Wait are you guys telling me that the RAM won't fix my Windows 98 SE freezing on boot?

even with 96MB of ram the PC does not boot back to windows anymore 😒 so I do really need an older soundcard.

Dude, it's a p133 system.
So, it never hurts to publish the motherboard or chipset details, but chances are it's a VIA VP(X) or Intel 430VX chipset of around 1996-7.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_c … entium_chipsets
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_VIA_chi … _5_and_Socket_7

That means it's still WELL inside the "recent hardware to definitely be supported" time frame of 1998s SB live.
Meaning, it's pretty much supposed to work. If it does not, then something, well, does not work.
But it's certainly not about the age of any part.
Either you've missed some detail or you'll need a different card in the sense of "one that is not broken or for some stupid design fuckup will not work with your specific motherboard".

Of course, remember, Win98 was banana software sold by degenerate crooks.
So it found all kinds of creative excuses not to boot. Nothing too disturbing about it.

this is what I know about my Pentium 1 system at the moment

Well, congratulations, you have a somewhat more "classic" socket 7 system rooted in 1995. 😉

I rarely bothered with anything before Triton II, but from my limited insight: While the Mercury and Neptune chipsets and sockets are regarded to have some teething problems, the 430FX is considered to be somewhat mature.
Meaning, it should reliably do basic work with anything including the P54CS - the Pentium up to 200 MHz with 3.3 V and without MMX.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_( ... d_variants

Later motherboards are preferred mainly due to features: USB, switching voltage regulators, split voltage for the P55C MXX (unrelated to the chipset), larger RAM or cachable area (430HX), SDRAM support (430VX). And of course, wider range of FSB and multiplier settings and of supported CPUs of other brands and later bios software available.

The S3 VGA being integrated, I assume it is, or the motherboard used to be in an OEM system, meaning a machine sold ready to use by one of the larger companies like Dell, Compaq, HP, etc.
For, integrated graphics were rather uncommon elsewhere, with more generic motherboards. They had only just agreed upon integrating drive and I/O controllers onboard in the late 486 phase.

Not necessarily, but well, those tended to have some idiosyncrasies. Sometimes you're just SOL with certain hardware combinations. Might be a challenge.
In any case, you should have the manual for it and check for more recent bios versions. Chipset drivers should be well integrated in Windows 98SE, but that's a science on its own.
AFAIK, the board should use hard disks up to 32 GB without any further tricks. Maybe without correct auto recognition but with the correct parameters set manually and LBA.

But, for example, that SB live not working: That can have any number of easily fixable reasons:
Hardware conflicts. Sometimes it's enough to migrate the card to another PCI slot. Or the drivers - there are quite a few different SB live models out there. Make sure you have a retail model and the right settings and files.
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/sound-blaster-live.html

Of course, for DOS gaming, anything about the SB live is merely for the fun of it. Sure worth getting an ISA card there.
The Live is great for Windows games with EAX around 1998 and a p133 or p200 (with decent 3d graphics for many) should be able to run many of those:
https://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/att … offset,0/so,1a/

While Win2k does have its perks, I'm rather sure that win98 will give you less trouble in an gaming environment. Good luck!

I am going to buy an ISA soundcard and I will go back to Windows 98 SE; I was just trying if Windows 2000 would even run.