No idea really, because I never experienced that slow-down issue. For me, Win98 would just crash with a blue screen when used too long with no reboot. 😉 I know that this can happen however when you run out of GDI memory. GDI memory management was still buggy in 98 and has no safty checks whatsoever - well, there is one but that will never trigger, since the machine will crash before.

However, one thing that greatly improves speed and stability with Win9x is to set the swap file to a fixed size (2.5x the amount of installed memory) and move it to a separate partition.

If you don't need real-mode DOS, you could also upgrade to Windows ME. At least on the systems I use it, it is way more stable than 98SE.

Plenty of settings to tweak that little bit of extra performance out of Win98, Here is just one.
http://smallvoid.com/articles/windows-98/performance

My usual tweaks for a Win9x games rig are.
Enable DMA for HDD's in device manager
Set the page file, the 2.5 rule is probably good advice if your ram don't have enough for Win2k.
Set System, Performance, File System as "Network server" -easy way to optimize Windows for HDD access
Stop as much as possible autoloading, (Delete entireis in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run) -Less programs to multitask the better!
Install as little as possible including MS patches -Very few patches are performance related.

I know I can do more but I don't see much point for little game, but thats just IMHO.

The other question is what you using the laptop for? Win9x memory management is average at best. If your just turing it on, playing a single game for a few hours then turing off again I wouldn't expect any issues.
But if your opening a program messing round a bit, closing them, starting another, messing round, closing, etc. I can imagine memory not been properly flushed and slowly filling with crap and grinding to a halt.

What exactly is the hardware we are working with? You mention memory limitations and troublesome audio card, but it's not easy to recommend stability fixes for any OS without knowing the particular configuration.. And no, I did not google up 560X, I'd assume the particular model comes in multiple configurations as well..

Thanks for the tips guys.

This issue happens to me with any hardware, from Pentium MMX, 96 MB RAM (the 560X) to Pentium II or III machines with 512 MB.

Even on a fresh install? Before installing any extra software? If it's really happening on any machine you try, I'd suspect the problem is the software you're adding post-installation, or some other tweaks/configuration you may be applying to it. I can honestly say I've never experienced what you describe with a Win98SE installation...

Are you using the "Unofficial Service Pack"? If so, especially if it is any somewhat recent version, then that is most likely your problem.

I used an older version way back int he day that really only applied the official MS updates plus a few tweaks and it worked fine. I tried the newer ones not too long agao and it basically made the system unusable.

Best bet is to install the actual MS updates from the MS Update CD ISO from 2004 that is on vogonsdrivers:
http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=873&menustate=0

Then nusb33 if you need USB storage support and then drivers for your hardware.

Fresh install, only drivers and NUSB installed and the tweaks mentioned in the OP enabled.

I've installed 98SE on a few different BX motherboards, Asus P2B-DS, Asus P2Z-VM, and both the gateway and dell variants of SE440BX and never had the mouse issue (plus loads of other motherbaords but using this as example as you said P2/P3's)

But I don't do the 2 tweaks you mentioned so possibly that's conflicting with software or drivers? but something's not right (obviously) I'd try running up fresh install test, then install everything 1 by 1 and test and see when the issue starts.

chinny22 wrote:

But I don't do the 2 tweaks you mentioned so possibly that's conflicting with software or drivers? but something's not right (obviously) I'd try running up fresh install test, then install everything 1 by 1 and test and see when the issue starts.

Me neither, and it's the very first thing I'd question here in this case. If you're always doing your Win98SE installs the same way and always encountering problems with them, then it's time to start trying to do it differently to see if you can narrow down the problem.

Although to be honest, I don't install 90% of the tweaks (fiddling with disk caches, fiddling with DMAs, ConservativeSwapfileUsage, installing OS patches... etc) that people on this forum usually seem to and I have no problems anyway ...

It is a strange issue. I could try doing some POE to see what the culprit is.

I have also found that without ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 and the disk cache limit, if left to itself for a few hours, fresh, vanilla 98SE will slowly eat up all the physical memory until there is none left, for no reason at all.

So you are not installing any Microsoft updates at all?

Those updates are not just for security stuff, but for bugfixes as well.

Frankly, I've never experienced the issues you describe on any of my vanilla Windows 98SE installs (and I don't install the unofficial updates etc.).

Are you using the same mouse on all systems?

Not the same mouse.

The mouse movement is just a symptom of some larger problem.