I don't think I've tried a single stick of 512 MB. You're at 83 MHz? Is XP OK with the 512 MB stick?

feipoa wrote:

I don't think I've tried a single stick of 512 MB. You're at 83 MHz? Is XP OK with the 512 MB stick?

I had a pair of 128 meg sticks in it originally, and I swapped them for the single stick when I was trying to get it to work with my original installation of Windows 98. It made no difference, so I left it that way when I installed XP, and since all was well with XP @ 500 MHz, I decided to try installing Windows 98 again without changing the configuration. When I bought this board I had no RAM, so I bought the pair of 128s from an Ebay vendor. Not long after that I bought a collection of old stuff from a guy for $25.00, which included a box full of SIMMs of many types and speeds including lots of PC133 & PC100.

I tried swapping back in the pair of generic PC100 sticks for the 512 PC133 and it would lock up when booting to Win98! I tried slowing the memory timings, but no dice, so I then tried a 256 stick of PC100 from the stash, and everything worked fine. Maybe it's the memory, or maybe this board is picky about having both slots populated? I then tried reinstalling the TAG RAM, and had no problem booting into Win98 @ 500 MHz. But back to back runs of 3D Mark 2000 showed that having the TAG chip installed dropped the 3D Mark score by about 200 points, so I pulled it back out.

One thing I'd like to figure out is why 3D Mark 2001 will run on the XP install, but not on the Win98 one. I've updated Win98 to Direct X 9C, but it just crashes to the desktop when I try to run it, but no problem with Windows XP.

Try putting in that 48 MB of EDO RAM you have and try running 3D Mark 2001 in w98 again. Does DirectX 9c require SSE in w98? I'm only using DirectX 8.1 on my system. I've read of DirectX not being so backwards compatible as it should be, so I don't like to take it too far up the revision ladder. I doubt any game that requires Directx9 will run very well on a K6-III.

I pulled out my 8400TTD system and stuck in, seperately, a single stick of 64 MB SDRAM and a stick of 128 MB SDRAM, but I could not get Windows 2000 to boot at 83 MHz. EDO worked fine. I had planned to run the test VOPT performance feature, but I could only record the EDO values in W2K, which was 37 MB/s on the hard drive.

I was able to run 3DMark2001 SE just fine with DirectX 8.1 installed in Win98se.

I upgraded to DirectX 9C in an effort to get 3D Mark 2001 to run. I downloaded a Windows Security updates disk that a member here had uploaded that updates Win98 to IE6, Media Player 9, DirectX 9B etc., and have been running that after the fresh install, as it's as close as you can get to going to Windows Update now. This time I did a fresh install, and just upgraded to Direct X 8, but 3D Mark 2001 still won't run in Win98 on this machine. Swapping to EDO made no difference. But I didn't think that it would - if it will run in Windows XP on the same hardware, then it's a software problem.

Drive speed in Windows XP with the EDO was faster per Vopt - 70 MBs, so that was a surprise (Edit: I just tested again with SDRAM, and it's now saying 82 MBs). I haven't found a utility to check it in Win98. Older versions of Vopt did work with Win98, but I can't find it anywhere.

What error do you receive when running 3DMark2001? Perhaps its the graphics card or driver causing the problem.

I'm not sure how reliable Vopt's HDD test is. The test runs for only a second, and if you move the mouse, the score drops a good amount: From 37 MB/s to 30 MB/s in my test.

I don't think the 430TX chipset supports modules larger than 128 MB.

I found out the hard way, do not attempt to install the latest version of VOPT on Win98SE. It will install, but it replaces some system file(s) without warning and breaks things. My NVidia driver applet failed and I had to replace the file in windows\system that VOPT updated.

When I try to run 3D Mark2001, it crashes to the desktop when attempting to run the first test. Same happens when you try to run the demo. Little doubt that it's a driver issue, but with the ATI 9250 you really don't have much choice in drivers. There might be a patch out there somewhere that would fix the issue, but this sort of thing is so obscure now that there's little chance of finding it.
The 256 meg stick of PC100 I have runs runs fine @ 83/500 MHz (where the pair of 128s did not), as did the 512 of PC133, though as I said before, it only sees half of it due to density.

Does 3dmark2001 work is you change the graphics card? Do 3D accelerated games work?

Does a single stick of 128 mb work? I couldn’t even use a single 128 mb stick at 83 MHz. Wonder what’s going on here.

I took out the 256 and put in a 128 Infineon PC133, and it posted and booted into Win98 with no issue. I tried installing Jane's WW-2 fighters (the only game I have on hand) and it CTD the same as 3D Mark 2001. This morning I found an older driver 4.14 (I had been running 6.2); that changed the situation, and 3D 2001 runs, but fails when it gets to the Nature test. So it's definitely a driver issue, maybe I'll find the right one.

Changing the graphics card wasn't really an option since the only other PCI cards I have are very basic ones with little memory

I recentedly tested a Radeon 7000 on a Pentium Pro and only found the oldest driver would work properly in all games and with the highest frame rates. He latest driver worked, but wasn't the fastest, and in some games, there was stuttered movement. But I have tested the 9250 (this is what you're using right?) on the K6-3 and got it working. I'll have to see if I noted the driver version.

I found it, linked right here on Vogons: In search of Win98 Catalyst 4.X and 5.X
The 5.2 is the magic one - my hunch is that the 6.2 probably works fine on AGP versions of the 9250, but not the PCI version. 2,288 score in 3D Mark 2001. Jane's now runs, though it CTDs when I try to change the resolution to something higher than default.

I'm not surprised.

I find it very difficult to save the filenames for ATI drivers because it seems each driver package has three different version numbers. There is the "2D Driver version", the "Package version" and the "Catalyst Control Panel version"

For example, the latest driver for the Radeon 7000 has:

Catalyst Control Panel v6.2.30314
2D driver v4.15.1.9165
Driver package v8.03.98.5-060124a-030314E

At different times of download, I've saved them by different identifiers, so it is really difficult to track what version is what.

I've tried a couple of different pairs of 128 meg PC133 sticks, but the same thing happens - Windows 98 locks up at the splash screen. Take them out, and put a 256 meg back in, and no problems.

Comparing this machine to my other Socket 7, the gap in performance is pretty small. A Soyo SY5EMA, K6-2+ 550 @ 560 (5x112 MHz) 512 megs of PC133, and a Radeon 9200 AGP with 128 megs of memory. It actually gets a lower score in 3D Mark 2000 than the 128 meg 9250 SE PCI does in the Biostar board, and the 3D Mark 2001 score is only a few points higher (2,356 just now). With 768 megs of memory installed, it ran Windows XP a little better than the Biostar @ 500 and 256, but not much.

Sounds like you got lucky with the single 256 MB SDAM stick. Everything works fine with it I take it?

Yes, I also noticed the 430TX at 83 MHz is a great performer. Not much loss in not having the AGP or 100 Mhz FSB.