Hi! Firstly, I assume when you say that you were trying to get the pc running the way that you want that it was turning on fine without issues? If so, what did you do just before it decided to not turn on? What is the make/model of the motherboard? You may not need to purchase a new motherboard or cpu etc

If you're adamant that you want to build a new rig, I'd recommend an Intel SE440BX-2 slot 1 motherboard with a Pentium 2 or 3 cpu. A Pentium 2 450Mhz cpu will be more than enough for dos games. Graphics card, a Geforce 2 combined with a voodoo 1 or voodoo 2 sli will give you 32 bit colour, good frame rates and voodoo games compatibility. Although the voodoo 1 is recommended for dos voodoo compatibility as the voodoo 2 may require tinkering or patches for certain games. Regarding sound, as you said, an isa card is essential. Look for a non PNP sound blaster card with a waveblaster header. I personally love the awe 32 ct3900. Then look for a midi daughterboard to attach to the waveblaster header on your sound card. Yamaha DB50XG are a little easier to find and have great midi playback. Not too expensive either.

Hope this helps 😀

Thanks for the reply!

The motherboard I had was an ASUS A7S333. And I had it working with 98 on it for months now but I had sound issues with Doom an Dark Forces. So I tried different sound cards and then re installed windows to rule out corrupted files. Then I got everything working again as it was before and the next time I turned it on all I got were spinning fans and beeps.

I would rather build a new one. The parts in that computer were a bit too recent for a good windows 95/98 build. The motherboard had no ISA slots which is why I went with PCI and likely why I had so many problems with it.

Oh and stick to kingston ram if you can for reliability. Don't go over 512mb though because windows 98 will give you issues unless you do a couple of tweaks. The games that you mentioned don't require even close to this amount of ram anyway.

Well in that case, we won't bother trying to diagnose your problem as it sounds like you've got a craving for a new build anyway. I'll be happy to help you out 😀

Here's a link for the motherboard I mentioned. It's brand new in box. I've bought 4 of these from this seller so far.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/191084767613?nav=SEARCH

Kingston ram also new. 3 x 128mb sdram pc100. Suits this motherboard.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/171248274181?nav=SEARCH

Asus Geforce2 TI 32mb AGP graphics card. New.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/281212676792?nav=SEARCH

Diamond Voodoo 2 12mb PCI 3D accelerator card. Used. Will require a sli ribbon and cable if you choose to use two of them in sli.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/141181555167?nav=SEARCH

Sli ribbon and cable.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/271411451585?nav=SEARCH

Pentium II 450mhz Slot 1 CPU. New.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/160768796900?nav=SEARCH

You'll have to look around for the sound blaster though as well as the daughterboard.

Don't forget to get a decent atx psu as well.

Thanks! this is very helpful!

Do those slot 1 CPUs nees fans? I just bought one with a heat sink on it. Found one for 3 bucks on ebay. Its a Pentium II 400 mhz.

I think for now I am going to get the following and see how it works together:

Pentium II 400 mhz
Motherboard that you recommended
RAM that you recommended
Ensoniq AudioPCI
Radeon 7000
PSU
Case
CD Drive
ect...

Most of the games I want to play are fine in 98 and I dont really want to do much with DOS if I dont have to. And the games listed above are the only games I want to play on it as they are what I had when I was little.

My radeon 7000 had no problems with any of the video on my games the only thing that was bothering me was incomplete sound (no sfx or no music) on Doom and Dark Forces. Hopefully that build will handle it as good as the one I broke and if I need to I will have the option of an ISA sound card.

Thanks again, very helpful

Yes, I'd recommend that you install a fan. They range from $5-$10 new on eBay so there's no excuse not to use one. The se440bx-2 also has 3 fan headers with 2 of them being on either side of the slot 1 socket. This is very useful for dual fan coolers like the one I use in my pentium 2 rig using this same motherboard.

At least if you use your own parts you're going to make an upgrade for around $50-$60 in total. If you plan on only gaming using windows 98, get yourself a cheap sound blaster live 5.1 pci sound card. Will sound a lot better than your ensoniq card and also has sound blaster 16 dos emulation which I've tested on this board and works great. Being a pci sound card though and not an isa card,dos emulation won't work with every game. It also emulates general midi music so your Doom/Dark Forces gaming will sound better than ever.

Good luck!

Excellent. I have a few fans lying around that I might be able to use. How exactly do I mount a fan to the heat sink? Are there tapped holes or anything?

I own two types of slot 1 heatsinks. One which has a section in the middle that is 10mm lower than the left and right hand sides, specifically made for a single 50mm fan and the second one which is flush all the way across suitable for 2 fans. Both don't have any threads in which to screw any screws in. The screws basically just squeeze in between the 2 fins of the heatsink. Strange that they didn't make them with threads like every other heatsink I own. Personally I'd just buy a cheap new heatsink that comes with the fans already attached. Probably work out cheaper than buying 1 or 2 50mm fans on their own.

Here are the two examples:

http://m.ebay.com/itm/230383918098?nav=SEARCH

http://m.ebay.com/itm/121214164857?nav=SEARCH