I would stay clear from running that system on Windows 98. As far as I know, the nForce 2 chipset drivers aren't very stable on that operating system and Windows XP was pretty much the go-to operating system back then. Don't bother with getting an era-correct power supply, since your motherboard uses the ATX12V connector for the CPU-power. Power supplies back then had rubbish capacitors, were noisy and some operated outside of ATX-specification. Just get yourself a nice Corsair CX430M power supply. Speaking of capacitors, Gigabyte chose to use some very dodge capacitors back then, so you'll probably have to have them replaced with low-ESR Rubycon, Nichicon or Panasonic capacitors. I also recommend replacing the Thermaltake Volcano 6Cu+ with a Rosewill RCX-Z100 cooler. You can still buy them brand new for as little as $15 from Amazon. They are very quiet and perform extremely well. Otherwise, I would say that you have a very nice system and that you should enjoy it. I personally don't have any advice with respect to finding a period correct case, but I recall that having a Lian-Li was quite a thing back then, so maybe you should get yourself a Lian Li PC-7. That case was the stuff of legends back then and the newer PC-9 is very similar looking.

Well the board was recapped already, its the only reason i paid 110 dollars for a socket A board. And that really stinks about Nforce2, as this AThlon XP box is my 98 gaming machine, I use my Pentium 4 3.2 for XP.

Here is my XP system, let me know if you think it would do better in 98, I can cross swap video cards, ram, and hard drives of course.

Pentium 4 3.2HT Northwood
Abit IC7-G 875P
Soundblaster Audigy 2 (would need to swap as Audigy 2 does not have 9x drivers that I'm aware of)
Stock Intel HSF (would love to replace this)
ATI All In Wonder X800 XT
2gb PC4000 OCZ Gold 4x512mb (Id swap these with the Athlon XP's Corsair XMS sticks, and I know run a single 512 until in the OS and can modify the maxcache file)
250gb Sata (I know Windows 98 needs a boot disk under 127gb due to fdisk and stock drivers not supporting 48bit LBA)
CoolerMaster Centurion 5 Case
Antec Earthwatts 500W

Would this work better under 98, Of course I have something older I can use as well, for a 98 box, but i still need more parts to get it fully ready to go.

Pentium 3 800
SOYO BA6+ IV
4x128mb PC133 Kingston
Sound Blaster Live 5.1
Roswell 1gb Nic RC-400-LX (currently in current XP 2800 box as the motherboard only has 10/100 nic)

What I don't have is any AGP 1x/2x/4x AGP cards, only the x800, 6800GS on its way, and a 6200 thats in my ECS K7VTA3 motherboard currently

Oh and all of my computers are connected over a 1gb Switch to my main system that shares its internet connection with the rest of them, to keep them segmented and off my main network as a just incase ya know. All traffic routes through my primary computers firewall

I'm very glad to hear the board has already been recapped, since there are about 25-35 capacitors that have to typically be replaced on these boards. It takes quite a while to do it. I feel really bad to say this, but you'd be better off investing more time into the P3 system for Windows 9x gaming than the AMD one. I've had good luck with running VIA KM400, KT400, KT400A and KT600 chipsets on Windows 9x, but the nForce 2 was designed to run on Windows XP and Vista.

I'm not really knowledgeable about Pentium 4 systems, since the last Intel system I ever owned was a Celeron 466. I've read that Windows 9x doesn't take too kindly to the HyperThreading, but I think you can switch it off in the BIOS. There was actually a guy who posted about a system he had built that runs Windows 98SE, Windows XP and Windows 7. I'm not sure if he had a Socket 478 Pentium or 775 Pentium IV. But it's probably worth a look.

Well maybe I can find another socket A cpu for my old socket A board, its an ECs K7VTA3 V8.0 with a KT333 chipset, it runs 9x just fine, I just wanted an nforce2 board, for my 6800GS that is on its way, I wanted AGP8x.

I'm using my KM400 chipset for Windows 98SE and it runs pretty well. Just a warning though: Windows 98SE has problems with your RAM being more than 512Mb. You need some sort of patch or hack to get past it, but it doesn't use a lot of RAM to begin with, so it's more trouble than it is worth more often than not.

oh 98SE above 512 is easy, just set MAXCACHE in the boot.ini file 😁

I've only had stability problems after doing that, but good to know you had better luck with it.

You could use your XP system as Windows 98 system and the Nforce system as XP system. Max 1Gb memory for Windows 98 to be guaranteed to stay out of trouble even with the maxcache fix though so you would be better off moving those 4 fancy memory sticks to the Barton system.

I bet the Barton 2800+ can handle 11*200 at 1.65V or lower (default votage for the 3200+). I have had Bartons (FSB166) that wouldnt do 200 MHz FSB so try a higher multiplier if you cant reach 2200 with 11x. At 2200 MHz the Barton system will not be much slower than the P4.

My Barton isn't unlocked, if i could find an XP 2500 though I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'm stuck with a 12.5 Multi and at 200 thats 2500mhz, id need more voltage but it might do it, wont know till i have the nforce board here.

candle_86 wrote:

My Barton isn't unlocked, if i could find an XP 2500 though I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'm stuck with a 12.5 Multi and at 200 thats 2500mhz, id need more voltage but it might do it, wont know till i have the nforce board here.

Unlock it! 😁

Or run as high FSB the CPU can handle with the 12.5x multiplier.

I'm going to try for 2500mhz as soon as I have the Nforce2 board, i remember back in 2005 I got a Sempron 3000 Barton, and was able to get it stable to 26xx mhz excat number i can't remember but I know it can be done.

The Sempron 3000+ and 3300+ are great CPUs. They're basically Barton-Core CPUs that run much cooler than their Athlon counterparts. My Semrpon 3000+ maxes out at 44 degrees on my Soyo SY-KT600 DragonPlus v2 motherboard.

Yea they where the best Socket A chips there for awhile until AMD totally killed it off.

Well, I own 3 Socket 462 machines and I absolutely adore this platform. To my it is one of the most interesting and fun periods in AMD's history. I have very fond memories of LANing with my Athlon XP 2400+, 512Mb DDR333, GeForce 4 Ti 4600 machine and writing Delphi and C programs on it. Unfortunately, I had to sell that machine, but I hope to get my Sempron 3000+ close to what it was.

i have a nforce2 Mainboard (Asus A7N8X-X) and i love that the chipset Driver has a SB16 Emulation in Windows98 for the onboard Sound.

And the Last Version that supports AMD X800 and Windows 98 is Catalyst 6.3

Well my Audigy would work fine for SB16 emulation in dos games wouldnt it?

I think so, but i Do Not own a audigy card.

It was just a hint, maybe you are Happy with onboard Sound and can use the audigy in another Box (if you Out Off soundcards)

nah onboard of this generation was notoriously bad

Found this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NZXT-Nemesis-Computer … =item2edff8114c

I'm considering ordering it for this build, its a circa 2004 gaming case