I have installed 98SE on several systems without any major issues, but there is one that made me want to tear my hair out. (It turned out to be hardware related.)
It was a system built with an asrock K7VT6 and some OCZ memory.
Sometimes it worked fine and other times it would blue screen or reboot before windows was loaded, or anything in between.
Long story short, the bios was set to auto detect the memory, and since the OCZ memory was not on their qualified vendors list, the bios would assign random timings to the memory on every boot or reboot.
Manually setting the timings fixed it.

Well, got quite lucky, a chance look on eBay, I found someone selling a ASUS P4S800-MX + Pentium 4 2.8Ghz for sale nearby. Went and grabbed it, swapped out my current board, and other than the onboard sound seemingly not working (despite having drivers installed and it recognizing it, so used a sound card I had), this thing is considerably more stable, not seen a single kernal or explorer crash yet, and I went mad installing every game I had. So pretty damn chuffed, this is more like how I remember it 😊

Although for some reason the heatsink .... someone must have used a razor blade to get off the old paste and its had been sliced multiple times all over, but seems to be doing the trick with the new paste I put on.

Now I can finally enjoy my little project 😀

My P3 build and my P4 build are pretty much stable, i only have problems running 3dmark on my voodoo 3 on my pentium 3 build, however every game that i installed worked flawlessly.

I found Windows 98SE stable on a few of my machines either in the past or present using the following configuration per system:

Past setup:
Socket 3 system:
PCChips M912 v1.7 (genuine L2 cache installed), later a Shuttle Hot 443 motherboard (integrated I/O)
AMD Am486 DX4-120, later an AMD AM5x86-P75
24MB SIMM-72
80GB HDD (overkill, I know, but, that was the only HDD I had), 7.8GB partition (for a 486 motherboard, that's surprising that it accepted the HDD in the first place)
Lite-On DVD Burner
AT style keyboard, later a PS/2 keyboard that plugs into a PS/2 to 5-pin DIN adapter
S3 Bahamas Paradise 64 2MB VLB video card, later the nVidia GeForce4 MX4000 PCI video card
Sound Blaster 16 CT4170, later an ESS Maestro-2 ES1968S (Diamond Sonic Impact S70)
WinBond Multi I/O controller (1x IDE, 1x FDD, 2x RS-232, 1x LPT, 1x GamePort)
El Cheapo 3.5" floppy drive (installed mid 2012)
Overall performance was good, but, Windows 98SE took a lot of resources

Socket 7 system:
Past
DFI P5BV3+ Rev. B+ (VIA MVP3)
Enlight AT PSU (230W), upgraded to an ATX PSU
AMD K6/2-300
96MB SD-RAM (put 576MB SD-RAM in for Windows XP)
ESS Maestro-2 ES1968S (Diamond Sonic Impact S70)
3Com EtherLink III 3C509-Combo
RealTek RTL8029(AS) PCI Ethernet
SiS Mirage 305 PCI video card, then nVidia GeForce4 MX4000
3.2GB-6.4GB Western Digital Caviar HDD (both stopped working years ago)
48x Lite-On CD-ROM
3.5" FDD
This setup had stellar performance

Present
520W Corsair ATX PSU, with the ATX-ATX w/ -5VDC adapter installed
Abit AB-TX5 motherboard (Intel i430TX chipset)
AMD K6/2-300
128MB SD-RAM
3.5"-5.25" HDD bay for easy insertion and removal of a hard drive
200GB HDD (32GB limit set due to the BIOS limitations)
Lite-On CD burner
LS-120 SuperDrive
3dfx VooDoo3 3000 PCI (installed a fan on the heatsink)
Sound Blaster 16 CT4170
D-Link FastEthernet PCI
SIIG I/O card (2x RS-232, 1x Parallel, 1x GamePort that's disabled)
Performance is pretty good, but, the lack of an AGP slot begs to differ

HP Pavilion N3350
AMD K6/2+ 550M
64MB SD-RAM
HL-DT-ST DVD Burner
Trident video (could be wrong)
4.6GB Fujitsu HDD
3.5" FDD
Not bad performance, wish the video card wouldn't stretch the display at 640x480 at all, especially in DOS.

Shared HDD, Optical Drives, floppy drive, case, and other resources (video, sound, and so on) system
Items used:
400W ATX PSU w/ an ATX-ATX w/ -5VDC adapter since there's an ISA slot on there
Maxtor 60GB HDD (NIB at a thrift store)
HL-DT-ST CD Burner
Samsung DVD-ROM (currently not reading discs again)
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Platinum (IR Drive installed)*
3.5" FDD
nVidia GeForce 6200 PCI video card
STB BlackMagic VooDoo2 card (not installed at the moment due to 2 broken off capacitors that I will install later on).
Ultra ATX case

Socket 370 (benchmark board)
Shuttle AV18V31 (AV18E2) (VIA Apollo Pro 133T)
256MB SD-RAM (only 1 SD-RAM slot works of the 3)
VIA C3 700A (was installed previously), currently Intel Celeron 1.4GHz Tualatin
Universal AGP slot (1x, 2x, or 4x supported)
RealTek RTL8139D FastEthernet PCI
Overall performance is pretty good, but, some games do shutter a little bit

Socket 462(A)
DFI KM266Pro-MLV
AMD Sempron 2200+ 1.5GHz (will replace with a 2.167GHz Athlon XP 3000+ or 2.05GHz XP 2800+)
256MB DDR-333 (actuallt 240MB since I have a PCI video card installed currently)
VIA KM266 chipset
VIA FastEthernet
S3/VIA integrated video (disables when an AGP card is installed)
VIA AC'97 Audio (disabled since I have the Live! 5.1 installed)
Overall performance is better than the K6/2-300 system, yet, I should install an AGP video card to get all 256MB RAM

IBM ThinkPad R40*
Intel Pentium 4-M 2.0GHz
256MB DDR-266 (has 1GB DDR-266 now for XP Pro SP3)
20GB Hitachi HDD (starting to go bad, will clone to a new HDD in the future)
ATI Radeon Mobile 7500 16MB
Overall performance was pretty good, but, some games require a better video card and higher video RAM

Socket 754**
PCChips M871G motherboard (SiS chipsets)
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
256MB DDR-400 (now has, I'd say 768MB RAM installed)
SiS Mirage 2 integrated (disables with an AGP card in the slot)
RealTek FastEthernet (cannot remember the chipset at the moment)
Overall performance was pretty great and games ran better than I imagined

* currently has XP Pro SP3 installed and running without issues, except the HDD is starting to go bad and I'm going to replace the HDD with an SSD option (mSATA to 44-pin IDE) and gotten repaired after I accidentally ripped the power fan connector of the board when replacing the thermal compound.
** the board is back in the case that runs Windows XP Pro SP3

Well....
I still say that it is the drivers that are the prime reason for an unstable Win98 experience. Yet bad hardware can be a pain as well. Mostly PC-Chips that have given me headaches regarding unstability. The three best setups that I have ever had for Win98 were these....

- MSI K8MM-V Motherboard
- AMD Sempron64 3100+
- Kingston 512mb DDR-400
- GF4-ti4200 (later swapped to Radeon9800xxl then Radeon9600)
- Yamaha YMF-724
- The average storage (HDD was SATA though)

- Intel SE440BX Motherboard
- Intel P3-550 Slot1
- Kingston 512mb PC-133 (running 100)
- Compaq Voodoo3-3500 AGP (then TNT2-Ultra, then G400-Max, then V3-3500 again)
- Creative SB-AWE64 Gold
- The average storage.

- Intel d815eea2 Motherboard
- Intel P3-933/133
- Kingston 512mb PC-133
- Geforce2-GTS (changed to GF4-ti4200 and then GF3-ti200)
- Yamaha YMF-724
- The average storage.

All of these configurations have been rock stable and solid, if I used the correct drivers and did a clean install whenever I changed any piece of hardware. To me. The rules are as following:

- Choose the correct hardware.
- Do a clean install.
- Install the correct drivers. (better sacrifice a little speed for stability)
- Never change any hardware, unless you do a clean install again.

Unstable as shit, but Windows 98 wouldn't feel like Windows 98 if it was without issues.
Part of its charm.

brad86 wrote on 2021-11-21, 11:25:

Unstable as shit, but Windows 98 wouldn't feel like Windows 98 if it was without issues.
Part of its charm.

Thanks for necroposting.
My last issue I had with Windows 98 BSODs was a broken bit in a memory module.

brostenen wrote on 2018-11-27, 23:46:

The rules are as following: […]
Show full quote

The rules are as following:

- Choose the correct hardware.
- Do a clean install.
- Install the correct drivers. (better sacrifice a little speed for stability)
- Never change any hardware, unless you do a clean install again.

All my Win98SE systems have been rock solid, and I concur with everything listed here. I would also add: never install anything that you don't actually need.

For example, if you're only using your system for retro gaming, don't install the latest and "greatest" Internet Explorer updates. Acrobat Reader is also best skipped, especially the later versions. Any drivers that have a "dial home" function to search for updates are also to be avoided, e.g. Creative's Launcher for SBLive cards.

And lastly, stay far, far away from any "unofficial service packs" for Win98SE. Those frequently cause more problems than they solve.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-11-21, 12:13:

All my Win98SE systems have been rock solid, and I concur with everything listed here. I would also add: never install anything […]
Show full quote

brostenen wrote on 2018-11-27, 23:46:

The rules are as following: […]
Show full quote

The rules are as following:

- Choose the correct hardware.
- Do a clean install.
- Install the correct drivers. (better sacrifice a little speed for stability)
- Never change any hardware, unless you do a clean install again.

All my Win98SE systems have been rock solid, and I concur with everything listed here. I would also add: never install anything that you don't actually need.

For example, if you're only using your system for retro gaming, don't install the latest and "greatest" Internet Explorer updates. Acrobat Reader is also best skipped, especially the later versions. Any drivers that have a "dial home" function to search for updates are also to be avoided, e.g. Creative's Launcher for SBLive cards.

And lastly, stay far, far away from any "unofficial service packs" for Win98SE. Those frequently cause more problems than they solve.

I don't really avoid dial home stuff. I never put any of my Win98 builds on network anyway. I never install a network card and if there is an onboard, then I disable it in the BIOS. I also disable any LPT and COM ports that I will never use, as it will give me as many free IRQ's as possible.

Yep Windows 98 SE here and it's very well behaved despite installing / uninstalling various sound and VGA cards over the years. The exception being Creative Live! cards which can blue screen any operating system by looking at them sideways 😂

Mostly stable except my p4 build which occasionally locks up straight after boot sometimes, but not often enough to be a pain.

They are all very stable but I think this is due to using very mature drivers that were not available at the time. Particularly for VIA systems and hardware like SB Live! the early drivers did not make things easy.

I am yet to still get a BSOD from my own 98se machine by 98SE itself.
Only had them from poorly seated hardware like dimm socketed RAM.

Had conflicts on a RAMBUS P4 system that caused it to crash once in a while and turning some features off fixed it. Gotta buy a new heatsink for that board since the original one had bent fins. The OS runs smoothly on my Tualatin build and ran well on my old 486 back in 2012.

Setting up 98 on my P3C-E rig was an absolute PITA but it's been going strong and I'm still running the install I originally did when I built it in Jan of 19.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW7Rqwwth84

windows 98 hardware detection be like plug an pray for ISA!

From my experience from the old days main issue with win98 has been that it became unstable when you keep the pc always running. Like I was basically forced to reboot the computer like every 14 days or so while after winXP was launched and I switched to it I could do that for a half a year without problems. That is what I saw as main sign of unstability of win98.