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Help with Windows 98 SE PC drivers (VIA P4M800, CMI8738)

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First post, by Coxis

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Hi guys,

I was super excited because I finally found some Windows 98-compatible (or so I'd like to think) hardware locally. This is what I got:

PCCHips P21G Rev 1.0 with VIA P4M800 Chipset.
Pentium 4 506 2.66 Ghz
Kingston 512MB DDR1 stick (I had 2x256MB but they gave me so many BSODs)
ASUS ATI Radeon 9200LE
Genius 6CH Soundcard with Gameport (CMI8738 chip)
Windows 98 SE

I'm having trouble installing the drivers. In addition to that, as I install drivers, the more erratic the computer behaves. I was able to successfully install the GPU drivers, but after I did that, the computer stopped shutting down cleanly. It now gets stuck at the "Windows is shutting down." screen. I now also get "Windows protection error. You need to restart your computer." around 50% of the time when I turn it on. Though I'm not 100% sure this last one was caused by the GPU drivers as well.

VIA P4M800 chipset drivers I have attempted to install:

4in1435v (No SATA driver as far as I can tell)
via_hyperion_4in1_v456v (No SATA driver as far as I can tell)
via_hyperionpro_v514a (No SATA driver as far as I can tell)
VIA_HyperionPro_V523A (This includes the 3.00 INF which successfully installs. The IDE/SATA drivers fail to install)
via_hyperionpro_v524a (This includes the 3.10 INF which fails to install. The IDE/SATA drivers fail to install)

I want to install the chipset drivers because all my IDE devices in device manager have an exclamation point. See attached pictures.

The file via_hyperionpro_v524a successfully installs on my Windows XP installation on the same computer.

CMI8738 drivers I have attempted to install:

cwi8738-winme644 Downloaded from Philscomputerlab.com

This one is interesting. When I try to install this in normal mode, I get a BSOD that lets me continue using the computer after I press any key (See attached picture). When I try to install it in safe mode, the Setup.exe file actually starts, goes through the initial process but then asks me for a directory of Windows 98 system files. See attached pictures. I haven't been able to find any directory that lets me proceed with the installation. I have notably tried System, System32, System32/config and a few others. Watching Phil's video, he's using this same file and his installation proceeds successfully without asking for a directory.

cmed8768 Downloaded from the archive at Vogons (Setup.exe never starts. According to the website this works for both 8768 and 8738.)
8768cust Downloaded from the archive at Vogons (Setup.exe never starts. According to the website this works for both 8768 and 8738.)

The sound card installs and works properly on my Windows XP install.

It is not very easy to find hardware like this in my area as very few people actually go through the trouble of trying to sell it, so I'd love to try and make this work. No eBay here either!

Thanks and thank you for your community and to Phil for all the great documentation you guys do.

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Reply 1 of 3, by Coxis

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Not that anyone cares (evidently) but I managed to get mostly everything working. Here's what I did for the sake of documentation / google searches.

I did a fresh install. The many attempts I made to install the Chipset drivers had pretty much destroyed the WIndows install, my CD-ROM drive disappeared and all the IDE drivers were showing an exclamation sign.

Chipset:

From the Chipset driver installer (via_hyperionpro_v524a) I installed only the VIA AGP driver, the RAID config Utility and the VIA RAID Driver one at a time. This got rid of the unrecognized RAID device in Device Manager. I was not able to get the INF file package installed, nor the PATA/SATA driver.

Sound card:

The driver installer (cwi8738-winme644) stopped giving me a BSOD once I disabled the onboard audio from the BIOS, and the installer itself finished installing after I pointed the pop-up window to the Windows98SE CD. Full sound working and one more unrecognized device solved.

The GPU driver was working fine from the first attempt, so no change there.

In the end, this removed every unrecognized device from my Device Manager window, got rid of the "Windows protection error: You must restart your computer" error at boot time AND the error where the PC got stuck at "Windows is shutting down" forever. It now shuts down immediately. Happy days!

I guess the lack of INF files and PATA/SATA drivers means that Windows is using generic drivers but that can't hurt too much, can it?

I've been playing some NFS III and Diablo I.

Thanks all.

Reply 3 of 3, by rushmusashi

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I remember the 98 days, it was a bit of a pain, hopefully you get it all sorted, not much anybody can do without all the right drivers, unless somebody makes their own for the hardware. You can always try using drivers meant for a different operating system just for the heck of it.

Here's some links just in case they help
https://www.reddit.com/r/windows98/comments/d … n_a_single_iso/
http://www.mdgx.com/upd98me.php

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