Damn. Well I have no idea but this won't be easy to figure out. I feel for you 😀

Are any of your add-in cards sharing an IRQ?

Not that I know of, I checked in device manager and no conflicts and no known shared IRQ's.

I went ahead and systematically checked all my RAM modules and they are all working as well.

I never had this stuttering issue with my Voodoo 3, i'm wondering if it's a problem with the GeForce FX 5500, I doubt it though because these issues were not happening in my previous install, it started to happen after I formatted and reinstalled Windows 98SE.

Another oddity though I noticed is that my Johnny Castaway screensaver isn't behaving properly either, instead of animation of water, Johnny moving about, etc... he's just standing there and no animations in the background.

I do know that the heatsink on the card does get hot, it came with just a passive heatsink and no active cooler. The case however has nice fan airflow so I don't think the card is overheating.

I've reinstalled the Forceware 81.98 drivers, DirectX 9.0c, etc and the issue persists. Hmmm, perhaps another format and reinstall of Windows 98SE is needed. I guess i'll do that and see if that fixes it or not.

If that don't fix it then i'm gonna be forced to return the card, however i'd prefer to not do that since this was the best old-school GeForce card they had, they did have a Radeon 9800, however i'm scared to even try it because I know my old Radeon RV100 32MB AGP card had issues with DOS compatability: screen jerking, VESA craziness such as rainbow colors and slow FPS in VESA mode games such as Quake. I don't only game in Windows i'm also a DOS gamer so I need good quality compatability and that's what the GeForce cards seem to offer on that PC.

Okay so reinstalling [again] was a complete waste of time, i've tried every BIOS trick I can think of, etc i'm still getting severe stutter randomly for no reason.

It's either the ISA soundcard bottlenecking the system, the GeForce FX 5500 AGP card itself, or the CPU and the AGP card are not playing well together. I find it odd though that the Voodoo 3 3500TV AGP card wasn't causing this, and before I reinstalled Windows lastnight the new AGP card wasn't doing this, but after I reinstalled Windows it now does it.

Something is bottlenecking for whatever reason somewhere, I just dunno what. OpenGL games do it too, just nowhere near as bad as DirectX games.

Any ideas or possible solutions?

I don't know how much these video cards costs, but whenever I run into such an issue I look at the time and hassle it would take to sort it out vs. just buying another part.

I had this with new parts. Machines freezing the audio and then locking up. And in the end it was some PCI conflict with a Sound Card and the mainboard I had. Got a new mainboard and it worked...

EDIT: I was absent from the PC game during this era and just reading an old article on tomshardware. It compares the TNT2 with the Voodoo 3 and it looks like this was the turning point.

Now the TNT2 is old and very cheap. Is it really faster than a Voodoo 3? I mean TNT2 cards are tiny simple cards.

I think I found the issue! I took out ALL (2) PCI cards one-at-a-time to see what the culprit was, first I took out the UltraATA 66 Promise PCI card, that wasn't it, then I took out the NIC and the issue was resolved.

I also removed my beloved NEC XR385 daughterboard from off my SB16 "just in case" but thank the PC gods that it wasn't that! 😜

I forgot that with these older motherboards that PCI card placement can play a big role in conflicts, and stability, especially with Windows 9x.

Now to find a good PCI slot for it... yay for non-sensical BS, but then again I guess it's technically half the fun, because in the end when it works, you get that euphoric feeling of accomplishment. 😉

PhaytalError wrote:

I've reinstalled the Forceware 81.98 drivers, DirectX 9.0c, etc and the issue persists.

If you don't want to run into any compatibility problem with some old games use the 61.76 drivers
ftp://download.nvidia.com/Windows/61.76/61.76 … ternational.exe

sebaz_ri wrote:

PhaytalError wrote:

I've reinstalled the Forceware 81.98 drivers, DirectX 9.0c, etc and the issue persists.

If you don't want to run into any compatibility problem with some old games use the 61.76 drivers
ftp://download.nvidia.com/Windows/61.76/61.76 … ternational.exe

Thanks, i'll give those a try and see if games that are "broke" can be fixed with them. 😁

Ok, I can confirm that the issue has been resolved, woot! Moved the PCI ethernet card to a different PCI slot, HOWEVER, the NIC and the Serial Bus Controller [USB] are sharing IRQ 9, it doesn't seem to be conflicting though but that is a bit annoying because it can cause a conflict at random.

Is there a way I can change that, or is there a DOS program to see what IRQ's are free so I can set the ethernet cards IRQ in BIOS?

Anyways after I moved the NIC to a different slot all the stuttering both AGP wise and sound wise have been resolved, only took a full day and multiple reinstalls to figure out the problem, 🤣! 😁

Oh also, I rigged up a Pentium MMX fan to the GeForce FX 5500's heatsink, the card runs ALOT cooler now with the fan attached! 😁

Okay so NOT solved... yet... but I now know what is causing it... and it's the oddest thing ever!

Anytime the ethernet cable is connected to the NIC and internet access is on that PC... THAT is causing the AGP stutters and THAT is what is causing the ISA sound stutters as well... it does it on every PCI ethernet card I own... ANY IDEA on what is causing that and how to stop it [other than unplugging the NIC cable everytime I wanna play a game]???

Thanks!

PhaytalError wrote:

Is there a way I can change that, or is there a DOS program to see what IRQ's are free so I can set the ethernet cards IRQ in BIOS?

In page 62 of the P3B-F manual they say how to change the pci slots IRQ:
http://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/archive/Asus/sl … -f/p3bf-104.pdf
Also upgrading the BIOS might fix it, latest BIOS ver is 1006 30/jun/2000

what brand network card? I had issues with a realtek 8129, (i think) changed to a 3com905c issues disappeared.

PhaytalError wrote:

Anytime the ethernet cable is connected to the NIC and internet access is on that PC... THAT is causing the AGP stutters and THAT is what is causing the ISA sound stutters as well... it does it on every PCI ethernet card I own... ANY IDEA on what is causing that and how to stop it [other than unplugging the NIC cable everytime I wanna play a game]???

Yup, I've had this problem before. Is Plug 'n Play OS enabled in BIOS? You might try disabling it. Like sebaz_ri said, you'll want to play with the PCI IRQ settings. If you need a free IRQ, you can always disable COM1, COM2, or LPT1. Or all of them if you don't need them.

stano wrote:

what brand network card? I had issues with a realtek 8129, (i think) changed to a 3com905c issues disappeared.

905B actually. The plain 905 cards (rev A) i've always been told have weird issues in 98. Never experienced it myself, but that was mostly because I always went for rev B cards. I've only ran into a few C's and require a newer driver for 98. They seem like better cards for 2000 imho.

I tried both a 3COM905B-TX and a D-Link DLE530-TX it's just weird how a simple CAT5 cable connected to a NIC can cause AGP and audio stutter like i'm having. Yeah I don't have any use for COM1, COM2, or LPT1 currently, so I guess I can disable those. However, whats odd is no matter what IRQ I set pr what PCI slot I use, the NIC and Serial Bus Connector [USB] will share the same IRQ. I'm a bit confused as to what is causing that. I even disabled USB IRQ from the BIOS but the issue remains.

Everytime I wanna play a game I must unplug the CAT5 from the NIC and that is not only annoying, but just flat out odd. I suppose I could just use wireless, but then I wouldn't be able to FTP, telnet, etc from pure DOS mode, also that would be a bit slower as well.

Is there anyway around this issue at all???

I've even used PCI Latency Tool, i've changed PCI latency in the BIOS, etc and that didn't resolve the issue either. I guess because the main issue is internet access is slowing down that PC and sucking down CPU cycles and I somehow don't think that it should be doing that.

PhaytalError wrote:

Is there anyway around this issue at all???

I guess because the main issue is internet access is slowing down that PC and sucking down CPU cycles and I somehow don't think that it should be doing that.

As i have already say you should try to upgrade the BIOS
What BIOS version do you have installed now?
The CPU cycles being sucked down could be antivirus updates?

sebaz_ri wrote:

As i have already say you should try to upgrade the BIOS What BIOS version do you have installed now? The CPU cycles being sucke […]
Show full quote

PhaytalError wrote:

Is there anyway around this issue at all???

I guess because the main issue is internet access is slowing down that PC and sucking down CPU cycles and I somehow don't think that it should be doing that.

As i have already say you should try to upgrade the BIOS
What BIOS version do you have installed now?
The CPU cycles being sucked down could be antivirus updates?

I have the most current BIOS installed for that mainboard, and I don't have antivirus installed on that PC yet; it's a fresh install, so no viruses, no malware, no spyware etc.

PhaytalError wrote:

sebaz_ri wrote:

As i have already say you should try to upgrade the BIOS What BIOS version do you have installed now? The CPU cycles being sucke […]
Show full quote

PhaytalError wrote:

Is there anyway around this issue at all???

I guess because the main issue is internet access is slowing down that PC and sucking down CPU cycles and I somehow don't think that it should be doing that.

As i have already say you should try to upgrade the BIOS
What BIOS version do you have installed now?
The CPU cycles being sucked down could be antivirus updates?

I have the most current BIOS installed for that mainboard, and I don't have antivirus installed on that PC yet; it's a fresh install, so no viruses, no malware, no spyware etc.

What is your BIOS date/ver

Currently: Beta BIOS 1008.004

I've also tried BIOS 1006 and same issue is there, the board came with BIOS 1005 which is what I was using when this whole issue started, but I flashed it lastnight to BIOS 1006 and then to the latest BETA because most ASUS P3B-F board users consider it stable, that it wasn't really a BETA perse and that it was perfectly fine to use.