Intel 915 chipset based boards

[Petr]

I have tried to install Windows 98 SE on PC with 915GM Speedster-FA4 motherboard made by MSI and I'd like to share my experience and ask if anybody got better results with motherboard based on Intel 915 series chipset.

What are the items that need driver.

915GM + ICH-6 chipset.

This is officially supported in version 6.3.0.1007 of Intel INF Update Utility.

USB 2.0 controller

- Without any driver, all 8 USB ports are fully functional in USB 1.1 mode, I tried OrangeWare driver (version 2.04.0.0) that is necessary for motherboards with ICH-4 and ICH-5 southbridges, everything looked fine, USB2 EHCI controller was found, USB2 hub was found, usbview utility shows USB2 controller+hub with 8 ports - but it is not switched to USB2 mode.

SATA/PATA disk controller

It contains standard ATA100 interface suitable for connecting of two PATA devices (HDD, CD-ROM) and SATA controller for connecting upto 4 SATA devices. It can be switched (in BIOS) into three modes:

1. Disable SATA. In this mode just PATA devices are recognized, ESDI_506.PDR is used and speed upto 100 MBps can be achieved.

2. SATA Only. In this mode the SATA controller operates in legacy mode, Windows 98 SE see SATA disks as standard ATA devices (ESDI_506.PDR driver) and with enabled DMA the tested transfer speed was upto 135 MBps. The PATA devices are disabled in this mode!

3. Enhanced mode. In this mode both controllers work in native mode. It means that PATA devices are served by ESD_506.PDR, and SATA controller has yellow excalamtion mark - therefore all disk drives connected to SATA ports operate in compatibility (16-bit) mode.

Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 900

It has no driver supplied by Intel. It can work as standard PCI graphics controller in 640 x 480 x 4-bit resolution only.

There is no possibility to switch it off manually. If PCI-E graphics card is inserted, it is switched off automatically, but if PCI graphics card is inserted, it is still present.

I tried Nvidia 6200 Turbo Cache PCI-E board but it even does not work as Standard PCI VGA, it works as standard VGA only (again 640x480x4).

Then I tried some old S3 Trio64V+ PCI board and it works fine in 1024x768x16bit. I plan to try other PCI-E boards.

Intel® High Definition Audio

It seems there is no support for HDA bus in Windows 98SE, Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) High Definition Audio class driver is available for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows 2000 only.

The codec used is Realtek ALC880 and Realtek also offers no solution.

This board contains also two Marvell 1000 Mbps Ethernet controllers - the Windows 98 SE driver works fine, but sometimes it was not able to obtain the IP address from DHCP server, but there is visible delay also in Windows XP on the same computer.

The box I tested had 1024 MB of RAM and it was not necessary to do anything special to install Windows 98 SE from the original CD-ROM to this computer.

The summary so far:

- SATA disks in legacy mode and PATA disks in native mode works perfectly, but not concurrently.

- USB works in 1.1 mode only

- On-board graphics controller works in VGA mode only, add-on PCI board works correctly

- On-board audio does not work at all

What drivers are needed:

- Intel ICH6 SATA controller

- Intel ICH6 USB 2.0 EHCI controller

- Intel 915G(M) GMA900 Graphics controller

- Intel ICH6 HDA controler + Realtek ALC880 codec

Maybe somebody was able modify some existing driver to work or has any other workaround.

I did this test just to see how easy it is to operate Windows 98 SE on newer motherboards with Intel chipset.

I plan to try also next generation motherboard, Gigabyte GA-8I955X Pro with Smithfiled processor but I don't expect big differences.

If anybody has any (better) experience please let me know.

Petr

[modicr]

Hello!

Regarding USB2 - maybe with DLLs from other version of OrangeWare driver

for example v2.09 or v2.1.11.1 could work?

http://file-us.abit.com.tw/pub/download/drivers/usb2/

http://public.planetmirror.com/pub/abit/do...rs/intel/usb20/

http://www.conceptronic.nl/site/DesktopDef...d=18&recid=5606

http://download.tulip.com/support/Conceptr...ectivity/C480i/

There are even newer versions of USB drivers:

U2v2_2_2.exe

http://www.welland.com.tw/html/contact/

U2v2_3.exe

http://www.doubleh.com.tw/download/Driver%...liNEC23-931119/

Regarding Intel Graphics on 915 chipset - you can build your own driver:

http://my.scitechsoft.com/

http://www.scitechsoft.com/chiplist/snap_win_chiplist.html

HTH, Roman

Edited January 23, 2006 by modicr

[Petr]

Hello Roman,

thank you for your ideas.

I have tried the following OrangeWare drivers with no success:

DriverVer=4/01/2003,1.01.0000.2

DriverVer=08/01/2003,2.01.0006.2

DriverVer=10/15/2003,2.01.0007.1

DriverVer=1/15/2004,2.01.0010.0

DriverVer=3/15/2004,2.01.0011.0

DriverVer=8/01/2004,2.02.0002.0

DriverVer=11/15/2004,2.03.0000.0

DriverVer=1/15/2005,2.04.0000.0

Yesterday I've got the following reply from OrangeWare:

Our driver will not work on ICH6 and ICH7 as Intel did not license for those platforms.

But the difference between ICH5 and ICH6 seems not to be big, maybe some easy trick can enable the USB2.0 functionality, I don't know.

Regarding SciTech, I almost forgot that they exist. I have used their driver 15 years ago very often.

Unfortunately they support VEN_8086&DEV_2582 = "Intel® 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family" only and not VEN_8086&DEV_2592 "Mobile Intel® 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family".

Bad luck.

Petr

[modicr]

Hello!

Thanks for your investigation!

BTW, where can I download USB driver v2.4 (1/15/2005)?

Regards, Roman

[Petr]

BTW, where can I download USB driver v2.4 (1/15/2005)?

I forgot where I found it, so I put it here: http://www.winpack.org/petr/usb2-ow-2.04.zip

Petr

[modicr]

Hello!

I asked at news://news.scitechsoft.com/ about

Unfortunately they support VEN_8086&DEV_2582 = "Intel® 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family" only and not VEN_8086&DEV_2592 "Mobile Intel® 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family".

and here is the reply:

It is only supported on My.SciTechSoft.com, or via volume licensing.

When the builds on the MySciTech site get updated, it should include

i915GM support - but I cannot promise when that will happen.

Let's hope they will update them soon ...

Thanks for USB drivers,

Roman

[modicr]

Hello!

It seems that the latest beta (3.1.3) of Scitech SNAP supports

i915GM chipset ...

Regards, Roman

[Petr]

It seems that the latest beta (3.1.3) of Scitech SNAP supports i915GM chipset ...

Thanks for the information. I'll try it when I will have some time. There are also SciTech drivers for Geforce 6200, I should check if they oficially support PCI-E version or AGP only as Nvidia does.

Petr

[LLXX]

Hello!

It seems that the latest beta (3.1.3) of Scitech SNAP supports

i915GM chipset ...

I'm still figuring out how to unpack the installer and install this thing manually, since I have a system with a 945GM but they only want to support 945G. I want to force the 945G drivers on it, I think it should work fine since the two are very similar. (It says "unsupported chipset" when run). There already is a modded Scitech SNAP Graphics video driver that supports the Intel 910G(ML), 915G, 945G, among other video chipsets, around the net, it seems.

[j7n]

Hello, Petr. Have you managed to install USB 2.0 support on your i915 chipset?

I have tried different OrangeWare drivers with no luck, and http://www.winpack.org/petr/usb2-ow-2.04.zip is no longer available.

Thanks.

[Petr]

Hello, Petr. Have you managed to install USB 2.0 support on your i915 chipset?

I have tried different OrangeWare drivers with no luck, and http://www.winpack.org/petr/usb2-ow-2.04.zip is no longer available.

As I mentioned several times, there is no Win9x support for USB2.0 in Intel ICH6, ICH7 and ICH8 southbridges.

The newest Orangeware driver I know is here: http://old.winpack.org/petr/U2v242.exe but it supports ICH4 only.

There are universal EHCI (USB2.0) drivers for DOS, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and newer - but none for Win9x, all are bound to specific PCI IDs.

Petr

[j7n]

Thank you for your reply. I think that I got very lucky because only USB 2.0 is left without the driver under Win98SE.

Here is my experience with my Intel 915P motherboard (Gigabyte).

I tried Nvidia 6200 Turbo Cache PCI-E board but it even does not work as Standard PCI VGA, it works as standard VGA only (again 640x480x4). Then I tried some old S3 Trio64V+ PCI board and it works fine in 1024x768x16bit. I plan to try other PCI-E boards.

I have tried Geforce 6200 PCI-E and its driver was very unstable under Win98. nVidia's tech support (after complaining a bit that they do not make video boards) told me to stop using this obsolete operating system. However, two different models of ATI X550 do work properly. They have limited DOS memory to maybe a megabyte or smth, but it is OK.

The driver for Realtek ALC codec (integrated) is not stable, but I don't care as I have a good sound card (Yamaha YMF724). Yay, DOS games!

VIA VT6410 SATA/RAID controller works properly. I have tried only P-ATA devices (three 250 GB hard drives are connected). Operating of RAID-ed drives in DOS mode is possible, but if writing is attempted it may corrupt the entire disk.

Marvell network interface works properly (except, read below).

This Windows 98 machine can not operate for more than 4 or 5 days because of some timer problem I have not been able to resolve so far. The system clock slows down, then there appear timing problems in MIDI hardware, then network card (Marvell) wouldn't accept incoming connections, regular digital audio wouldn't play (PCI board). I suspect it's because system timer shares IRQ 0 with an IDE controller, but I'm not sure. There are no observable problems running Win98 for shorter periods of time, like one day.

Edited December 19, 2006 by j7n

[ZaPbUzZ]

lol happy newyear im enjoying the read btw (or thread)

[modicr]

Hello!

This Windows 98 machine can not operate for more than 4 or 5 days

because of some timer problem I have not been able to resolve so far.

Have you tried to install Windows 98 in non-ACPI mode ?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q186111/

i - This switch tells Setup not to report the existence of a

Plug and Play BIOS. It is useful on computers that have a Plug

and Play BIOS that is not reported in the Machine.inf file

Example: setup /p i

With above command line option, APM system device will be installed instead of ACPI.

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=116

Windows 9x/ME have problems with newer versions of ACPI (especially

with enhanced ACPI APIC:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/apic.mspx

APIC interrupt subsystems can have as many IRQs as are required in a specific machine. Commonly, chipset vendors design I/O APICs to have 24 IRQs each, and a client machine almost always contains only one I/O APIC. This is enough to guarantee a dedicated IRQ for each PCI device, which would make sharing necessary only when the user installs many PCMCIA devices.

Hint - you can change installed Windows PC from ACPI to APM by thy following registry hack:

http://www.physik.uni-freiburg.de/~zwerger...aio/acpieng.htm

change the value of the registry key: "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Detect\ACPIOption" into "2"

To enter registry go to Run > Execute > type in "regedit". clicking on |+| HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM) will open that tree and so on ...

If this entry is not in your registry, go to "...\Detect" and create new DWORD-value "ACPIOption" by clicking

Edit->New->DWORD-value and typing in "ACPIOption" with value 2 (no matter if dec or hex)

After that - start hardware detect (Control Panel).

I guess this disables ACPI and enables APM instead.

BTW, in Windows 2k/XP, APM is enabled by using "Standard PC" HAL:

http://www.staudio.de/kb/english/2000xp/index.html

Regards, Roman

[98 Guy]

From what I can tell, motherboards based on the Intel 915P chipset are probably the most desirable for Windows-98se at this point. That particular chipset does not have integrated video, and it does have DDR-2 support. The next best would be 915PL, followed by the 875.

According to the mobot on motherboard.org, Soyo has this board:

Soyo SY-P4I915 DRAGON 3

Which I can't find on Soyo's web site nor can I find much about it doing a general web search. Seems that it would make a great win-98 platform. It seems to have ATA-133, which very few boards have.

http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/motherbo...28%2BV2.0%2529/

One problem could be finding a PCI-express video card with win-98 drivers. I guess you can always use a PCI video card.

There is also the Gigabyte GA-8I915P-D ad\nd the Microstar MSI 915P Neo2. Asus doesn't seem to make a board based on the 915P.

All of the 915-based boards that I've looked at all claim that they don't support Win-98, yet in their driver download section there is always support for win-98 for the various components (audio, chipset, ethernet).

Can anyone else post their experiences with Win-98 and motherboards based on the i915?