What manufactures are still providing Win9x drivers for their new gear

[PeteK27]

I have a few Win9x systems that I would like to upgrade to newer/faster hardware but am finding that many equipment manufactures no longer provide Win9x drivers for their new products. I was wondering what manufactures others are having good luck with when they are trying to upgrade.

I would be particularly interested in knowing what manufactures still officially (if not actively) support Win9X in the following areas:

Motherboards (which normally need at least the following drivers).

Video

Audio

Lan

USB2

I am finding that even though most motherboard manufactures don’t provide Win9x drivers I am still able to go to some of the chipset manufactures (Via, SiS, etc) to get drivers. However even this is becoming a hit or miss proposition. For example I recently purchased an SiS based motherboard and found that I could get drivers for all the on board devices except USB2.

What type of new boards work best? Via? Sis? Nvidia? Ati?

I seem to have good luck with Via based boards. Any others that might be better?

Any particular motherboard manufactures that still list Win9x drivers for their current boards? Who should be avoided (from a Win9x perspective).

Video Cards

Ati or Nvidia are the big ones here. What works best? Are there any small companies that may be a better option for a Win9x system?

Printers/Multifunction Devices

I seem to have reasonable luck with Brother printers/MFC’s. I just bought a 7820N and found that there were decent Win9x drivers for the printer, scanner (to my surprise even supported network scanning) and fax. How about others. HP? Lexmark? Cannon? Xerox?

Network

I haven’t had much of a problem here yet, but I suspect that wireless cards may be a problem in the future. Anyone noticing anything yet?

Laptops

This seems to be a big problem area. Are there any current machines that a person can still load Win9x on without major headaches?

BTW it would be nice if there was a “sticky” (or something similar) that would provide a simple “Top 5” list of hardware that still supports Win9x. I know there is a lot of new gear out there that still works, it is just not very well marked any more.

[awergh]

shouldnt the generic usb 2 driver work

[Tihiy]

Generic drivers for USB2 in NUSB3 worked for me on SiS chipset.

Although never even try to install their "NO_USB2 patch" or you may lose EHCI controller forever.

[BenoitRen]

I can't see why hardware from a couple years ago isn't enough to upgrade to, except if you want to run recent games (which won't work on Win9x).

[eidenk]

I can't see why hardware from a couple years ago isn't enough to upgrade to, except if you want to run recent games (which won't work on Win9x).

If you don't use CPU intensive apps, indeed machines two or three year old (above 2Ghz) are ideal as the OS (WinME in my case) remains fast and crispy no matter how much you load it with addons and shell extensions etc...

But if you encode videos, render fractals or 3D images, play virtual instruments for example, you naturally want more CPU speed.

With the fastest current chips I could more than double the "CPU speed" I currently have, meaning I could play twice as many virtual instruments simultaneously, etc...

[BenoitRen]

I consider 2 Ghz to be enough for that, really. What most people forget when it comes to 3D rendering is optimisation, so for them it'll always be slow.

[PeteK27]

I realize of course that there are always work arounds and that I can always find used gear. However for various reasons I would prefer to buy all new gear. Is it still possible to assemble a system out of new gear and run a version of Win9x without having to do major hacking?

Has anyone purchased a new system in the last 6 months and run Win9x on it? If so what kind of system was it? Was the installation of Win9x relatively smooth and trouble free or did you have a lot of problems?

In my own case what I would really like to do is buy two new motherboard/video card combinations. They don't have to be the worlds latest and greatest. The machines will be used mainly to run office type apps (word processing, email, web, etc.) They will not be used for games. They may be used to edit fairly large images. Longer term I would like to get a new laptop.

However my own needs were only part of the reason for this post. Manufactures of new product will only continue to provide Win9x drivers for new gear if there is demand. Needless to say demand is declining.

Recognizing this I was thinking that if the remaining Win9x community could focus its purchasing power on the manufactures who are actively supporting the Win9x users of their products it would encourage them to continue to do so. Ideally we might get a few more generations of new products that would easily run Win9x.

I thought perhaps we could come up with a list of say, five current motherboards, video cards, etc, that work really well with Win9x. We could then post this information and just say “hay, here are five manufactures that are still working to support Win9x. If these products meet your needs, please support them.” If these manufactures see a nice jump in sales because of this, they would be likely to release new products that would also work well with Win9x.

Please note that I am thinking here in terms of just a simple manufacture/model number type list. I am not recommending that we try to do product reviews, etc. The only criteria for making such a list is that the product would be new and easily available and that it plays nice with Win9x (no major hacking).

Do such products still exist? Or is used gear our only alternative now?

[Rjecina]

My personal thinking is that you have put wrong question.

Right question will be in my thinking which today chipset support Windows 98 and MBO of that chipset is still possible to buy ?

I will try to answer on that question:

MBO socket 775 which are still on market with drivers for Win 98 (all are chipset i865):

MSI 865 GVM

MSI 865PE Neo3-V

GA-8I865GME-775 (rev 2.0 for Conroe)

ASRock 775i65G (rev 2.0 for Conroe)

ASRock ConRoe865PE (Conroe support)

AMD socket 754 with drivers for Win 98:

MSI K8MM3-V (chipset VIA® K8M800)

K8T NEO-V (VIA® K8T800 Chipset).

ASROCK K8UPGRADE-NF3 (nvidia3 chipset)

AMD socket 939 with drivers for Win 98:

ASRock 939A8X-M (chipset Uli 1689)

AMD socket AM2:

ASRock AM2NF3-VSTA (chipset nvidia3). This MBO is only maybe if she want to accept drivers of ASROCK K8UPGRADE-NF3. If this drivers are not OK then MBO AM2 do not support Win 98.

For the end Epox is having different MBO which support Win 98 and they are having files for download, but on page of product they write that they do not support Win 98 this is weird !

Epox MBO are:

EP-9NDA3I (chipset nvidia3) socket 939,

7 MBO socket 754 with chipset nvidia 3,

EP-5PDAJ (chipset 865 PE) socket 775,

EP-5PDAI (chipset 865 PE) socket 775.

Simple speaking all MBO with chipsets i865 support Win 98 and it is possible to download drivers.

Similar is for AMD and chipset Uli 1689 and possible for chipsets VIA® K8T800, VIA® K8M800.

With chipset Nvidia 3 there is problem because ulmost all support Win 98 but in theory not all (look AM2)

With hope that I have helped somebody bye.

Edited April 14, 2007 by Rjecina

[PeteK27]

Thanks for a great list Rjecina!

I wasn't aware that Intel still sold a chipset for which there were Win9x drivers. I did know that there are still quite a few Win9x drivers for Via chipsets (I have had good luck with the EPIA boards) but was less sure of the others.

Right now I am looking at video cards. Someone correct me if I am wrong but from what I can tell Nvidia stopped supporting Win9x with its Gforce 6 series of chips and ATI stopped with the R300 series chips. It looks like there are several inexpensive boards still around based on both of these chips. Anyone have any experience with them? Also will pci-e work with Win9x or is AGP a better choice?

[BenoitRen]

If you live in the US, you can easily buy new gear that was made a couple years ago at NewEgg.

[j7n]

i915P appears to support Win98SE too. (i915G might work w/o the crap graphics controller.)

I have good experience with ATI X300/X550 on PCI-E bus. Others listed on Catalyst's release notes page might work.

Edited April 14, 2007 by j7n

[Rjecina]

New MBO which support Windows 98

ECS KV2 Lite(V1.0) socket 939 (chipset VIA K8T800 Pro)

I am 90 % sure that Via EPIA system support Windows 98 because this system is old and it is having very little CPU power for today.

My personal thinking is that Via EPIA simple cost too much.