VOGONS


First post, by behumbly

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Hello everyone!

I have an HP Pavilion a556x, specs are:

Motherboard: P4SD-LA (seems to be an ASUS motherboard from what I can tell from online searches)
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz
RAM: 2 x 512MB
GPU: Nvidia Geforce 6200 w/ 128MB RAM via AGP
Sound Card: Yamaha XG YMF724F-V via PCI (motherboard does have onboard audio but haven't tried it out as this works fine)
HDDs: 2 80 GB hard drives each with a different OS

This is a machine that originally shipped with Windows XP, however I have so far successfully set it up to dual boot XP and Windows 98 SE on separate HDDs. XP seems to work with no issues.

Windows 98 SE installed with no problem, however I am unable to install any drivers for my GPU. When running the correct driver installer, it fails saying no Nvidia GPU is detected. The sound card driver installer goes through the entire installation, but the sound card still outputs no sound.

I then went to device manager and found that no PCI or AGP information was listed, which leads my to suspect Windows 98 can't see them. I have my monitor plugged into the geforce card and the generic VGA driver installed, but it doesn't seem to realize what type of card is installed.

I've searched high and low online for what I would suspect to be "Chipset" drivers, however I can't find anything that works. Installing Windows XP drivers from the manufacturer on 98 doesn't work (expected, obviously). I imagine this is because this particular computer shipped with XP and thus drivers were never made.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I would love to be able to get a fully working version of 98 on this machine! I hope I'm not out of luck 🙁

Reply 1 of 3, by schmatzler

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According to the manual the board uses a "Springdale-PE" chipset, which is the Intel 865PE. There are drivers for that one here:
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/intel-chipset-drivers.html

(2003 and 2004 drivers).
Maybe installing those will get those cards recognized properly.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 2 of 3, by behumbly

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schmatzler, great find! I actually did try the two installers that you are referencing from Phils Computer Lab, however I had assumed it was the 865G chipset as that's how it's listed on HP's website. You are correct though, according to the manual it's 865PE.

I have moved on to Windows 2000 in my troubleshooting and was able to successfully install both the GPU as well as the audio card, depending on how compatibility is I may just stick with that. However in the morning I will be reinstalling Windows 98 SE and seeing if I can't force install some drivers specifically for the PE chipset. I'll report back with my findings.

Thanks for the direction!