VOGONS


First post, by Red_Machine

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I have a tiny PC with an AMD Geode GX, which is a rebranded National Semiconductor Geode GX2, which in turn is an improved copy of the Cyrix MediaGXm. The only drivers I have found for it support Windows XP only. However, it is FAR too slow to run XP, it really only has the power to run Windows 98. Does anyone here know of Win98-compatible drivers that support it? Perhaps the old MediaGXm drivers work?

Reply 1 of 4, by weldum

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the thing with those soc is that they were designed for embedded applications, so they were supported by current operating systems mostly, also amd got rid of most of older drivers for their products

DT: R7-5800X3D/R5-3600/R3-1200/P-G5400/FX-6100/i3-3225/P-8400/D-900/K6-2_550
LT: C-N2840/A64-TK57/N2600/N455/N270/C-ULV353/PM-1.7/P4-2.6/P133
TC: Esther-1000/Esther-400/Vortex86-366
Others: Drean C64c/Czerweny Spectrum 48k/Talent MSX DPC200/M512K/MP475

Reply 2 of 4, by OverTallman

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Hate to be a bearer of bad news, but installing Win98 on AMD Geode GX/LX-based systems isn't easy, unlike the slightly older NS Geode GX1.

Before thinking of installing Windows 98, make sure your Geode PC has PS/2 connectors for both your keyboard an mouse, without them Windows 98 is pretty much out of the question as far as usability is concerned. Most AMD Geode GX/LX systems don't have them from my observation, at least none of those in my mini PC/thin client collection has one.

Moreover, AMD Geode GX usually comes with CS5535 or CS5536 southbridge chip which doesn't officially support Win98, however there's one particular board which has Win98 driver available: TR2350 (also used in Fujitsu-Siemens Futro A200 series thin client). Someone has covered the board and has kindly provided a link to the driver in the article (http://www.toughdev.com/content/2015/03/explo … le-motherboard/), worth a look IMO. AFAIK Ethernet driver and graphics driver are compatible between AMD Geode GX and LX, not sure about audio.

Also, have a look on Phil's article on the older CS5530 chip: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/cyrix-mediagx-cx5530.html
Some of the drivers for CS5530 may be usable in CS5535/CS5536 too. However, DO NOT install the IDE driver as they'll crash and cause Win98 to not boot properly, I learned the hard way before.

Reply 3 of 4, by zyga64

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OverTallman wrote:

Before thinking of installing Windows 98, make sure your Geode PC has PS/2 connectors for both your keyboard an mouse, without them Windows 98 is pretty much out of the question as far as usability is concerned. Most AMD Geode GX/LX systems don't have them from my observation, at least none of those in my mini PC/thin client collection has one.

Wyse 9150SE has PS2 ports for keyboard/mouse. I have one on my desk. It is serving as a router (OpenWRT) with LTE USB stick. I did not succeed installing Windows 95 nor 98 on it (it has 512MB flash and 256MB ram). Fatal error during instalation. Probably problem with BIOS.

1) VLSI SCAMP /286@20 /4M /CL-GD5422 /CMI8330
2) i420EX /486DX33 /16M /TGUI9440 /GUS+ALS100+MT32PI
3) i430FX /K6-2@400 /64M /Rage Pro PCI /ES1370+YMF718
4) i440BX /P!!!750 /256M /MX440 /SBLive!
5) iB75 /3470s /4G /HD7750 /HDA

Reply 4 of 4, by OverTallman

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zyga64 wrote:
OverTallman wrote:

Before thinking of installing Windows 98, make sure your Geode PC has PS/2 connectors for both your keyboard an mouse, without them Windows 98 is pretty much out of the question as far as usability is concerned. Most AMD Geode GX/LX systems don't have them from my observation, at least none of those in my mini PC/thin client collection has one.

Wyse 9150SE has PS2 ports for keyboard/mouse. I have one on my desk. It is serving as a router (OpenWRT) with LTE USB stick. I did not succeed installing Windows 95 nor 98 on it (it has 512MB flash and 256MB ram). Fatal error during instalation. Probably problem with BIOS.

That's indeed a rather rare exception, guess I didn't look through the "thin client bible" well enough 😅 Shame that RAM is soldered and the board has a non-standard IDE connector, with a standard 44-pin IDE connector it'd be much more useful for retro computing even with soldered 128MB/256MB RAM.