In such cases I've always used the reset switch as the power switch.

Assuming that it is the usual aged belt that is causing the optical drives to malfunction, I've had some success by scrubbing the drive side of the belt with a Scotch-Brite pad to take off the hardened layer that slips, but replacing the belts with some generic ones I bought on Amazon has proven to be a better long term fix.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-10-03, 16:43:

In such cases I've always used the reset switch as the power switch.

Assuming that it is the usual aged belt that is causing the optical drives to malfunction, I've had some success by scrubbing the drive side of the belt with a Scotch-Brite pad to take off the hardened layer that slips, but replacing the belts with some generic ones I bought on Amazon has proven to be a better long term fix.

Perhaps that could work, I should give that a try sometime. I thought about opening up the disc drives to troubleshoot what may be the problem. Will consider checking out the belts at some point as well.

I might start working on the machine on Sunday.

THEBaratusII wrote on 2024-10-03, 16:26:

128MB SDRAM (100MHz, Single Channel)

You mean single module, right?
The signal words, single channel and dual channel come to the PC user market with AMD's nforce2 and intel's i865 chipset.
Even my fastest Win98 build with a P4 2.8 Ghz cpu (and can be clocked easily to 3Ghz), has single channel DDR ram only...

THEBaratusII wrote on 2024-10-03, 16:26:

My original intent for this machine would be for Windows 98 gaming, but since the VIA chipset refused to install that. I did more thinking and I thought about a Windows NT4 or Windows 2000 environment?

Windows 98 ought to run on this. Did you try the VIA 4-in-1 drivers? My PA-2013 was awful (also Super 7 with VIA chipset) until I installed those.

Those power button switches for installing ATX PSUs in older design cases are sold on aliexpress. They have about 20mm screw stand-off. Try image search because product name would be gibberish.

https://superuser.com/questions/1574344/atx-p … -of-this-switch

ratfink wrote on 2024-10-04, 23:56:

THEBaratusII wrote on 2024-10-03, 16:26:

My original intent for this machine would be for Windows 98 gaming, but since the VIA chipset refused to install that. I did more thinking and I thought about a Windows NT4 or Windows 2000 environment?

Windows 98 ought to run on this. Did you try the VIA 4-in-1 drivers? My PA-2013 was awful (also Super 7 with VIA chipset) until I installed those.

I recall before I got around to installing the chipset drivers, I ran into this problem while trying to install 98SE.

On another note, I got most of it built but I am kind of stuck on getting the machine fired up with a modern (Coolermaster PSU) ATX power supply. I put it aside for now as I am working on a video, but sometime later on I will get back to it and see if I used plugged the reset switch in the wrong pins or maybe the power supply is having issues itself.

So a bit of small progress several days back. The Coolermaster power supply still works thankfully, so I managed to find the right pin to hook the reset switch into (thanks screwdriver!) and it manages to boot. For some odd reason, my existing install of Windows Me got corrupted. Maybe has something to do with my molex cable route. I had the hard drive plugged in on the molex cable that was splited between that and the CPU fan that came from the heatsink.

I do plan on trying Windows 98SE again and will be swapping out the TNT card with a SiS 8MB card to avoid potential AGP issues. To further explain, while I was playing a MS-DOS game (Blood, 1997) under Windows Me, the sound would suddenly stop working after a little while of playing which led to me moving my playthrough (been streaming my playthrough on YouTube) to my Pentium II 400MHz machine. As for potential upgrades for RoidRage, I aim to likely save up enough money for a 3Dfx card (possibly a Voodoo 3/Velocity or a Banshee?) either as a AGP or a PCI card. Though I am on a shortage of PCI video card in general.

From what I've learned from others and a friend of mine, the AMD K6-2 machines were quite frustrating to work with and usually the wrong hardware and settings can be enough to cause instability. I do however have a PC Chips Super Socket 7 motherboard for another project, most likely aiming to be a Pentium MMX machine. Anyway will report back sometime on how installing Windows 98SE ends up.

You can modify a toggle switch to be a momentary switch. There‘s a small piece of metal in the switch that hooks the switch in place, and if you remove it, you turned your AT style switch (latching) into an ATX style switch (momentary).

Might be worth a shot to avoid buying a small piece of equipment assuming you have an old AT power supply you can use the switch from for parts.

THEBaratusII wrote on 2024-10-14, 05:03:

From what I've learned from others and a friend of mine, the AMD K6-2 machines were quite frustrating to work with and usually the wrong hardware and settings can be enough to cause instability. I do however have a PC Chips Super Socket 7 motherboard for another project, most likely aiming to be a Pentium MMX machine. Anyway will report back sometime on how installing Windows 98SE ends up.

From my experience, it's not due to the AMD CPU but quirks in the chipsets on many SS7 motherboards ..

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-10-16, 04:04:

THEBaratusII wrote on 2024-10-14, 05:03:

From what I've learned from others and a friend of mine, the AMD K6-2 machines were quite frustrating to work with and usually the wrong hardware and settings can be enough to cause instability. I do however have a PC Chips Super Socket 7 motherboard for another project, most likely aiming to be a Pentium MMX machine. Anyway will report back sometime on how installing Windows 98SE ends up.

From my experience, it's not due to the AMD CPU but quirks in the chipsets on many SS7 motherboards ..

Ah I see. Though I may end up trying another power supply because for some weird reason, both the CD and Hard Drives don't seem to be powering properly. Sometimes one of them would detect or both would detect but not properly, which explains why Windows Me wasn't booting up correctly. As for what spare power supply I may end up using, I'll have to figure it out, worst case scenario I could end up using the only working AT power supply that has an actual AT switch. I do have another one from an old Compaq but idk if that would work because it doesn't have the AT power switch.

It has been about a few months, so I might as well share an update. I believe my priorities have changed since the previous post and I am currently using the motherboard from the OP inside another case to use as a Windows Me machine. The machine has been underclocked from 350MHz to 233MHz mainly to play some speed sensitive games. Now I did however test the PCChips motherboard a while back but I believe the ISA slots has issues when in-use causing it to no longer POST. I plan to look into finding another Socket 7 motherboard and another power supply before I continue the RoidRage project while also getting around to build a regular Pentium machine most likely.

That's about all I can share at the moment, but it'll take awhile before I can continue this project.

I have mine installed with Win98se
I then installed SP3 core updates
Reboot
Then install Directx 9 from SP3 optional updates

Also I have 256mb of SDRAM PC-133 for best performance

My Computers running K6-3+@550mhz are Very Stable and Reliable

I have K6-2+ with VIA MVP3, all works, i used 4in1 4.17 / 4.23 or agp driver 405b as i remember and i never had issues @Win98SE installation.

I dont use any Service Pack for Win9x 😀