Hi everyone,

I have a Tiny Machine computer (in the UK) with an MS-6178 V1.1 board on Windows 98SE, which seems to have compatibility issues with Sound Blaster cards.
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-ms-6178-wh5
According to RetroWeb, this board can have slightly different variations of the Intel 815 family of chipset, I'm not sure which one I have.
Graphics card is a Nvidia FX 5500 PCI from Aliexpress.
Windows 98 is running on a Kingston 2.5'' SATA SSD with an IDE to SATA adapter from Aliexpress.
PSU is a modern 450W Bequiet SFX Power 3 with 16A on the +5V rail https://www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply/2309

The problem
I tried with 3 cards:

• Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS CT4760, I forgot where I got the driver from
• Sound Blaster Live SB0100, Joseph's Audigy 2 ZS driver
• Sound Blaster live CT4830, Joseph's Audigy 2 ZS driver

They all have the same symptoms. Initially, the driver would find the hardware and initialise correctly, playing sound properly. As time goes on, issues will start to arise, such as:

• Windows Sound Scheme in Control Panel stops being able to preview sounds with an error of not finding the file. This worked fine on the first reboot right after the driver installation, but stopped working shortly after. Sometimes a reboot helps temporarily, sometimes it doesn't. All Windows sounds still play when they should play, I just couldn't preview them in the Control Panel program.
• Random blue screens while playing music from Winamp and during gaming.
• With the Audigy 2 ZS, Windows takes significantly longer to boot, 3-4 minutes

These issues make the system very unstable and pretty much unusable.

Background
This board originally came to me with 5 bulged 10x23mm 1500uF 10V Chhsi WG series capacitors. These have ESR and Ripple rating of 0.022 mOhm and 2150 mA according to its data sheet https://www.eserviceinfo.com/downloadsm/21727 … G%20series.html
I replaced these with Panasonic FR series 1500uF 10V, with ESR and Ripple of 0.03 mOhm and 1560 mA https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/aluminium-capa … s/7083550P?gb=s

I know the replacement is underspecced, I haven't learned about ESR and Ripple rating back then.
I don't know if this is the cause of my issue or not. What I do know is that the board still works after the replacement, onboard graphics and sound works. If I don't use a Sound Blaster, everything is fine.

I am currently using an ESS1983 sound card because anything sounds better than the onboard SoundMAX chip, but ideally I would like to use my Sound Blaster Live.

Does anyone have a similar experience?

Fun Fact:
This board has the Intel i810 iGPU, which apparently is the first ever Intel iGPU! Neat!