justin1985 wrote on 2023-12-16, 16:55:

I'd be happy to send a higher res photo outside the forum if that would be helpful?

Hi, yes please, that definitely is, the feedback links are in the front page footer.

As for the cards, the SB Live troubles on VIA chipsets are back in 686B days.
I ran Audigy Platinum on K8T800 board under Win98, all went well, mind you it’s a retail card with driver CD.
As mentioned above, yours may be Dell OEM (even if the model number matches) then those are picky. If you would maybe post pics of labels on your cards here for identification?
More suggestions: update the BIOS, try installing Audigy prior to VIA drivers, just on bare bones Win98. Try XP to eliminate hardware incompatibility.

justin1985 wrote on 2023-12-17, 09:40:

Would one of the Aureal cards be another option? I've seen them discussed re: 3D audio, but do they also do rich MIDI?

I have an Aureal Vortex 2 card, and its General MIDI capabilities are decent. You can't load soundfonts on those, but I think they use a different format, which you might be able to adjust. I never bothered with that since I mainly use them for A3D.

If you're curious how General MIDI sounds on a Vortex 2, I have some recordings here.

Bruno128 wrote on 2023-12-17, 11:02:

As for the cards, the SB Live troubles on VIA chipsets are back in 686B days.

That's what I thought as well, until I tried using an Audigy 1 on a motherboard with the KT333 chipset. Random crashes, freezes and hard drive write failures ensued. Replaced it with an Audigy 2 and all those issues magically went away. And the Audigy 1 which I took out works perfectly on an Intel 440ZX motherboard.

I ran Audigy Platinum on K8T800 board under Win98, all went well, mind you it’s a retail card with driver CD.

I had an Audigy 1 on my K8M800 board for a while, and it worked well enough, except that I would occasionally (rarely) get a random system freeze on startup while the sound card drivers (specifically CTHELPER.EXE) were loading. Replaced it with an Audigy 2 and no more freezes. Put the Audigy 1 on an Intel P35 motherboard, no freezes.

Bruno128 wrote on 2023-12-17, 11:02:

As mentioned above, yours may be Dell OEM (even if the model number matches) then those are picky. If you would maybe post pics of labels on your cards here for identification?

Here are the actual cards:

Bruno128 wrote on 2023-12-17, 11:02:

More suggestions: update the BIOS, try installing Audigy prior to VIA drivers, just on bare bones Win98. Try XP to eliminate hardware incompatibility.

Installing on barebones Win98 without any other drivers worked!

So did installing on a CF-IDE adapter with SATA disabled in the BIOS, but the VIA Hyperion 5.09A drivers installed for other components. So that seems pretty conclusive the conflict is between the Creative cards and the VIA SATA/RAID driver!

Without the Creative cards though, the Hyperion 5.09A drivers make the system much faster and more stable than the previous ones (I think I was originally using 4in1 4.56 from Phil's website plus 6.10c separate RAID driver from VIA). Would it be worth trying any particular further version of Hyperion to see if the conflict goes away?

It wouldn't be the end of the world to just use an IDE drive instead, although it would be a shame in terms of cable management in the compact case I'm using (and considering this board did happen to be the one with the Plus southbridge that does at least work with SATA SSDs).

How likely is it this incompatibility might go away with the Audigy 2? (it sounds like the VIA - Audigy problems others have described were more about bus and memory type stuff?). This certainly feels like it reminds me why I felt VIA were worth avoiding back in the day ...)

justin1985 wrote on 2023-12-17, 14:10:

Without the Creative cards though, the Hyperion 5.09A drivers make the system much faster and more stable than the previous ones (I think I was originally using 4in1 4.56 from Phil's website plus 6.10c separate RAID driver from VIA). Would it be worth trying any particular further version of Hyperion to see if the conflict goes away?

You don't need a separate RAID driver. Use the one that ships with Hyperion 5.09A. It's in the VIARAID folder.

I think it gets installed automatically if you select the RAID option in the main Hyperion driver setup.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-12-17, 14:34:

You don't need a separate RAID driver. Use the one that ships with Hyperion 5.09A. It's in the VIARAID folder.

I think it gets installed automatically if you select the RAID option in the main Hyperion driver setup.

Yup that is what I've been trying today. It gets me a bit further - the Creative card is detected and I can install the drivers for it. But after rebooting it hangs at the Windows boot screen - just as it would normally switch into the desktop. Sometimes it just leaves the clouds logo forever, sometimes it switches to the text mode with the DOS messages but never gets beyond it.

This time round it still seems to be hanging at boot like this even after removing the Audigy (and removing it's drivers via safe mode). So it seems like something pretty fundamental is getting broken by having the VIA RAID and Creative drivers installed at the same time ...

So I guess my options are:

1) Try with newer VIA Hyperion drivers? (Any other recommendations?)

2) Try with OLDER VIA Hyperion drivers??

3) Try different Creative drivers? (I've been using your modified image and instructions)

4) Give up on SATA and use an IDE adapter permanently

5) Give up on the Audigy and buy an Audigy2 (or something from Aureal? Audigy2ZS looks very expensive)

Given the effort involved in reinstalling Win98 each time the drivers break it, I'm thinking 4 or 5 is more likely ... (Perhaps I should use Ghost to take an image of the fresh Win98 install if I do try other driver versions?)

justin1985 wrote on 2023-12-17, 15:33:

1) Try with newer VIA Hyperion drivers? (Any other recommendations?)

You can try Hyperion 5.24A but that version won't install automatically on Win98SE. You have to add some devices manually. I think it can be installed normally under WinME, but it's been a while since I checked.

3) Try different Creative drivers? (I've been using your modified image and instructions)

Try using the stock driver CD for the Audigy 1, just to see if it changes anything. It comes with older drivers which don't have some of the later features like CMSS, but they are a bit more lightweight.

5) Give up on the Audigy and buy an Audigy2 (or something from Aureal? Audigy2ZS looks very expensive)

Before going for a new card, I would suggest installing WinXP and seeing if the issues occur there or not. If that works fine, it might be worth trying WinME as well, just in case.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-12-17, 15:55:

You can try Hyperion 5.24A but that version won't install automatically on Win98SE. You have to add some devices manually. I think it can be installed normally under WinME, but it's been a while since I checked.

Well I tried Hyperion 5.24 and it took it back to not getting beyond the boot screen whenever the Audigy was physically installed, not even getting as far as detecting the card in Windows.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-12-17, 15:55:

Before going for a new card, I would suggest installing WinXP and seeing if the issues occur there or not. If that works fine, it might be worth trying WinME as well, just in case.

I started trying to install XP using the F6 drivers but got a blue screen there … and really couldn’t face fiddling more with XP too!

Then I stumbled across Phil’s videos on Socket754, which use a very similar Gigabyte motherboard with the same VT8237R Plus south bridge - I noticed that in this video, using XP, the VIA SATA drivers installed by Snappy Driver installer stopped that from booting: https://youtu.be/cAP6GcSiEvE?si=QtfZ4-J_bdI3aJww In another of the videos using the same motherboard he suggests not bothering with the SATA ports …

So I think that’s pretty much the conclusion - I think I’ll give up on SATA on this board. The only spare CF card I had was 8Gb which clearly isn’t enough, but I already have a pair of mSATA to 44pin adapters on the way from Ali (and a few mSATA drives kicking around) so hopefully that will be the way forward.

And it certainly seems that the Audigy works well in this system without the SATA controller enabled. Thank you so much for all your help - and your work on the Creative drivers, Joey!

On a different note, is the Radeon 9250 a good match for this system under Win98? It’s actually borrowed from the Piii 450 system (it’s probably overkill there?) I don’t want to spend serious money, but if there is a widely available AGP card that would be a better fit for late Win98 games, that would be great…

justin1985 wrote on 2023-12-17, 22:03:

On a different note, is the Radeon 9250 a good match for this system under Win98? It’s actually borrowed from the Piii 450 system (it’s probably overkill there?) I don’t want to spend serious money, but if there is a widely available AGP card that would be a better fit for late Win98 games, that would be great…

If your particular card has a 128-bit memory bus, then it's not too bad. Performance should be similar to a GeForce 3 Ti200. But if it has a 64-bit memory bus, then things won't be so great. Programs like Everest should be able to show you the memory bus info.

Anyway, a nicer fit for such a system would be a GeForce 4 Ti4200 or a Radeon 9600XT. Especially if you end up using an Athlon64 3200+ or better. The more powerful (and expensive) GeForce FX 5900 and Radeon X800 cards are another option as well, if you plan on using higher resolutions like 1600x1200 with some AA and AF.

Switching over to an IDE drive certainly did the trick in terms of getting the Audigy to work!

It wasn't without some frustration though - it turned out that the mSATA to 44-pin IDE adapters that I usually use (with black screw down 2.5" drive casing) just wouldn't play ball with this motherboard. Several mSATA drives in several different adapters of this type were all detected, and accessible, but kept getting corrupt data errors. The same mSATA drive in one of the smaller un-cased 44pin adapters worked absolutely fine. Weirdly, both types of adapters use the same chip. More general VIA flakiness?

I've got the system mainly built up in the tiny FSP L12 mATX case that I had in mind. But having to use IDE rather than SATA seems to make it a bit too much of a challenge to get everything packed in! Trying to force the SSD drive in amongst the mains power and USB3 cables was just too much, and I didn't even try connecting the slim DVD yet.

I had used this case for an AM3 Athlon II from my partner's old PC, which I had built up for XP gaming, but hadn't ended up using much at all.

I recently picked up this Silverstone "SFF" mATX case, which might make a better fit for this build if I'm using IDE. It is short and shallow, but quite wide (with a full size ATX PSU alongside the CPU, like many early OEM mATX cases). Not ideal for the space I have available, but I think it is a nice case ...

I like both cases. Silverstone can loose the card reader and then there were silver bezel FDDs produced.
But how did you fit the floppy drive in that FSP L12?

Bruno128 wrote on 2023-12-21, 22:55:

I like both cases. Silverstone can loose the card reader and then there were silver bezel FDDs produced.

Thanks! Each side of the Silverstone case is a solid aluminium door, so the bay where the card reader is will be covered most of the time (I'd swap it for a floppy drive anyway). The 5.25" drive bay is more of a puzzle. I was expecting it to be a sprung flap thing, but it turns out to be a solid blanking plate.

I have a vague memory that silver DVD drives were produced? But did they actually look any good? Were there grey (rather than beige) ones?

I've kept an eye open for grey or silver DVD and floppy drives for a while, but haven't seen any come up on eBay.

Bruno128 wrote on 2023-12-21, 22:55:

But how did you fit the floppy drive in that FSP L12?

It's a regular slim floppy drive harvested from a cheap USB floppy, with a 5 pin header connector crimped on to the wires in place of the USB-A plug! It works great and the BIOS on most motherboards, including this one, treats it as a native floppy, and it gets mapped to A:. I 3D printed a face plate for it from Thingiverse, but it doesn't quite fit perfectly - might have to try again!

The L12 case has a slim 3.5" bay, but clearly intended for some kind of shallow card reader type thing. There was a back stop bent up from the steel of the drive tray assembly which I chopped out with the cutting disk in a Dremel (then filed smooth etc)

The Silverstone case is great in a lot of ways, but I can kind of understand why the design hasn't been perpetuated ...

The full size ATX PSU sits over the CPU, and everything has to be disassembled to get to anything out. To get the PSU free, you have to remove the 3.5" external drive assembly first. And you need to remove the PSU to get to virtually anything apart from the expansion cards (only the floppy cage assembly to remove for that ...)

I kind of wonder about trying to get another small SFX PSU and mounting it in a converter bracket, to make it feel a bit less constrained in there ... The current PSU is a generic AcBel OEM 330w that originated with the AM3 system. It only has a small fan on the back and intake vents only at the other end, so blank faces are facing both outwards and over the CPU.

I managed to pick up a GeForce 4Ti (only a 64mb one, as the same seller had both 64mb and 128mb listed as auctions, and I managed to bid on the wrong one). Still, it pretty much doubles the 3DMark2001 score compared to the Radeon 9250! Getting the drivers working nicely seems much harder than with the Radeon though - too old and Windows won't boot with a Windows Protection Error. Too new and 3DMark won't complete all stages and the 3D gets glitchy ...

The stock cooler it was supplied with is PAINFULLY noisy though! The thermal paste was totally dried out, which I replaced, but there was also a kind of rattling/ scratching noise that was pretty disturbing. I removed the graphic cover part which improved it a little ... I've ordered a generic "flower" type VGA cooler from AliExpress now ... I guess these early actively cooled graphics cards were just badly designed?

justin1985 wrote on 2023-12-23, 18:01:

.I managed to pick up a GeForce 4Ti (only a 64mb one, as the same seller had both 64mb and 128mb listed as auctions, and I managed to bid on the wrong one). Still, it pretty much doubles the 3DMark2001 score compared to the Radeon 9250! Getting the drivers working nicely seems much harder than with the Radeon though - too old and Windows won't boot with a Windows Protection Error. Too new and 3DMark won't complete all stages and the 3D gets glitchy ...

Under Win98, you never want to use the newest drivers available, since they are problematic for playing older games. Try 45.23 drivers, as that version is still fairly compatible while having optimizations for SSE2 instructions which an Athlon64 CPU supports.

The stock cooler it was supplied with is PAINFULLY noisy though! The thermal paste was totally dried out, which I replaced, but there was also a kind of rattling/ scratching noise that was pretty disturbing. I removed the graphic cover part which improved it a little ... I've ordered a generic "flower" type VGA cooler from AliExpress now ... I guess these early actively cooled graphics cards were just badly designed?

Yeah, those old coolers are pretty much trash. For quiet and efficient GeForce 4 cooling, I highly recommend a DeepCool V65, if you can manage to find one that's still complete in box. Sadly, I don't think they are being manufactured anymore. Here's how it looks on my card.

Because of the resolution, I could be mistaken, but some of the capacitors on that card look like they may be failing?

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-12-23, 21:17:

Because of the resolution, I could be mistaken, but some of the capacitors on that card look like they may be failing?

Thanks for noticing this! I hadn't noticed at all, but you're right.

All but one of this cluster of 5 x 1000uf 6.3v "Canicon" capacitors are bulging, and one even has some gunk starting to form on the top.

Perhaps this might even explain the occasional flickering on and off of the screen that seems to go away once the system is "warmed up"? (I was blaming the later driver versions).

There's 8 of these identical capacitors on the board in total so I'll order enough to replace them all ...

It's kind of interesting that the PCB has pads that seem to fit the SMD version of the capacitors. I don't know if they tend to be better quality? (They don't tend to have the vent lines do they?). I'm more confident soldering through - hole though!

I have those inexpensive Chinese card coolers on both of my GF4 cards. They aren't great (they are better than stock), but they are affordable and readily available.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-12-24, 20:16:

I have those inexpensive Chinese card coolers on both of my GF4 cards. They aren't great (they are better than stock), but they are affordable and readily available.

So it turned out that the "flower" type generic Chinese GPU cooler didn't suit this PNY branded GeForce 4TI card - with the only combinations of mounting holes that actually fitted, the fan was JUST too close to the connector. The spinning fan blades caught and grated on the neighbouring PCI slot! I guess I could have drilled and tapped a new mounting hole on the base of the cooler, but that seemed like a lot of faff. I ordered one of the smaller "55mm" generic GPU coolers instead as they're even cheaper - it is taking a lot time to arrive though.

justin1985 wrote on 2023-12-23, 18:01:

The Silverstone case is great in a lot of ways, but I can kind of understand why the design hasn't been perpetuated ...

IMG_20231223_174202.jpg

I've found this Silverstone case design quite a pain to work with, so I'm thinking of going back to the little L12 SFF mATX case - but that takes me back to the fact it would be a lot easier if I could use SATA drives .

The VIA chipset, despite being the Plus version with the SATA controller that works with SATA2 drives, just seems too buggy and unstable to bother trying to run anything via SATA (viz. the problems using SATA and the Audigy card at the same time).

So I've been looking at which other AGP based chipsets are available with S754 on mATX, so I could at least use SATA hard drives. It basically seems like SiS 760GX is the only reasonably common option (nForce boards don't seem to be recommended for Win98, and mostly seem PCIexpress anyway). I know SiS were generally always regarded as the budget option back in the day, might not have the best performance, and the onboard video will be atrocious (but I'm using GeForce 4). But is there any stability or compatibility reason not to give an SiS 760 based board from a decent manufacturer a try for Win98? Like is the SATA still unlikely to work? Or the onboard USB2 likely to be a problem in Win98?

(Is it true that DOS CD drivers wouldn't work with a SATA CD/DVD drive, even if the controller is in IDE compatibility mode? The VIA based board I have has "XP Only" against its SATA compatibility mode, and it really doesn't work in that mode in Win98 - but the manuals I can see for SiS based boards seem to offer IDE mode without any note - would they work?)

So, I did buy an SiS 760 based board to see if I had any better luck with SATA in Win98 using a different chipset, which would allow me to use the system in the more compact case.

The one I picked up is an ECS 760GX-M - catalogued by Retroweb as an AOpen s760GX-m - mine is the very purple version!

Strangely though, the ECS SiS board won't boot at all when used with the (virtually new) 450W SFX PSU I have in the compact case - the PSU is branded 'Kolink' and claims 21A on 3.3v / 22A on 5V / 36A on 12V - it looks like a black painted version of exactly the same generic OEM SFX PSU you see everywhere though. It works fine with the MSI / VIA Socket 754 board with the same CPU and memory, and with the AM3+ board it was previously used with as a spare Win10 system. But with the ECS / SiS board, the fan gives a second or so spinning and the power LED comes on for just a second, then absolutely nothing until mains power removed and reinserted.

That kind of seems like what I might expect with a short? But it has the same results with the same PSU out of the case on the bench, so nothing physical is shorting, and the motherboard works fine with a spare old P4 era 300w generic PSU!

Does that maybe point towards the PSU not having enough power for the motherboard? Could the SiS based board be drawing more from the 5V rail, like a Socket A board would do, or something?

In any case, I didn't have any luck with SATA in Win98 - first blue screens about a device using both 32-bit and compatibility mode drivers, then "device not present" code 10 yellow exclamations in Device Manager, with no drives actually showing up in Device Manager, and the DVD drive not showing at all. The SiS IDE drivers didn't seem to want to install at all - the installer worked, but Device Manager still reported the Windows drivers, and if I tried to manually force the SiS drivers, it said they didn't relate to that hardware. So I figured SATA on Win98 is proving to be a dead end?

Although I did read somewhere that Win98 expects all drive controllers on a certain two IRQs, so won't recognise a third SATA one? So disabling one of the two main IDE controllers but enabling SATA might be worth a try?