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Old December 20th 17, 06:13 AM posted to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_6_]
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Posts: 41
Default New HDD, has corrupted Data - AGAIN

wrote:
On Tue, 19 Dec 2017 13:50:10 -0500, Paul wrote:

I managed to install Win98SE on an Asrock VIA board with a Core2
processor, and it screams. Even though it only can use one core
of the processor. So yes, you can run Win98 on at least some
modern hardware.


Roughly when (year) did they stop making mobos and drivers for Win98
compatibility? I've been thinking about getting a faster machine that I
can still run Win98 on. Often those old machines sell for little to
nothing on ebay and I'd kind of like to have a different tower case
anyhow, since I cant close mine due to the oversize power supply.
I'd most likely get another Lenovo (IBM) machine since they last
forever. It WONT be a Dell though....

I always wanted to see just how fast Win98 can run on newer hardware.
plus it would be nice to get a MOBO with USB 2 ports.


This is the motherboard I was using at the time. "4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0"

https://www.asrock.com/MB/VIA/4CoreD...s.asp#Download

It's got a little of everything, but it
does have plenty of limits.

Don't overpay for it - it was only $65 Canadian at the time.

4 PCI slots (I might have had one of my CMI8738 sound cards in there...)
1 AGP8X slot (for my FX5200 AGP, Win98SE driver)
1 PCIe x16 slot (wired x4, there was a compatible video card list)
(I never even tested this. I doubt Win98 has the
arch for this either, as it would only have GART.)
DDR400 two slots or
DDR2-533 (it says 667 but just use low CAS DDR2-533 in it, as it's
as stable as the Rock of Gibraltar that way.)
Core2 Dual or Quad - try a dual core, as the quad slowed down a bit
for some reason.
- FSB is limited to FSB1066. I used an FSB800
processor. It would be nice to use an E8400
with FSB1333, but the chipset won't go that high
on the FSB.

I used an E4700, but there is also the E7600. The reason I didn't
go with the E7600 is because I didn't know whether the chipset
(overclocked when running at FSB1066) would handle it well or not.

https://ark.intel.com/products/34441...Hz-800-MHz-FSB
https://ark.intel.com/products/41495...z-1066-MHz-FSB

The only time the amount of cache matters, is when you compress with 7ZIP.

The R2 board (revision 2), they changed the clock generator
chip, then they didn't update the BIOS file with driver code
for the new clock generator. As a result, the board runs fine
if you don't overclock. The clockgen accepts BSEL signals
from the LGA775 socket that select the correct clock. However,
if you enter the BIOS and even touch the knob to turn up the
BCLK, the register writing code is all wrong for the
new clock gen, and the board goes nuts. So you can't overclock
using the BIOS.

I did manage to overclock it, doing a BSEL socket mod and
a VCore voltmod. But it wasn't stable so I turned it down again.
It ran for about 10 minutes at 3.2GHz or so.

A lot of fun for $65. The processor cost more than that.

It only really has one egregious sin. I plugged my WinTV
card into a PCI slot, and that triggers a workaround which
*ruins* performance. As soon as you unplug the WinTV (BT878)
card, everything returns to normal. I got another motherboard
to replace it at that point, a board that would not flinch
if a WinTV card was plugged in. I had no hint this was going
to happen, until I plugged in the card.

What happens when you plug in the WinTV card, is the disk
drive sustained read drops to 30MB/sec. As time passes
(around ten minutes), the disk drive drops to 20MB/sec.
At that level of I/O, this gets tired fast. If I wanted that
kind of speed, I'd use my Mac :-)

On the plus side, that board is really easy on power
consumption. The 65W processor uses 36W running Prime95,
and the VIA chipset is a miser on power. Because there
are no graphics in the Northbridge, and because the
PCIe lane count is only x4 lanes, it doesn't really have
a lot of high speed I/O. The AGP slot interface probably
used more power than anything else on the Northbridge.

The Southbridge only had two SATA ports, but the 8237S
supports SATA II drives, so the thing isn't all bad.
I've never tested any really fast drives on it, to see
if it had any sins to report. Like, use an SSD on it.

The board is really a "hackers delight". It's not
the best choice for someone who expects an all-you-can-eat
buffet. Everything you do is a little project.
The best BIOS for the motherboard, is a hacked version
done by a guy in Germany. Just to give you some idea.
He didn't fix the clockgen though, as I don't know if
the necessary code is floating around in the wild
for that. What the hacked BIOS did have, was working
EIST, something that Intel lawyers were trying to
prevent Asrock from giving to customers. EIST changes
the multiplier from say x9 to x6 on my other Core2 processor,
to save power when the desktop is idle. Intel wanted
to punish Asrock for continuing to ship a VIA chipset,
by revoking their right to put EIST on the motherboard.
The guy in Germany turned it back on again. The ease
with which the guy in Germany turned it back on,
tells me it was a legal issue, not a technical issue,
that prevented Asrock from turning that on, BIOS
release after BIOS release. Asrock never fixed that.
What was weird, is they kept releasing new BIOS
revisions, but there were a few things they just
refused to fix. I concluded from that, that lawyers
were involved. Intel at the time, was trying to squeeze
VIA out of the picture (they didn't license the next
bus interface to VIA, preventing VIA from making
newer chipsets).

If I was looking for such a product on Ebay, I'd look
for a whole system, and hope that the person selling
it, knew what to do to it :-)

If you put a quad processor on it, like an E6700,
it would make the system run hotter. And then, would
you try to run Win10 on it ? It would be fast enough
for that. But there was some issue with benchmarks
seeming to indicate some clock was getting turned
down a bit. Since I wasn't running a quad, I never
did any further research on it.

On the RAM, it officially takes 2x1GB DDR2-533 no problem.
The VIA web site says 2x1GB is the limit, yet I did plug
2x2GB into it, and it recognized the RAM. However, it
was throwing errors like crazy with the 2x2GB, which tells
you the BIOS wasn't "tuned" to run 2GB sticks. So even
VIA would not admit (on their web site) that it could
use 2GB sticks. Weird. With the 2x1GB plugged back in,
you could Prime95 all day long, no sweat. Very stable.

To install Win98, you do the basic install, then
you stop the install before it reboots, and edit
the file that limits "visible" RAM, to 512MB. Then
allow it to boot to Windows and the screen comes up
for the first time. I used Linux to edit that text file :-)
The machine had 2x1GB installed, which is too much for
Win98, but the file edit reduces the visible RAM to
a more comfortable 512MB. That's one of the reasons
it runs OK.

Paul