Just a couple of notes:

* 80 Wire connector for IDE drives is only needed on Ultra DMA-66 and higher modes. Your motherboard does not support Ultra-DMA, so you should not be using the 80-wire cables.
* USB PCI card: VIA cards are not very good on this system, there are technical reasons why it doesn't work, which I can't be bothered looking up right now. Use a NEC based USB 2.0 card instead, they will probably work better.
* For the onboard usb ports, the manual is here: http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/show/5687. You will need to wire each wire individually as it doesn't look like a standard USB header layout.
* I normally don't run any updates on Windows 98. The unofficial service packs and stuff tend to cause as many problems as they supposedly solve.

null

Odiseo wrote on 2021-08-29, 20:57:

As is visible on the schematics in attachment, there is a USB connector on the motherboard. It has 6 rows of two pins each. Is this what a USB 1.1 connector looks like?

I took a look at the motherboard header on the USB 2.0 bracket in my Windows 10 PC. It has only 5 female connectors (sixth one is filled up), so it's not compatible with the male connector on my Socket 7 motherboard.

These USB connectors found on non-Super Socket 7 motherboards are not 2.0 and sometimes even poorly documented. On one motherboard that connector is more similar to the ones found on modern motherboards but on other ones it could have the one of the rows inverted or has an entirely different pinout instead.

Odiseo wrote on 2021-08-29, 20:57:

I let Auto-Patcher install most of its updates and hotfixes, including those in both the "Dec. 2007 final" version and the "Dec. 2008 Upgrade".

Which other updates and hotfixes for Windows 98SE can you recommend me?

canthearu wrote on 2021-08-29, 21:41:

* I normally don't run any updates on Windows 98. The unofficial service packs and stuff tend to cause as many problems as they supposedly solve.

There's one legitimate update CD on VOGONS drivers for Windows 98. It doesn't have all the latest fixes but I don't think it will be necessary for retro builds though.

I stay away from unofficial updates when possible as they tend to contain "tweaks" and hacks that can mess up the system on the long run.

canthearu wrote on 2021-08-29, 21:41:

Just a couple of notes:

* 80 Wire connector for IDE drives is only needed on Ultra DMA-66 and higher modes. Your motherboard does not support Ultra-DMA, so you should not be using the 80-wire cables.
* USB PCI card: VIA cards are not very good on this system, there are technical reasons why it doesn't work, which I can't be bothered looking up right now. Use a NEC based USB 2.0 card instead, they will probably work better.

Thanks for the suggestion with regard to NEC-based cards!

Gmlb256 wrote on 2021-08-29, 22:22:

There's one legitimate update CD on VOGONS drivers for Windows 98. It doesn't have all the latest fixes but I don't think it will be necessary for retro builds though.

Never saw this before. Looks very interesting. Will definitely check this out on both of my classic PC's (one Socket 7, one Pentium 3).

Odiseo wrote on 2021-08-29, 22:36:

[...]

Thanks for the suggestion with regard to NEC-based cards!

Word of warning (out of the technical details we didn't mention): the NEC chipset works fine with old PCI 2.1 5V-only slots, but not all cards those chips are stuck on do as well. Most will but you may be unlucky. I have two from Sweex (low-end bottom-feeding brand) that work just fine, and a much more fancy Promise card with the same NEC chipset that does too.

Never saw this before. Looks very interesting. Will definitely check this out on both of my classic PC's (one Socket 7, one Pentium 3).

I fully second the previous comment on using plain vanilla images and adding the needed updates manually. That 'auto' stuff isn't bad, but it's the sort of software that might mess up and then you'd need at least the knowledge you would to do it manually.

As for the motherboard USB connector - there were no standards back in 1996. You need to find the pinout and either (unlikely) find a USB bracket+cable that matches, or use DuPont cables to convert to another one. To find the pinout, a multimeter is very useful. First set it to continuity testing (or failing that just plain resistance - Ohm - measurement). Then with the computer off, see which pins are connected to ground by measuring between each of the USB header pins in turn vs the middle pins on AT power connector or anywhere else you know is at ground level. Note the pin numbers that are GND. Then turn the computer on and set the multimeter to DC voltage measurement. Measure between one of the ground pins and each of the others in turn. When it shows 5VDC you have the Vcc pins. Note those pin numbers. These are the vital pins (get these wrong and the smoke comes out). You can afford to mess around with the data + and -. Usually you'd expect to have Vcc data +, data - and GND in a row. If there are two other pins between Vcc and GND it's a fair bet they are data + and -. Test and see if that works. If not, try them the other way round (data - and +).

Note that Win98 USB support isn't great and USB 1.1 is glacially slow in any event, so the only thing the onboard USB is really useful for is keyboard and mouse.

Odiseo wrote on 2021-08-29, 20:57:

Which other updates and hotfixes for Windows 98SE can you recommend me?

None. The only updates I recommend are Installer 2.0, TCPIP Stack 1.4 , DX7, and Only if you have applications that require it IE5.5sp2 Otherwise don't update IE.

All those service packs and autopatchers only make the computer slower, cause instability, bugs and crashes. They fix problems that you don't even have, and create problems you don't even have at the same time.