VOGONS


First post, by EriolGaurhoth

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Hey all!

I've been trying to install Windows 98 on a designed-for-windows XP laptop: the Gateway 600YG2. The specs are as follows:

Processor: Intel® Pentium 4™-M CPU 2.6 GHz
Ram: 256MB 266 MHz DDR-SDRAM
Graphics Controller: ATI Mobility Radeon 9500, 64MB of VRAM
Sound: Allegro ESS ES1988 chipset (SB compatible)
LCD Display: 15.7-inch active matrix (TFT) LCD color display
Hard drive: 128GB Serial-ATA driver
Disk Drive: 3.5" floppy and DVD+/RW
Ethernet: 10/100 Standard
Wifi: Broadcom BCM94306 IEEE802.11g network card
Expansion: 2 Type III PCMCIA Cardbus Slots, 2 USB 2.0, 1 Parallel, 1 Serial, 1 VGA, 1 S-Video
BIOS: Phoenix BIOS

Thus far, I've been quite successful installing the drivers for all other components: video and sound are excellent, internet works over ethernet, the Cardbus slots work perfectly, the ports have all been tested and are working fine.

But that pesky wifi card has been giving me absolute fits. I've collected numerous drivers that might work and have attempted to install the drivers through various modalities including "Have Disk", via "Reinstall Driver", and through setup programs provided with the driver software to no avail.

The closest I've come to getting it to work was using the following method:
1) After viewing the card in Device Manager, I'd step through the setup to "selecting device from list", choosing "Have Disk" and pointing to the driver.
2) The device would be recognized as the type of device for that driver but then reach an error message saying it couldn't find the driver. Then it would ask me to reboot.
3) Upon rebooting, device manger would show the device as installed but had a red "X" on it indicating the driver wasn't installed.
4) After selecting it again in device manager, this time I would select "Reinstall driver", point it to the driver folder, and it would install the driver "successfully"
5)...only after doing so and rebooting, the first message I'd receive was that "windows could not start" this device, and this time it shows up in Device Manager with a yellow checkmark.

Has anyone else had any trouble doing this kind of install, either with this model PC or this model Wifi card? Is it even possible to properly install this and get it running in Windows 98SE? The drivers seem to exist for this, multiple versions that insist it will work in Windows 98, but it still refuses to for me.

Alternatively, is there another mini pci wifi card that exists out there that I can install in its stead that is relatively cheap/easy to acquire and has verified known working drivers for Windows 98? I don't need to use this particular one if it's impossible to run in Windows 98, but surely there must be an internal mini PCI wifi card that Windows 98 likes.

Reply 1 of 6, by OMORES

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I'm using a USB stick for WiFi in Windows 98 - there are many early B/G dongles Windows 98 compatible. But I guess you just want to install that card for your peace of mind.

You can take a look into registry also and delete devices from there and reinstall. This was the only way to get rid of a standard video adapter in a previous Windows 98 installation.

Check the support for other laptops equipped with BCM94306 and maybe they have proper Windows 98 drivers.

My best video so far.

Reply 2 of 6, by EriolGaurhoth

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OMORES wrote on 2023-02-21, 22:10:

I'm using a USB stick for WiFi in Windows 98 - there are many early B/G dongles Windows 98 compatible. But I guess you just want to install that card for your peace of mind.

You can take a look into registry also and delete devices from there and reinstall. This was the only way to get rid of a standard video adapter in a previous Windows 98 installation.

Check the support for other laptops equipped with BCM94306 and maybe they have proper Windows 98 drivers.

Where are devices located in the registry? I've deleted it from the Device Manager, and when it pops back up again, sometimes it still mentions the driver it had installed previously (which might be hampering my troubleshooting ability in picking different drivers). I didn't even know the registry managed devices, but now that I do, that's a good solution to continue troubleshooting and trying other drivers.

Reply 3 of 6, by OMORES

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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > ENUM > PCI

*Windows 98 is very PCI tolerant as you can see in the attached image, on a newer motherboard there are like 50+ PCI devices

My best video so far.

Reply 4 of 6, by EriolGaurhoth

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OMORES wrote on 2023-02-22, 18:41:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > ENUM > PCI

*Windows 98 is very PCI tolerant as you can see in the attached image, on a newer motherboard there are like 50+ PCI devices

Thank you so much! This will be very helpful in troubleshooting these drivers.

Reply 5 of 6, by EriolGaurhoth

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Revisiting this one, I got it working using an aftermarket, custom driver, which I'll link here. In spite of claiming to work with a different version of the Broadcom PCI wifi card (Bcm94309mp), I can confirm that it worked well with mine (BCM94306). In terms of what kind of encrypted wireless networks it can connect to, ymmv, I happen to have a retro wifi hub that uses older forms of encryption and using that in conjunction with a retro-inspired web proxy via theoldnet.com, I'm able to browse websites like it was 1999! Man, the web was a lot simpler then.

https://retrosystemsrevival.blogspot.com/2018 … windows-9x.html

Reply 6 of 6, by megatog615

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EriolGaurhoth wrote on 2023-03-14, 21:39:

Revisiting this one, I got it working using an aftermarket, custom driver, which I'll link here. In spite of claiming to work with a different version of the Broadcom PCI wifi card (Bcm94309mp), I can confirm that it worked well with mine (BCM94306). In terms of what kind of encrypted wireless networks it can connect to, ymmv, I happen to have a retro wifi hub that uses older forms of encryption and using that in conjunction with a retro-inspired web proxy via theoldnet.com, I'm able to browse websites like it was 1999! Man, the web was a lot simpler then.

https://retrosystemsrevival.blogspot.com/2018 … windows-9x.html

I found this as well, and found this thread via google. What did you use to actually connect to a wifi network? I got the drivers installed but I have no idea how to actually connect to a wifi network with it. What utility do you use?

EDIT: I found it. It's called Odyssey Client for Windows 9x. It is proprietary software that requires a license key that can no longer be obtained legally.