Your sound problems are due to the sound card not having an OPL3 (Adlib) chip, instead attempting to map OPL3 commands to the built-in MIDI or something.

The solution is to get a different sound card, maybe SB Live or Yamaha YMF PCI style, or Aureal Vortex or something else that's compatible with both Windows 98 and DOS.

Edit: Oh, I just noticed your computer has one ISA slot. A much better solution would be to get an ISA sound card, like an SB16, AWE32, or AWE64, and use that. It would be pretty much guaranteed to work perfectly in most cases.

Thanks for the tip. Will the Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold work? Just to let you know that I salvaged this computer 5 years ago.

Yeah, in fact, the AWE64 Gold will sound better than a lot of PCI cards. Plus you'll get full DOS compatibility, especially inside of Windows 9x, where you'll have sound effects, OPL3, MIDI sound, etc.

The only drawback is that it doesn't have a real OPL3 chip, just Creative's "CQM" clone chip which performs the same function but doesn't sound the same. So that would only be a factor if you care about that sort of thing (I do, but a lot of people don't).

Edit: I would really recommend running Windows 98SE on this thing. 95 is much better suited for 486 and early Pentium machines, and every later machine that I've had 95 on (trying to do it out of principle, usually) I always end up switching to Windows 98. It's just so much more convenient, runs more software, is more stable, etc.

I always stick a USB card in my 98 computers and install NUSB, which gives me full USB flash drive functionality. It's really useful for copying files 😀

I am currently watching youtube videos on how certain DOS games sound like with the AWE64 (doom, duke nukem, descent, etc) and I am blown away from how high quality the music sounds. I am definitely getting this card. What is NUSB and where can I find it. Also, I would like to upgrade to 98, but I am a bit concern there might be some issues. And from what I know, I don't think my machine supports dual booting. BTW, how did you know the GX110 has an ISA slot?

Braca862 wrote:

Will the Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold work?

The AWE64 Gold would be considerably more expensive for little tangible benefit. If you already have one on hand, then go ahead; otherwise, you might as well go for a cheaper model of AWE64 or AWE32.

Braca862 wrote:

What is NUSB and where can I find it.

I was going to tell you to Google, but I guess there are a few other things called NUSB these days. So here:
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/43605-maximus … ve-usb-drivers/

Also, I would like to upgrade to 98, but I am a bit concern there might be some issues.

You'll have to be a lot more specific than that.

And from what I know, I don't think my machine supports dual booting.

Dual-booting is strictly a software thing. Just about every machine supports it. It's not really relevant to the matter, though.

BTW, how did you know the GX110 has an ISA slot?

Okay, now I'm linking to https://www.google.ca/search?q=gx110+motherboard .

Thanks for the information. I just bought the AWE64 gold. A bit off-topic, but for curiosity, what is the best graphics card for the GX110?

For video - well, I would probably go for a 3DFX Voodoo 3 PCI, but that's just me. Others will tell you to go with nVidia or ATI or something. I can't speak on nVidia since I haven't had one, but I can say stay away from ATI because ATI cards mess up the scrolling on EGA games (such as Commander Keen) big time. Doesn't matter what ATI card from what era, they always do it.

Edit: Why do you want to dual boot? You can always simply follow the standard "backup, wipe, reinstall with new OS" procedure.

Another edit: They make a big deal on the NUSB post about "UNINSTALL YOUR CURRENT USB DRIVERS OR YOU WILL FAIL!!!!" and stuff like that, but really, on a fresh, clean Windows 98 install you just have to run nusb33.exe, restart, and voila, you have USB support. It's running it on systems that have already looked for USB drivers or something that messes things up, I think.

I know there are several different versions of the voodoo 3. I saw on ebay, a brand new voodoo 3 3500. Will that do?

Also, you mean its better to back up my files and do a fresh Windows 98 SE install instead of upgrading from 95?

This should be in Marvin.

Braca862 wrote:

Also, you mean its better to back up my files and do a fresh Windows 98 SE install instead of upgrading from 95?

It's almost never a good idea to do an upgrade when you can do a fresh install. It depends on how inconvenient it would be to reinstall everything.

I saw on ebay, a brand new voodoo 3 3500. Will that do?

You said you wanted "the best graphics card". Whether or not a Voodoo 3 3500 will do depends on exactly what you plan to do with it.

The AWE64 card came today. Although you mentioned that the GX110 has a ISA slot, I took a picture, and I do not see anything that looks like an ISA slot. I can assume I need a riser card containing a ISA slot?

20160904_202053 by Pedro Bracamonte, on Flickr

That would appear to be what pages 36 and 37 of the manual at http://www.dell.com/support/home/ca/en/cadhs1 … x-gx110/manuals would indicate.

Thanks.

Specifically, you want the mid size PCI/ISA riser board, see Figure 20 in the Service Manual. It provides two PCI, two ISA, and one shared slot.

Looks like you can get one on ePay.

I also found a larger version with 4/3/1 arrangement. It appears you may have room in your case for it, but it is not referenced in the Service Manual.

Also, this thread feels very Marviny to me. 😀

I have the minitower gx110. I am sure the 5x pci 4x ISA riser fits

Moved to Marvin.

Unfortunately, I just realized that the GX110 does not have an AGP slot. The current video card it uses is the Intel 810 chipset, which does not support AGP expansion slots. However, on page 76 in the manual, it saids that the system has an Integrated Intel Direct AGP Graphics Accelerator with Dynamic Video Memory (DVM) technology architecture. On page 128, the graphics accelerator is an Intel Direct Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) 2D and 3D graphics accelerator. What does that mean?

Braca862 wrote:

Unfortunately, I just realized that the GX110 does not have an AGP slot.

Yes, that would be why Mr. Keenmaster486 suggested the Voodoo 3 PCI.

However, on page 76 in the manual, it saids that the system has an Integrated Intel Direct AGP Graphics Accelerator with Dynamic Video Memory (DVM) technology architecture. On page 128, the graphics accelerator is an Intel Direct Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) 2D and 3D graphics accelerator. What does that mean?

Basically, it means that there is an AGP card built into the motherboard. This is not especially meaningful as to my knowledge there is nothing that ever explicitly required an AGP card over a PCI card, and even if there was, Intel graphics are known for being pretty terrible. There is probably no chance of ever using an AGP card with your system.

Braca862 wrote:

What does that mean?

No AGP, no ISA and no DDMA (that limits your choice of sound cards for DOS) capabilities.