Does the 1868 have the MPU port enabled under DOS? If not, it might be Windows trying to activate it and running into a conflict. Check the ouput of ESSCFG.

Rawit wrote on 2023-02-14, 13:26:

Does the 1868 have the MPU port enabled under DOS? If not, it might be Windows trying to activate it and running into a conflict. Check the ouput of ESSCFG.

Normally starting Windows from a DOS boot menu, not initializing the 1868 at all before launching Windows. Tried initializing it with the MPU port disabled as you suggest before launching Windows, in case the card not being initialized might cause problems, but the computer still freezes at the same point in the driver setup.

Any other ideas? 😀

Without knowing where the drivers on vogonsdrivers or phils computer lab came from, it might be worth trying the drivers direct(ish) from the source: https://www.zx.net.nz/mirror/www.esstech.com/ … pp/drivers.html

davidrg wrote on 2023-02-14, 22:33:

Without knowing where the drivers on vogonsdrivers or phils computer lab came from, it might be worth trying the drivers direct(ish) from the source: https://www.zx.net.nz/mirror/www.esstech.com/ … pp/drivers.html

The 1868 win3.11 driver seems to be identical to the one on Phils Computer Lab. Tried installing it just for the hell of it, but as expected the computer froze the same way as before. Thanks anyways though 😀

I think the first action the installer does is copying files instead of config. Might be disk io related?

Rawit wrote on 2023-02-15, 10:24:

I think the first action the installer does is copying files instead of config. Might be disk io related?

Hm, well, haven't seen any other signs of disk I/O problems at all, everything works perfectly in that department. If anything, this computer is remarkably stable and well working to be a 486. Tried launching the installer from a floppy instead, and the installer freezes just as before. For obvious reasons I couldn't try with the IDE controller disabled though, writing to the OS install location of course has to happen no matter of what source I use.

Unfortunately there's no oemsetup.inf, so there's no way I know of at least to install the driver from the control panel etc, instead of the setup program.

Does your mainboard support PnP? I don't have an 1868 around unfortunately. It might try to check available resources and runs into a conflict, not sure. Hopefully somebody with an 1868 can chime in.

Rawit wrote on 2023-02-16, 08:54:

Does your mainboard support PnP? I don't have an 1868 around unfortunately. It might try to check available resources and runs into a conflict, not sure. Hopefully somebody with an 1868 can chime in.

It doesn't seem to. Can't find any ISA PnP related settings in the BIOS setup, and there's the "PCI configuration setup" option, that usually is called "PCI/PnP configuration setup" on PnP enabled boards.

The "mainboard" is an SBC, IEI SSC-486H Ver C. The BIOS is Award 4.51G.

Launched CheckIt from Windows, see attached screenshot. The IRQs and DMA channels commonly used by default by sound cards are free if CheckIt can be trusted, and there's also plenty of other to choose from. I doubt it's some kind of resource conflict.

It might try to set the MPU to IRQ 2/9.

Rawit wrote on 2023-02-19, 21:23:

It might try to set the MPU to IRQ 2/9.

Well, as mentioned I tried disabling the MPU port with esscfg before starting Windows and trying to install the driver. Did not help.

I just had the same issue, and I was about to ask if you found a solution, when I managed to make it work 😀
I believe the issue was that I had several unformatted logical partitions on the drive (sd card). Once I removed them, and had only 2 formatted partitions, the installation worked.
I also started windows with /n flag to disable networking, as I thought it may have something to do. I don't think that was the issue though, but worth a try too.