intel 865G motherboard & win98SE problems

[dakota81]

I had picked up a new intel D865GBF motherboard & P4 cpu to upgrade a machine at work; this machine is forced to use Win98SE as the best operating system due to an older graphics software & security dongle.

This new setup just seems to be soooo sluggish; it's like the machine has no clue how to multi-task. Not to mention I think there's some issues with intel's drivers... Is this chipset or intel motherboards just not designed to work well with Win98SE? This weekend I'm going to pull the AMD setup from my own computer & give it a try. Thought I'd ask here first for anyone's experience or suggestions.

 

[Freestone]

Intel's chipset has to be identified to the OS before the OS knows what to do with it. Try installing the following:

http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/bf/bf_drive.htm

INF: Intel 82801EB ICH5 link. There are other drivers for this board on this page too.

The generic Intel Chipset driver is at:

http://www.intel.com/design/software/drivers/platform/inf.htm

 

[dakota81]

Believe me, I loaded all the drivers for the motherboard; it just is NOT Win98SE compatible. I don't know why, but the damn thing runs like $%#@; I could go on a five page rant here listing all the issues I ran into, suffice to say anyone reading this just take my warning and do not buy new intel stuff to run Win98SE on, because it will not function properly.

AMD stuff works; seems weird to say AMD parts are a lot higher compatibility than an all intel setup; but suffice to say that apparantly is the truth.

 

[SYAR2003]

Have you set the APIC mps as 1.0 or 1.1 version.

 

[dakota81]

I gave up on the thing; I had Win2000 running on the board before, was perfect, not a single problem. All the problems with this motherboard & Win98SE all involved file accessing of some sort, which I would assume is a major driver problem, since the board worked fine with Win2000. A clean install of the OS would result in the OS not being able to locate files on occasion (like a software i.e. a windows critical update when executed returned a file locate error); lock up when attempting to do file transfers from one directory to another; total system stall when spinning up the cdrom; and in the worst case several files actually disappeared including like 3 quarters of the windows\options\cabs directory!! I had a fresh install with all updated drivers & no software installed yet.

What does the APIC mps settings involve? This doesn't seem like an issue of power management at all.

 

[SYAR2003]

Well W98 dont handle APIC but W2K does.
This BIOS feature is used to enable or disable the motherboard's APIC (Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller). The APIC provides multiprocessor support, more IRQs and faster interrupt handling.


It is only supported by newer operating systems like Microsoft Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Older operating systems like Windows 95/98 do not support this feature.

Enable this feature if you are using a newer operating system like Windows XP. Disable it only if you are using an older operating system like Windows 98.

I suspect that this is the problem,
Newer motherboards have this as a default enabled.

If you are not using Win2K or WinXP, then you are not using APIC . APIC gives better performance, ie stability, because you have less chance of hardware conflicts with 24 IRQ's as opposed to 16.

If you are running Win9x, don't have APIC enabled in bios Win9x will never let you benefit from it anyway.

The mode in bios must be applied BEFORE install of Os.

 

[dakota81]

Guess I was thinking of ACPI; Anyway, I was searching around on google a bit here, and there are mixed feelings on whether or not that setting has any effect on the stability of Win98... My AMD motherboard doesn't even have an APIC option in the bios, and I've never had any stability issues in WinXP.

But you know; I remember a time when if in the case of very common, easily solvable errors, the hardware manufacturers all would put a large disclaimer in their packaging making sure users knew of any new features that can cause problems... or atleast made the safest configuration the default configuration.

I'll never know, though, I already ditched that intel board as I was just so fed up with it, not worth the effort. =)

Good to have this forum here; but shame on the manufacturers who keep changing the rules of the game & not making them obvious to the end users. That's just my opinion. And intel is certainly the worst at that; just think if I hadn't read somewhere else in this forum that hyperthreading is not supported under Win98 or Win2000; intel isn't exactly putting forth the effort to educate users (just as an example).