Check all the RAM pins for broken solder joint. Also, remove the BIOS and clean all the legs.

dominusprog wrote on 2025-02-02, 16:04:

Check all the RAM pins for broken solder joint. Also, remove the BIOS and clean all the legs.

Ok, thx

I’ve tested another S3 Virge DX card, and it has the same issue as the other one. Could the motherboard be incompatible? Could there be a jumper configuration that needs to be adjusted?

Have u tested it on 98 maybe its wrong drivers

I ran into the same problem in the past week on a ECS SA486P AIO-U motherboard with Windows 98SE. I tried to use the onboard PCI SCSI controller, a S3 VirGe, a Opti Firelink USB card and a 3Com PCI networkcard. I never got it to work for more than a few minutes. I tried swapping the S3 Virge for a S3 Trio64, a S3 VirGe DX and a S3 VirGe VX. With all of those cards I had the same issues you are having.

I could get it to work with only the VirGe and the onboard SCSI by assigning IRQ 11 to the VirGe in the BIOS and changing the 'Memory Range' of both devices in Device Manager. Adding the USB controller usually involved letting windows detect it, fail to install it, delete it from 'Device manager', going to the BIOS change its IRQ and let windows redetect it. Adding the PCI networkcard only worked once...until windows entered power saving mode.

Eventually I gave up and switched to a ISA network card and a Tseng ET6000. (ET4000 worked too!)

😭🥺

Dorunkāku wrote on 2025-02-03, 00:18:

I ran into the same problem in the past week on a ECS SA486P AIO-U motherboard with Windows 98SE. I tried to use the onboard PCI SCSI controller, a S3 VirGe, a Opti Firelink USB card and a 3Com PCI networkcard. I never got it to work for more than a few minutes. I tried swapping the S3 Virge for a S3 Trio64, a S3 VirGe DX and a S3 VirGe VX. With all of those cards I had the same issues you are having.

I could get it to work with only the VirGe and the onboard SCSI by assigning IRQ 11 to the VirGe in the BIOS and changing the 'Memory Range' of both devices in Device Manager. Adding the USB controller usually involved letting windows detect it, fail to install it, delete it from 'Device manager', going to the BIOS change its IRQ and let windows redetect it. Adding the PCI networkcard only worked once...until windows entered power saving mode.

Eventually I gave up and switched to a ISA network card and a Tseng ET6000. (ET4000 worked too!)

That motherboards had PCI ports during the 486 era didn’t seem like such a great idea. Either the technologies were very immature or poorly managed. I spent two days trying to understand why my AWE32 wasn’t working, and it turned out to be a DMA conflict that was fixed by changing two jumpers on the board. Being a technician in the ’90s without the internet must have been hell.

I’ve tested three S3 Virge cards: two 325s and one DX. The same issue as in the image occurs in all of them on Windows 95 with different drivers. I’ve already done seven installations of Windows 95 OSR2 and 2.5. However, a Cirrus Logic PCI 6554 (not sure about the exact number) works perfectly, even with different drivers.

What difference is there between the S3 cards and this one that makes the S3s not work?

I've seen similar on Trio3D with Win98 on i440BX platform. The problem have been solved when removed incorrect drivers at all (removed the VXD files listed in INF), and installed correct drivers. All S3 cards were not compatible by drivers. So, Virge/DX drivers will conflict with original Virge boards (like Trio3D/2X conflicts with Trio3D).

However, an conflict with early PnP BIOS from 486 mobo also may cause this. Or the driver may require Pentium. Virge is a DirectX 3 accelerator, so it may be more useful on Socket 5 platform than on Socket 3. And some versions of its drivers may be not tested on 486 at all.