64mb onboard video and 98ish era doesn't mix. 64mb video is crossing the Radeon 9000 territory (along with Pentium M and a whole lack of chipset incompatibility with Win98SE)...

That PM 915gm builds that you have support win9x but no pci-e support and if you do any laptops that are p4 or pm era you need to avoid any that do not have win9x drivers for the gpu. The audio and lan support might be nonexistent. The same will go for a lot of other things as most from that time usually only supported xp and anything remotely close to period accurate ie around 2000 might will likely have some support but the specs will be lower than you desire.

Laptops that only have the integrated Intel igp will have support but audio and lan will most likely be the issue unless you find some pcma cards along with the driver for the pcma controller/reader for that laptop.

This is laptop from that era I use... or used since it rarely gets used these days.
There are Windows 98 drivers but I have Windows XP installed.

Compaq n410c
Pentium 3 m 1.2 ghz
12" 1024*768
ATI Mobility Radeon
1.5 kg
256mb memory
30gb hdd

I have 1gb memory in mine but for windows 98 512mb would be enough
I have logged in to World of Warcraft with that laptop altough there were plenty of graphic errors and few fps.
That was back in 2007 or so, now I do not think its possible to log in with pre DX9 videocards 😀

http://www.cnet.com/laptops/hp-evo-n410c-pent … 7-20212925.html

Its a notebook you can see as an investment.
They go for about 1 - 100 $ on Ebay,
They are built like tanks and will last forever and ever.
Not sure if the Radeon Mobility beats the Geforce2 Go though.
And the floppy drive and dvd or dvd-rw drive are in the docking station but its small enough even with the docking station.

Skyscraper wrote:

Not sure if the Radeon Mobility beats the Geforce2 Go though.

In performance and features i'd say it does, though the bad part is the drivers - you only have the option of using OEM-specific outdated drivers from like 2003...

and despite the technology it derived from it does not have any form of Truform supported. 🙁

leileilol wrote:

64mb onboard video and 98ish era doesn't mix. 64mb video is crossing the Radeon 9000 territory (along with Pentium M and a whole lack of chipset incompatibility with Win98SE)...

FYI there are tons of drivers for 98, for systems as late as core 2 duo (only 1 core usable) with sata! 😲 i once had it running on a 64mb fx5200 with an pentium, my only problem was no floppy drive. Perhaps i should have just said fastest laptop with floppy drive?

EDIT: you know what my memory is hazy but, i remember seeing either a Dell or IBM, IDE CD/DVD bay thingy that was a floppy drive. I was discussing Floppy drives in a IRC channel and some one linked it.

EDIT: i guess this is a start, http://www.ebay.com/itm/Awesome-DELL-Latitude … =item19e3a1dab4

though i don't see the floppy drive.

I'd recommend a Dell Latitide C640 or C840 (or the equivalent Inspiron models 4150 and 8200, respectively). They're P4-class machines which work well with 98SE (the 640 officially supports it, the 840 you have to go hunting down a few drivers from sources other than the Dell site). The hardware is easy to work on and is pretty upgradeable, and they use modular bays for the drives and batteries... and the modules are dirt common since they're interchangeable across all the C-series machines. You can everything from floppy drives up to DVD burners.

can the drive modules hot swap?

EDIT: putting these here for later reference,

http://www.cnet.com/laptops/dell-latitude-c64 … 7-20305954.html
http://www.cnet.com/laptops/dell-latitude-c84 … _7-9376565.html
http://www.cnet.com/laptops/dell-inspiron-415 … 7-30007779.html
http://www.cnet.com/laptops/dell-inspiron-820 … 7-30009653.html

The C840 looks like a monster, it doesn't list a GPU for the C640, then again it also says it comes with Server 2000 perhaps the info is a bit, wonky/missing/wrong.

I know you can hotswap the modules under 2000/XP... I've never tried it in 98, but it should work.

The GPU in the C640 is a Mobility Radeon 7500. I think it was 32MB, but I can't remember for sure. The C840 has a 64MB Geforce4 Go 440.

The Dell Latitude D series support a floppy drive in their bays. They are the last to do so, but most of the models have newer hardware that likely doesn't have Windows 9x drivers.

do any of these have replaceable GPUs? my broth has one of those latitudes with an fx5200 and p4 that might support those drive modules and it has a replaceable gpu. His is was an Inspiron 5100 and i modded it in to a 5150.

Most of them were available with either discrete GPUs, or Intel GMA integrated video. Don't know if its on a module.

-The D600 appears to only have come with the ATI Radeon Mobility 9000.
-The D610 has GMA900 or Radeon Mobility X300.
-The D620 has GMA950 or nVidia Quadro NVS 110M (high failure rate BGA chip).
-The D630 has GMAX3100 or nVidia Quadro NVS 135M (high failure rate BGA chip).

The D600 is likely the most Windows 9x friendly.

high failure rate BGAs can be a nice bargain if its hasn't been dick with or reflowed more than once before, preferably not reflowed before. replace the thermal pad with a copper shim, run a whole saw through the bottom half of the case where the cpu fan is located, jb well in some mesh and call it good. perhaps i just like a good project or bragging. 🤣

as far as the D610 goes i see the little push button next to the dvd i'm assuming like discussed before it also accepts the "modules".

Yes, it pops out into a handle and you can pull the drive out.