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Getting S3 SuperSavage IXC SDR to work on Win98 on ThinkPad T23

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First post, by ArrayON_56

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Hi,
I recently got IBM ThinkPad T23, and after learning it has support for Win98, i decided to give it try on this machine - installed Win98 SE on this machine,
however I encountered a problem while installing VGA driver for its integrated S3 SuperSavage/IXC SDR.

I tried three drivers for the card that i found online:
- The one from Lenovo website for this specific machine (https://download.lenovo.com/eol/index.html -> http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbb … es/vftpad8m.exe)
- One without installer I found (https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fil … 555&menustate=0)
- ChroMetal drivers which are probably unofficial (https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fil … 848&menustate=0)

The driver from lenovo page installed seemingly correctly, but after reboot i get error from explorer claiming it (explorer) caused an invalid page fault, and then i'm left with background only. I can open task manager with ctrl-alt-delete, but this taskmgr is so basic it can only shutdown system or end another process, not start new process - so i can go straight to safe mode, and after removing it everything works back normally (except no video drivers are installed).
I would note one thing here: when this driver is installed and error is presented, display has native resolution, minimally 16bit colors, and windows can be dragged fluently, so some kind of 2d acceleration is working, so the driver seems to be installed correctly and working, it just won't let me past that error.

The one without installer probably would install too, but when i install it via the inf file, or via device manager while pointing it to folder where the driver files are extracted, it asks for `S3 SuperSavage IXC` cdrom which i don't have and didn't find any iso for it on archive.org too, so this is probably dead end for me with this driver.

And the ChroMetal (probably unofficial) has 2 versions - 4.4 and 4.5. The 4.5 shows `no hardware support` error after installing, and after reboot i'm left with infinite blackscreen, or with exclamation mark on gpu in device manager, and windows complaininng it was set up incorrectly (while having only 16 colors).
The 4.4 asks for cdrom, which i don't have.

One more thing, dunno if it is important here, but in device manager i have 3 devices without drivers, and don't know what exactly are they...
`PCI Communications Device`
`PCI System Management Bus`
`Unknown Device`
Can this be problem too?

Does anybody know how to make this S3 card on this particular machine work?
Thanks in advance

PS: Other devices like soundcard, PCMCIA bus, IR receiver, and network card installed correctly and work properly with drivers from lenovo site.

Reply 1 of 5, by ArrayON_56

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Ok, i fixed the `SMBus controller` by installing chipset drivers, which got re-recognized whole topology, but issue remains the same with the S3 VGA.
The `PCI Communication Device` is modem - irtrelevant to VGA issue imo.

I also managed to find out that the CD files that the second described driver needs, are located in extracted driver from lenovo page, but then, the issue remains same - the explorer crashes, and while acceleration seems to be working, resolution is lower than the native display resolution which is set if the first driver is installed.

Then I tried to change shell from `explorer` to `progman` from win 3.1, through safe mode, and it starts wihtout any page fault error. When i start explorer from progman, it crashes, and i noticed that probably every application that somehow integrates with explorer (for example winscp), crashes with same error too, on bootup.
So I thought that it could be some S3 SW shell extension that could be doing this... So in msconfig i disabled all startup items except system.ini, and issue is still the same.
Could the driver be really doing this? ATM I don't know what to search for in the system.ini to troubleshoot further.

I also tried WinME to test if it would work and answer is NO. The same error appears also in WinME.
Could the card be faulty? But why I don't get any BSOD if so?

Now when I get home I will try WinXP if I will be able to make that card working. There is different driver for NT/XP, but just to make sure the card can work.

Reply 2 of 5, by ArrayON_56

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Ok, tested on WinXP with proper driver and it works - XP boots up without any problems, i can set native resolution (32bit color), and acceleration works too. I tried also some directx 3d games and they worked well, so the card is working properly.

Reply 3 of 5, by schmatzler

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These errors happen on the T23 if you have more than 512MB RAM installed.
Windows 9x/ME is generally very unstable with more memory than that.

Reduce the RAM to 512MB or use PATCHMEM.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 4 of 5, by ArrayON_56

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Yes, PATCHMEM fixed that issue, thanks!
Sorry, I forgot to include any system specs, including amount of RAM - I have 1GB.

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