Modern motherboards which are working with Windows 98 (discussion)

[98Guy]

> So any MB I can buy for W98 in this year 2008?

Yea, this one:

Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Mode...%20R2.0&s=n

Although I must admit that I have no experience with that board. It's R2.0, and its got SATA2.

I have experience with the R1 board, with SATA1. Anyone have this R2 board and win-98?

[lama]

> So any MB I can buy for W98 in this year 2008?

>>Although I must admit that I have no experience with that board. It's R2.0, and its got SATA2.

So there is no confirmed MB here? well, perhaps a little more choices would be great...

[petekeller]

I had Win98 running on Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 last December. Everything worked

fine except for sound. Since I wanted a fully functioning system, I gave the board away.

Here's what I posted on microsft.public.win98.gen_discussion:

'Has anyone been able to get a sound card working on

a 4CORE DUAL VSTA motherboard (in win98se)?

The cards I have available are a Trident 4DWave and

a SoundBlaster PCI. Both worked fine on four other boards.

The SB PCI works fine in Windows 2000.

On the 4CORE DUAL VSTA, both cards trigger the win98 Automatic

Skip Driver. ASD gives the following reference for SB PCI

not working:

'PCI\VEN_1274&DEV_5880&SUBSYS_80011274&REV_04\209900'

Not sure what this means.

ASD suggests that I update the drivers or change the resources that

the device is using. I don't think this is the solution.

Since both of my sound cards are oldish (pre-98 really), I was hoping

something a little more recent might work.

I'm about to pick a lemon from the lemon tree, go back to my P4

socket 478 and hope it all works out.'

Got no response, Googled till I was blue in the face and gave up.

[98Guy]

> I had Win98 running on Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 last December.

> Everything worked fine except for sound. Since I wanted a fully functioning

> system, I gave the board away.

What hard drive did you have connected to that board? Was it SATA, or IDE?

Did you try an SB live or maybe Audigy sound board?

I think it's kinda extreme to have given that board away without trying some other sound card.

When I get the time to build my Asrock win-98 machine, I intend to install an Audigy 2 (SB0240) sound card. I'll be really p***ed if it doesn't work...

[petekeller]

>What hard drive did you have connected to that board? Was it SATA, or IDE?

IDE.

>Did you try an SB live or maybe Audigy sound board?

Trident 4-D Wave and Creative Labs Sound Blaster PCI: model CT4740.

>I think it's kinda extreme to have given that board away without trying some other sound card.

Expenses were piling up. Gave it to my sister when her board died. Works perfectly on XP.

>When I get the time to build my Asrock win-98 machine, I intend to install an Audigy 2 >(SB0240) sound card.

What's taking you so long?

>I'll be really p***ed if it doesn't work...

I think it's a conflict between sound card driver and chipset driver for HD. Good luck!

[lama]

So, I guess no one had success with sound after putting in external PCI sound card on modern motherboards right??? I'm also assuming that HD cannot be fully switched off from BIOS? Is USB sound card the answer to these type of problem(s)?

Once again, I continue to wait for a positive confirmed feedback...

Edited October 27, 2008 by lama

[petekeller]

>So, I guess no one had success with sound after putting in external PCI sound card on modern >motherboards right??? I'm also assuming that HD cannot be fully switched off from BIOS? Is USB >sound card the answer to these type of problem(s)?

>Once again, I continue to wait for a positive confirmed feedback...

I stopped waiting for a "positive confirmed feedback".

My guess is that the South Bridge chip's built in HD sound is detected by Wndows 98

and since windows 98 has no built in support for HD, the ASD is triggered, and no

drivers will ever be loaded. It may be that someone could alter the support files for

the HD or sound drivers so that one could get around that obstacle. Know anyone who

is capable of such things?

I did find one USB sound card that claimed to work in Win98 without drivers installed.

Since I had already been misled into believing an internal card would work, I was

too skeptical to buy it. If you succeed, please post. I may give it another try.

Edited October 31, 2008 by petekeller

[lama]

It may be that someone could alter the support files for

the HD or sound drivers so that one could get around that obstacle. Know anyone who

is capable of such things?

I know eugene did help me earlier (check this out) but later they (kX dudes) decided to stop W98 versions...

[Rjecina]

When I have started this section in May 2007 my thinking has been that in near future we will not have new motherboard which are supporting Windows 98 SE, but situation is very different

Today I will not write about which MBO is supporting which processor because this will be long story (for example many MBO are supporting Core2Duo 6700 but not 6750) and answer is possible to find in stores.

All motherboards on this lists are having official Windows 98 SE drivers:

Motheboards for Intel processors (socket 775):

ABIT, s. 775, IS 85, i845G, BUS 800 MHz, VGA, serial ATA, 5.1 zvuk, LAN, DDR 400, mATX

ABIT, s. 775, SG 80DC, SIS 661FX, BUS 800 MHz, VGA, serial ATA, RAID, 5.1 zvuk, LAN, DDR 400, mATX

*ABIT, s. 775, SG 95, SIS 662, BUS 800 MHz, VGA, serial ATA, RAID, 7.1 zvuk, LAN, DDR 2, mATX

*ABIT, s. 775, IP-95, VIA P4M890, BUS 1066 MHz, serial ATA, RAID, 5.1 zvuk, DDR 2, LAN, ATX 2

*ABIT, s. 775, I-S71, SiS 671, BUS 1066 MHz, serial ATA II, RAID, VGA, 7.1 zvuk, LAN, DDR 2, mATX

**ASROCK, s. 775, 4COREDUAL-SATA2, VIA PT880 Ultra, BUS 1066 MHz, serial ATA, RAID, 7.1 zvuk, LAN, DDR 2, ATX 2

**ASROCK, s. 775, 4COREDUAL-VSTA, VIA PT880 Ultra, BUS 1066 MHz, serial ATA, RAID, 7.1 zvuk, LAN, DDR 2, ATX 2

ASROCK, s. 775, CONROE 865PE, i865PE, BUS 1066 MHz, serial ATA, 7.1 zvuk, LAN, DDR 400, ATX 2

ASROCK, s. 775, 775i65G R2.0, i865G, BUS 1066 MHz, VGA, serial ATA, 5.1 zvuk, LAN, DDR 400, mATX

ASROCK, s. 775, 775i65G, i865GV, BUS 1066 MHz, VGA, serial ATA, 5.1 zvuk, LAN, DDR 400, mATX

*ASUS P5SD2-VM mATX/SiS672/1066/DDR2/VGA/PCI-ex/LPTserial

*ECS 662/1066T-M2, s775, SIS 662, VGA, DDR II, mATX

ECS P4M800Pro-M2, s775, VIA P4M800Pro, VGA, DDR II, mATX

*ECS P4M890T-M, s775, VIA P4M890, VGA, DDR II, mATX

*ECS 671T-M, s775, SIS 671, VGA, DDR II, mATX

*ECS, s. 775, P4M900T-M2, VIA P4M900, BUS 1066 MHz, VGA, zvuk, DDR 2, LAN, mATX

Gigabyte 8I865GME-775-RH, s775, i865G, VGA, SATA, LAN, mATX

Motheboards for Intel processors (socket 478):

ASROCK, s. 478, P4I65G, i865G, BUS 800 MHz, serial ATA, VGA, 5.1 zvuk, LAN, DDR 400, mATX

Motheboards for AMD processors (socket 754):

ABIT, s. 754, KV85, VIA K8M800, BUS 1600 MHz, VGA, serial ATA, 5.1 zvuk, DDR 400, LAN, mATX

Motheboards for AMD processors (socket AM2):

**ASROCK, s. AM2, AliveDual-eSATA2, NVIDIA nFORCE 3 250, BUS 2000 MHz, serial ATA II, RAID, 7.1 zvuk, DDR 2, 1Gbps, ATX 2

ASROCK, s. AM2, AM2NF3-VSTA, NVIDIA nFORCE 3 250, BUS 2000 MHz, AGP, serial ATA, RAID, 7.1 zvuk, DDR 2, LAN, ATX 2

*ASUS M2V-MX SE, Via K8M890, 2xDDRII/800MHz,LAN,VGA,mATX

Motherboards without signs * or ** are created around chipset with full support for Windows 98. They are created around chipset which is working with AGP cards.

Motherboards with sign * are integrated without possibility to add GPU card with official drivers (PCIE problem)

Motherboards with sign** can created many, many problems GPU problems. My advice is not to buy motherboards with AGP and PCIE sockets because of possible problems.

Because motherboard producers will rarely give Windows 98 drivers only solution is download from chipset producers sites. Sound drivers are greatest problems and all MBO which are having sound support for Windows Vista they are without sound in Windows 98 !

Edited January 2, 2009 by Rjecina

[halohalo]

MBO created around chipset i865 will work with Windows 98, but you will have 2 small problems. This are memory and processors.

For example GA-8I865PE775-G-RH (rev. 4.9) is supporting Core2Duo E4300-E4700, Pentium Dual-Core 2140-2220. You can use even "old" Core2Duo which are working with FSB 1066 (E6300, E6320, E6400, E6420, E6600) but it will work with FSB 800

AsRock 775i65G is having similar processor support, but Core2Duo processors with FSB 1066 will work with full speed.

Unlike the products by Gigabyte or ASUS, Wolfdale compatible beta bios is available for few motherboards by ASRock, like Conroe865pe and 775i65G. So you can get 0.5x multiplier support and multiplier will not be locked to 6.0x when using E5xxx or E7xxx processors.

ASRock ConRoe865PE Bios 1.71A

http://www.pctreiber.net/filebase.php?fileid=2472&lim=0

ASRock 775i65G BIOS 3.22

http://www.pctreiber.net/filebase.php?fileid=2848

[duebel13]

Compatibility update for Asrock Alivedual-esata2:

...

Also, SATA I (aka SATA 150 MB/s) works fine on this board. Windows 98SE loaded the 32-bit HDD drivers just fine and detected the disk as a regular IDE disk (BIOS is set to "Non-RAID"). I have not noticed any performance decrease (on any OS including Linux and Win2K) as a result of using SATA I instead of SATA II. The SATA I ports are controlled directly by the nForce3 250 chipset, rather than through the JMicron controller, this is why SATA I works properly (i.e. in non-MS-DOS compatibility mode) and the SATA II only works in compatibility mode. If you use an IDE HDD for Windows 98SE there are still 2 IDE ports on this board, just like on older boards. They work just fine.

...

Hope this is helpful,

ALincoln

No, sorry, this is not helpful. Worse, it is simply misleading and false. Did you use an old ATA disk? There is no SATA driver for the nVidia nForce3 250 chipset. Due to that information above, I spent a couple of hours downloading and installing drivers. Just to find out there is no such thing. My SATA I disk is still running in compatibility mode.

The latest Win98 driver for the nForce3 is the v4.27 Unified Driver:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_udp_win9x_4.27.html

(Go here: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us + select Product Type: Legacy + Product Series: nForce 3 Series + Operating System: Windows 98 + Language: <doesn't matter> and you will finally land there).

This nForce Win9x driver package contains the below components:

Audio driver version 4.42

Audio utility version 4.44

Ethernet driver version 4.33

GART driver version 3.77 (WHQL)

Memory controller driver version 3.38 (WHQL) with updated uninstaller files

SMBus driver version 4.04 (WHQL) with updated uninstaller files

Installer version 4.45

Note that you don't need to install neither the Audio driver and utility nor the Ethernet driver from this package on the ASRock ALiveDual-eSATA2 as this board features the C-Media CM6501 Audio Codec (detected as USB device) and the Realtek RTL8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC which have their own drivers. Grab them here:

ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/misc/audio...o_V51224219.zip

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downlo...p;GetDown=false

So for the ALiveDual-eSATA2, you will only install the GART (aka AGP), Memory controller, and SMBus driver from this package but no SATA driver.

I doublechecked wether other vendors with nForce3 250 mainboards may provide SATA drivers for Windows 98 but had no luck. See driver downloads for ASUS K8N-E Deluxe, GigaByte GA-K8NS, GA-K8NS Pro, GA-K8NSNXP, MSI K8N Neo2-FX, and MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, to name a few.

I don't want to conclude my first post here just complaining. Some of you may find this helpful: I've got a passive Sapphire Radeon 3850 (PCI-E). Obviously, there are no Win98 drivers for newer Radeon cards. But I didn't want to switch back to my old card so I searched for a generic VESA driver and finally found this page:

http://bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbe9x.htm

Using that driver, I can run Windows 98 with a resolution of 1280 x 1024 at 32-bit colors. The drawing speed of the screen is fair (i.e. not really suited for action games), but who cares? It's surely better than 640 x 480 pixels / standard vga driver. :-)

Regards

[Analada]

Compatibility update for Asrock Alivedual-esata2:

...

Also, SATA I (aka SATA 150 MB/s) works fine on this board. Windows 98SE loaded the 32-bit HDD drivers just fine and detected the disk as a regular IDE disk (BIOS is set to "Non-RAID"). I have not noticed any performance decrease (on any OS including Linux and Win2K) as a result of using SATA I instead of SATA II. The SATA I ports are controlled directly by the nForce3 250 chipset, rather than through the JMicron controller, this is why SATA I works properly (i.e. in non-MS-DOS compatibility mode) and the SATA II only works in compatibility mode. If you use an IDE HDD for Windows 98SE there are still 2 IDE ports on this board, just like on older boards. They work just fine.

...

Hope this is helpful,

ALincoln

No, sorry, this is not helpful. Worse, it is simply misleading and false. Did you use an old ATA disk? There is no SATA driver for the nVidia nForce3 250 chipset. Due to that information above, I spent a couple of hours downloading and installing drivers. Just to find out there is no such thing. My SATA I disk is still running in compatibility mode.

The latest Win98 driver for the nForce3 is the v4.27 Unified Driver:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_udp_win9x_4.27.html

(Go here: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us + select Product Type: Legacy + Product Series: nForce 3 Series + Operating System: Windows 98 + Language: <doesn't matter> and you will finally land there).

This nForce Win9x driver package contains the below components:

Audio driver version 4.42

Audio utility version 4.44

Ethernet driver version 4.33

GART driver version 3.77 (WHQL)

Memory controller driver version 3.38 (WHQL) with updated uninstaller files

SMBus driver version 4.04 (WHQL) with updated uninstaller files

Installer version 4.45

Note that you don't need to install neither the Audio driver and utility nor the Ethernet driver from this package on the ASRock ALiveDual-eSATA2 as this board features the C-Media CM6501 Audio Codec (detected as USB device) and the Realtek RTL8111 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC which have their own drivers. Grab them here:

ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/misc/audio...o_V51224219.zip

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downlo...p;GetDown=false

So for the ALiveDual-eSATA2, you will only install the GART (aka AGP), Memory controller, and SMBus driver from this package but no SATA driver.

I doublechecked wether other vendors with nForce3 250 mainboards may provide SATA drivers for Windows 98 but had no luck. See driver downloads for ASUS K8N-E Deluxe, GigaByte GA-K8NS, GA-K8NS Pro, GA-K8NSNXP, MSI K8N Neo2-FX, and MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum, to name a few.

I don't want to conclude my first post here just complaining. Some of you may find this helpful: I've got a passive Sapphire Radeon 3850 (PCI-E). Obviously, there are no Win98 drivers for newer Radeon cards. But I didn't want to switch back to my old card so I searched for a generic VESA driver and finally found this page:

http://bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbe9x.htm

Using that driver, I can run Windows 98 with a resolution of 1280 x 1024 at 32-bit colors. The drawing speed of the screen is fair (i.e. not really suited for action games), but who cares? It's surely better than 640 x 480 pixels / standard vga driver. :-)

Regards

I think you've said it all regarding nForce3 (which I use on Foxconn MB).

nforce2 and 3 chipsets have a flaw (lack of driver support) with sata 2 drives.

You have to force them to 1.5 or sata 1 mode with jumper to get them to work properly. One person on the foxconn forum told me: "At least I had too and could not install windows with them for the life of me. they worked fine as a hot swap storage drive but creates *very* long boot times (NCQ is not supported on these chipsets)."

I use (P)ATA and see no reason to use sata at all. HTH

[duebel13]

nforce2 and 3 chipsets have a flaw (lack of driver support) with sata 2 drives.

You have to force them to 1.5 or sata 1 mode with jumper to get them to work properly.

Just to clarify: The nForce3 supports 1.5G SATA, only the JMicron on this Mobo support eSATA2. So this is not a flaw but a limitation of the older chip. My Samsung HD is jumpered to 1.5G SATA so that it can boot properly. But even with a 1.5G SATA drive connected to the 1.5G SATA port in native IDE mode, the drive runs in compatibility mode. The lack of driver support applies for SATA (I), not for SATA II / eSATA2. The lack of hardware support applies for the latter.

[seskanda]

Where in the BIOS do i set a SATA drive(s) in IDE mode on an ASrock 4Coredual-SATA2 R2 board?

Thanks in advance.

Edited January 23, 2009 by seskanda

[RetroOS]

Where in the BIOS do i set a SATA drive(s) in IDE mode on an ASrock 4Coredual-SATA2 R2 board?

...

Here are the manuals for your board: http://www.asrock.com/mb/manual.asp?Model=...0R2.0&s=775

Normally you would need to select the SATA Operation Mode as IDE mode...

But on your board you will need to select RAID mode (IDE Configuration, SATA Operation Mode=RAID)

Here's the technical reference information from ASRock: http://www.asrock.com/support/qa/TSDQA-31.pdf

See question 3, answer a.

Edited January 23, 2009 by RetroOS