Interesting W98 situation - need help please

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DonLogan - 10 Jun 2006 05:08 GMT

I have an older machine, on my modest 2 machine network, that I use
for utility work & longer computer-intensive tasks. Not
mission-critical, but I sure hate to have it off-line.

It's W98 (not SE) & has been running fine, for what it does. Was an
Asus CUSL2, with a P3 733 & 256MB.
Had to replace the MB so got an Asus P4B & a P4 1.5. Was using the
CUSL2's onboard video so had to use an old PCI video card.

Swapped out motherboards, chased drivers & bios & rebooted a few
times. Video recognized as a 16bit, 640x480 default. Can't remember
what, if anything, the card said so figured it was a Daytona card
(only video drives in my stack). Sandra says SIS 6326 chip/4MB mem.
Loaded up the Daytona drivers & utils. And took it to 1024x768x256.
Looked ok.

Ran fine but very SLLOWW. Could hardly refresh/repaint screen.
Scrounged up 128 more memory & popped in.

Still terribly slow switching tasks, or just a c to d drive explorer
copy - hours!
Used Sandra to discover just being in W98 is taking up ALL memory!!
Looked to task mgr to kill superfluous task - to no avail.
Can't find a free util to map memory usage & running tasks!

Any suggestions?

So now I get ready to post this, after 2 days & 15+ starts and stares
at Everest Home Edition, (256mb avail), I now find W98 startup is now
only taking about 100MB !!!!

But guess what? Task switching is still painfully SLOW!

Now both Everest & Sandra agree that there is 130+MB free, out of the
384 avail, but that sure doesn't feel true. SLLOOWW task switching &
screen painting!

Going down the toilet. I sure don't want to start from scratch.
Too bad MB doesn't have built in video.

---- Now getting "Thread Creation Errors"

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budgie - 10 Jun 2006 09:05 GMT

>I have an older machine, on my modest 2 machine network, that I use
>for utility work & longer computer-intensive tasks. Not
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>Had to replace the MB so got an Asus P4B & a P4 1.5. Was using the
>CUSL2's onboard video so had to use an old PCI video card.

(snip saga)

As a 98SE user, if I were in your position I'd spend $20-$30 and buy a secondand
P2/P3 mobo more in line with the previous one.

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philo - 10 Jun 2006 13:47 GMT

<snip>

> Ran fine but very SLLOWW. Could hardly refresh/repaint screen.
> Scrounged up 128 more memory & popped in.
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
> Any suggestions?

Unless the new board has the chipset drivers for win98 (which is doubtful)
Your harddrive controller may be in the PIO mode rather than DMA.

If that's the case then you need to either use a supported operating system
for that board...
or just pick up an older mobo on ebay

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DonLogan - 11 Jun 2006 16:34 GMT

><snip>
>> Ran fine but very SLLOWW. Could hardly refresh/repaint screen.
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>Unless the new board has the chipset drivers for win98 (which is doubtful)
>Your harddrive controller may be in the PIO mode rather than DMA.

You got it in one! Loaded the Asus chipset drivers, set up DMA and
goodness. Also found a Rage AGP 128meg card & that fixed the slow
video.
thanks

>If that's the case then you need to either use a supported operating system
>for that board...
>or just pick up an older mobo on ebay

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