.
(verizon 4g is the only option for broadband out here in the middle of nowhere)

[Destro]

ME should work, but Id roll with 98se with Sp3 and I bet you wouldn't have any issues at all.  Then you can do 98se2me .

Edited May 14, 2019 by Destro

[MERCURY127]

Your router must be support also 2.4 Ghz b/g standards. Buy or find any old b/g pci WiFi card with real drivers for 9X. This give u up to 54 mbit/sec connect. After this, ask me for Odyssey supplicant for 9X...

Edited May 14, 2019 by MERCURY127

[[FMC]Ravage]

meh critique:

Motherboard - Good
CPU - Good
Hard Drive - Good
RAM - Way too much. Half of that is overkill. You'll likely have a lot of problems using that much ram w/o rloew's patches
Video Card - This card isn't officially supported but others on here have said it works ok. Personally I would choose something else unless you're only playing late Win98 era games.
Realtek AC97 - This is the only thing on the list that is "bad". AC97 sounds like nails on a chalkboard. You'll want to get something (anything) else.
LAN - The onboard LAN works good (I've used nforce2/3's before). You're going to want to find a really early WiFi card for wireless. Ralink/Lynksys seems to be pretty popular on here.
KB/Mouse - Good, you'll have less headaches with PS/2...BUT...If you play shooters, a USB mouse with hardware DPI buttons is very nice.
PSU - Way overkill for the system, but a good PSU non the less.

[Rodney Dawn]

Thanks

 

yeah I need the extra GPU power for late 9x era games, plus its the only AGP card I have that is porperly keyed for the motherboard slot. (I got an old rage pro 128 but thats only agp2x and wrong voltage)

what about an ethernet port wifi device, OS sees it as ethernet connection but device itself connects to wifi and outputs the connection through ethernet.
this would have the advantage of not needing a separate wifi driver or additional software as it would simply make use of the nforce2 onboard ethernet port.

another option would be using a wifi range extender to connect to jetpack and set the repeated signal to b/g/n. then just using a compatible b or g wifi card.

AC97 is just the onboard sound controller, but I have a few creative soundblaster cards I could swap in for better performance.

 

yeah PSU is overkill, but its the smallest wattage ATX psu I have.  I have several smaller AT PSU's for AM486DX, k5, and k6/k6-ii,k6-iii systems but the nforce2 MB requires an ATX psu.  (Win95C on a k6-ii super socket 7 with 128mb of ram and a rage pro 128 (pci version) runs nice too).

I can easily swap for a usb optical mouse, as I do play a lot of shooters, mainly using the ps/2 mouse to get everything set up.

....................

Here's a progress update on the build

 

I removed one stick, put everything together in a raidmax donor case (ebay find) partitioned harddrive and installed windoes ME without issue

Limited vcache to 300mb

installed MB drivers

installed video drivers (catalyst 6.2)  thankfully without incident

limited HDD swapfile to 16mb

installed firefox 2.0 from data cd

shut down, installed soundblaster PCI card, and restarted to install drivers

shut down to install remaining ram

booted ok and so far seems stable, have it running prime95 to test stability currently.  that should tell if additional system file tweaks are needed.

If it proves stable, then next step will be installing official and unofficial updates, updating directx, and installing software, then benching to test 3d graphics stability, and finally installing games and apps.  then getting internet working.  should be simple using the ethernet to wifi bridge as the bridge supports wireless n and wpa2 and outputs a standard 10/100 base t ethernet connection so it would be like plugging directly into a router.  (currently downloading updates found on this forum with win7 machine and burning data cds to transfer the files.

hopefully it proves stable, as while 1gb is overkill, i'd like to make use of both sticks.  if not then I'll have to try swapping one stick for a 256, 128, or 64mb pc3200 so as to keep both slots populated. (dust collecting in unpopulated DIMM slots can cause all sorts of stability problems, though a strip of clear tape could be used to prevent it if forced to run with only one DIMM slot populated).

vantech tornado on cpu cooler is obviously loud with case open, but with the case sealed up it does a nice job of muffling the noise. (not an issue as an athlon XP 3200+ in a room without air conditioning needs all the cooling it can get).

[Rodney Dawn]

update:

prime95 overnight test passed

wifi-over-ethernet bridge adapter works, they are very prohibitively expansive, but a simple solution for a wireless N (or theoretically even AC) connection on win9x as the OS sees it as a normal 10/100 ethernet connection.  wifi connectivity is handled by the bridge itself. to set up follow instructions in manual, but typically you connect bridge device to power adapter provided, plug in power adapter, then connect ethernet cable between device and PC 's LAN port, then open browser (ie 6 or firefox2.0 minimum) to 192.168.1.50 (typical but check your manual for proper IP to enter into browser url field) enter admin login printed in device manual, and configure device by entering network name, channel, and Wep/wpa/wpa2 key then save settings, device will reboot, log back into 192.168.1.50, check 'always connect automatically' box then click connect. close browser then relaunch and test connection by going to any website, I used google.com for the test.  if page loads then all is well.  if not then bridge configuration is incorrect.  linksys, cisco, d-link, netgear, etc, all make these bridges, but they aren't cheap. I'm using a cisco 100baseT N150 bridge and it works perfectly.  

a much cheaper but equally stable solution is a linksys wireless b usb adapter the funny looking one with a flip out antenna and long usb cable.  (if you dont mind giving up wpa2 or being limited to 11mbps connection, and assuming your router supports wireless B mode)

currently installing updates and software, havent had a BSOD or out of memory error yet but at this point its still too early to tell, as the real test will be memory intensive gaming once everything is installed.  Haven't tested to see how many dos boxes can be opened, but I will do so as soon as software installation is complete.

[Rodney Dawn]

32 dos boxes to get the graceful insufficient memory error when trying to open the 33rd.

 

doom 3 runs great, and still yet to have any BSOD.

DOS apps and games have had no issues

 

ata this point i think its safe to say its stable