***** charles wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> What is the fastest motherboard that MSI produces
> for which one can still get W98SE drivers?
>
> thanks,
> charles......
>
That information is not generally gathered together in one
place, for the easy use of customers.
At one time, it would be a simple matter of checking
the download page, and see whether Win98 drivers were
listed for the various chips on a motherboard. But the
motherboard makers seem to feel no need to list Win98
separately, even if the driver was available.
For example, the last chipset at Nvidia that actively
supported Win98, is Nforce3. If I use the "Mobot", here:
If I go to the Asrock site, the only drivers listed are for
Win2K/WinXP. There is nothing showing for Win98, implying
Asrock could care less about Win98. (It means I did find a
driver on the Nvidia site, but Asrock doesn't show that
driver, because they officially don't care about Win98
any more.)
Now, if I go to the Nvidia site, select download, Nforce3,
I am offered a choice of Win98. The available download is
dated from 2004. Which means it would still work, but Nvidia
has not been actively working on support for it either.
And that means, as a user, you are an orphan. You have
virtually no one to turn to, if there are any issues with
Win98 operation. Say, for example, there is a bug in the
BIOS that upsets your Win98 install. Would Asrock waste
BIOS developer time, fixing a Win98 bug ?
The motherboard companies do not make grand statements about
operating system support, because the customers would interpret
such statements to mean "you'll support my OS, forever". And
the motherboard companies simply don't want to get caught in
a compromising situation. The motherboard companies don't write
the drivers, and they also don't get a say in when the chipset
company stops supporting the driver. So the motherboard maker,
by definition, must stay silent on the issue. They are not
"in the driver seat".
So, if you wish to answer this question for yourself, you
visit the chipset makers: Intel, Nvidia, ATI, SIS, Via
then loop through all the possible chipsets, find each chip
maker's download page, and see whether Win98 is supported.
Then, go to the "Mobot" search engine, enter a modern socket
or processor (LGA775 or Core2 Duo processor, or socket AM2 for
AMD), and see if a particular chipset is used with a modern
socket. Since the cross product of useful chipset and modern
sockets is pretty low, you might not get to select a particular
manufacturer of the motherboard.
For SIS, it looks like the latest stuff doesn't support Win98.
But companies like SIS and Via tend to be "tail enders", meaning
they support stuff longer than the "tech push" chipset makers.
So there might still be some of their previous generation
stuff, that can be used.
For a Core2 Duo processor choice, I might try Asus P5PE-VM, since
it uses an older chipset (Intel 865G) which has an AGP slot,
and AGP is more likely to have a Win98 driver than say a
PCI Express video card slot. Stick the interface in "Compatible"
mode, and Win98 should not have a problem working with it. One
of the downsides to P5PE-VM, is it would not be an overclockers
board - stick a Core2 Duo processor in it, and it runs at
stock speed.
So there are some choices like that, but where I got my information
was little by little. There wasn't some table with "the answer"
in it, and right now, I'd have to do the same thing you're going
to have to do - visit the sis.com site, or the viaarena.com sites
and look for drivers, and see which chipsets are the most recent,
then use the Mobot to see if anyone makes a board with that chipset.
And even if the chipset supports Win98, that doesn't guarantee that
all the peripherals will be "Win98 ready". For example, you'd have
the usual issues getting USB2 to work. That might take a separate
PCI USB card, one that comes with a driver disk and has OrangeMicro
USB drivers. The Ethernet chip might similarly not be supported in
Win98. So there is plenty of work to do, before you get close to
full functionality.
You probably already know that Win98 has issues with too much
memory. Generally, there are a couple of variables in the
setup files, that can fix the issues. If you are single booting
though, it wouldn't make sense to buy an excess of RAM. 512MB
should be trouble free, 512MB to 1GB total memory can be fixed
without disabling any RAM, and above 1GB the excess RAM would
have to be "made invisible".
"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
news:euf2vo$uf0$1@aioe.org...
> ***** charles wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > What is the fastest motherboard that MSI produces
> > for which one can still get W98SE drivers?
> >
> > thanks,
> > charles......
> >
>
> That information is not generally gathered together in one
> place, for the easy use of customers.
<snip>
Thanks for the info and methodology. Since Intel stopped
support for 98 with the 875 chipset I though MSI might
have done the same. With that in mind I found the following
3 boards:
In my area I still have to help with W98 machines since they
still do all the things the user needs (no reason to upgrade).
I did notice that at least one of the above boards has SATA.
How would one go about installing W98SE OEM cd onto
a sata150 drive mapped out as C? is this even possible?
The PATA controllers look like they only go up to ata100
and not ata133. Any other insight would be helpfull.
My plan is to use hardware that has driver support that is
already on the oem cd.
***** charles wrote:
> "Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
> news:euf2vo$uf0$1@aioe.org...
>> ***** charles wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> What is the fastest motherboard that MSI produces
>>> for which one can still get W98SE drivers?
>>>
>>> thanks,
>>> charles......
>>>
>> That information is not generally gathered together in one
>> place, for the easy use of customers.
>
> <snip>
>
> Thanks for the info and methodology. Since Intel stopped
> support for 98 with the 875 chipset I though MSI might
> have done the same. With that in mind I found the following
> 3 boards:
>
> 875P Neo-LSR/ FIS2R
> 875P Neo-FISR (PCB 2.0
> D875PBZ
>
> In my area I still have to help with W98 machines since they
> still do all the things the user needs (no reason to upgrade).
> I did notice that at least one of the above boards has SATA.
> How would one go about installing W98SE OEM cd onto
> a sata150 drive mapped out as C? is this even possible?
> The PATA controllers look like they only go up to ata100
> and not ata133. Any other insight would be helpfull.
> My plan is to use hardware that has driver support that is
> already on the oem cd.
>
> thanks,
> charles.....
>
>
The ICH5/ICH5R have "Compatible" and "Enhanced" modes.
You can have a total of six disks on an ICH5. Four are
IDE (up to ATA100 speed). Two are SATA. The six disks
are further divided into three groups of two. Each
PATA cable is a group. And the two SATA disks form their
own group.
In Compatible mode, you can only use two groups of the
three groups available. The reason for this, is Compatible
mode is used for Win98, and places the disks in the I/O
space, using IRQ14 and IRQ15 for interrupts (two disks per
IRQ). The Win98 driver thinks it is dealing with a standard
two ribbon cable setup (even though one group can be two SATA
disks, the fact they are SATA is invisible).
In Enhanced mode, all six disks can be used. All three
groups are enabled. The way this works, is the disk interfaces
are mapped to the PCI address space. Win2K and WinXP have
drivers that work with PCI bus mapped drives. But Win98
doesn't have a driver like that. If you selected the
Enhanced mode, and tried to install Win98, it won't find
any disks.
So, to use Win98 with an 875/865/848, you'd want to
switch to Compatible mode, and use the BIOS to select
the appropriate two of three groups to use. There is some
variation in the BIOS designs, as to the terminology used
for this (YMMV).
The reason there is a limit of ATA100, is the strobe
in the ICH5 is only suited to writing at 89MB/sec.
Reads can run at the full 100MB/sec. For some reason,
Intel didn't strain themselves, trying to run at ATA133.
***** charles wrote:
> "Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
> news:euf2vo$uf0$1@aioe.org...
>> ***** charles wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> What is the fastest motherboard that MSI produces
>>> for which one can still get W98SE drivers?
>>>
>>> thanks,
>>> charles......
>>>
>> That information is not generally gathered together in one
>> place, for the easy use of customers.
>
> <snip>
>
> Thanks for the info and methodology. Since Intel stopped
> support for 98 with the 875 chipset I though MSI might
> have done the same. With that in mind I found the following
> 3 boards:
>
> 875P Neo-LSR/ FIS2R
> 875P Neo-FISR (PCB 2.0
> D875PBZ
>
> In my area I still have to help with W98 machines since they
> still do all the things the user needs (no reason to upgrade).
> I did notice that at least one of the above boards has SATA.
> How would one go about installing W98SE OEM cd onto
> a sata150 drive mapped out as C? is this even possible?
> The PATA controllers look like they only go up to ata100
> and not ata133. Any other insight would be helpfull.
> My plan is to use hardware that has driver support that is
> already on the oem cd.
>
> thanks,
> charles.....
>
Installing 98SE on a new K8T-Neo2 was pretty smooth. I first loaded the
OS to an old ATA133 and then transferred and enabled the boot to a WDC
SATA150 using Western Digital's Datalifeguard. The trick was to enable
RAID in the Bios and not SATA even though I installed only one SATA
drive. Also the VIA 4in1 package (4.55) that came with the board
installed smoothly and has USB 2.0 for 98SE.
"Tamiami" <nope@nospam.moc> wrote in message
news:460d2855$0$28091$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
> ***** charles wrote:
> > "Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
> > news:euf2vo$uf0$1@aioe.org...
> >> ***** charles wrote:
> >>> Hi all,
> >>>
> >>> What is the fastest motherboard that MSI produces
> >>> for which one can still get W98SE drivers?
> >>>
> >>> thanks,
> >>> charles......
> >>>
> >> That information is not generally gathered together in one
> >> place, for the easy use of customers.
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > Thanks for the info and methodology. Since Intel stopped
> > support for 98 with the 875 chipset I though MSI might
> > have done the same. With that in mind I found the following
> > 3 boards:
> >
> > 875P Neo-LSR/ FIS2R
> > 875P Neo-FISR (PCB 2.0
> > D875PBZ
> >
> > In my area I still have to help with W98 machines since they
> > still do all the things the user needs (no reason to upgrade).
> > I did notice that at least one of the above boards has SATA.
> > How would one go about installing W98SE OEM cd onto
> > a sata150 drive mapped out as C? is this even possible?
> > The PATA controllers look like they only go up to ata100
> > and not ata133. Any other insight would be helpfull.
> > My plan is to use hardware that has driver support that is
> > already on the oem cd.
> >
> > thanks,
> > charles.....
> >
>
> Installing 98SE on a new K8T-Neo2 was pretty smooth. I first loaded the
> OS to an old ATA133 and then transferred and enabled the boot to a WDC
> SATA150 using Western Digital's Datalifeguard. The trick was to enable
> RAID in the Bios and not SATA even though I installed only one SATA
> drive. Also the VIA 4in1 package (4.55) that came with the board
> installed smoothly and has USB 2.0 for 98SE.
How did you transfer the pata partition to the sata partition? Ghost? and if
so which version did you use?
***** charles wrote:
<snip>
>>>
>> Installing 98SE on a new K8T-Neo2 was pretty smooth. I first loaded the
>> OS to an old ATA133 and then transferred and enabled the boot to a WDC
>> SATA150 using Western Digital's Datalifeguard. The trick was to enable
>> RAID in the Bios and not SATA even though I installed only one SATA
>> drive. Also the VIA 4in1 package (4.55) that came with the board
>> installed smoothly and has USB 2.0 for 98SE.
>
> How did you transfer the pata partition to the sata partition? Ghost? and if
> so which version did you use?
>
> thanks,
> charles.....
>
Partitioned and formatted the ATA133 and then loaded 98SE on it.
Nothing else. No drivers, etc. Installed Datalifeguard on it,
connected the SATA and used Datalifeguard to partition the new SATA (for
my needs the same size C: partition as the ATA), format, copy and make
bootable. Swapped the boot order in the Bios, shutdown down,
disconnected the ATA and restarted with the new SATA.
IMO Datalifeguard is absolutely sweet. It has made me a Western Digital
customer forever.
Tamiami wrote:
> ***** charles wrote:
> <snip>
>>>>
>>> Installing 98SE on a new K8T-Neo2 was pretty smooth. I first loaded the
>>> OS to an old ATA133 and then transferred and enabled the boot to a WDC
>>> SATA150 using Western Digital's Datalifeguard. The trick was to enable
>>> RAID in the Bios and not SATA even though I installed only one SATA
>>> drive. Also the VIA 4in1 package (4.55) that came with the board
>>> installed smoothly and has USB 2.0 for 98SE.
>>
>> How did you transfer the pata partition to the sata partition? Ghost?
>> and if
>> so which version did you use?
>>
>> thanks,
>> charles.....
>>
>
> Downloaded 11.2 for Windows from here: http://support.wdc.com/download/
>
> Partitioned and formatted the ATA133 and then loaded 98SE on it. Nothing
> else. No drivers, etc. Installed Datalifeguard on it, connected the
> SATA and used Datalifeguard to partition the new SATA (for my needs the
> same size C: partition as the ATA), format, copy and make bootable.
> Swapped the boot order in the Bios, shutdown down, disconnected the ATA
> and restarted with the new SATA.
>
> IMO Datalifeguard is absolutely sweet. It has made me a Western Digital
> customer forever.
>
> HTH.
Forgot to add that I did install the VIA SATA/RAID drivers on ATA133
98SE install.
Windows 98SE support in an MSI motherboard? 
Linear Mode
