I didn't find an option to disable the onboard gameport in BIOS. The mobo manual shows one, my BIOS doesn't have it. While there, I did disable the two serial ports and the parallel port as I'm not using those anyway. I've also disabled modem related stuff.

The gameport problem remains: the joystick section of control panel says that it is not configured well and to check device manager; device manager of course says it is functioning well...

In games I see that the joystick is actually responsive, it's just not calibrated. And I can't calibrate it because control panel thinks my gameport is not set up properly. Oh joy.

Anyway, I think I'll redo the entire Audigy2 installation, this time following the Vogons guide (just not starting from a fresh 98 install, I'll just uninstall everything Audigy related in software and device manager). That might solve this issue and should give me sound in DOS, which would be a solution for the Slicks n Slide problem in Windows.

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-05-25, 19:10:

Now ... what to do with that last bay. In beige.

I put a ATAPI ZIP100 drive in mine.

Progress! I've reinstalled the Audigy and did some config.sys dos memory magic. Result:

-gameport works!
-all DOS games run from W98!
-Audigy2 works perfect in W98!
-SB16 emulation works in pure DOS, however all sound comes from the left channel only. Any ideas?

Not that I need pure DOS at the moment, but it's nice to have it all configured well.

Now that the expensive stuff is going in...how about replacing the old psu. I was looking at MSI MAG A650BN. Good choice?

-only two molex so I'd solder some old molex onto other cables.
-no floppy connectors, so idem dito. I have a dead psu for connector donors.

Any thought, anything to look for? It has a 20+4 connector. 650W should be beyond plenty?

I have no ISA slot so -5V is not required?

You definitely do not need 650W. PSUs have lower efficiency at very low load and there is basically no reason to do it. IMO for old hardware which mostly uses 5V - make sure the PSU is based on DC-DC design instead of group regulation and buy something from reputable manufacturer, but otherwise power rating, which is mostly for 12V in modern PSUs, does not matter at all. 400w, 1500w... you are going to be limited to ~100W from 5v+3.3v rail regardless...

Specific one should work reasonably well though, if you are fine with paying for something you are not going to use...

As much as i like using modern PSUs myself i am not sure it even makes sense for hardware like this. Good quality old PSU in good condition may be a good choice...

I know 650 is overkill but I don't find less than 550 from big brands, and even fewer with the 20+4 connector variant. I know there are adapters, but it all adds up.

As for good old PSU's: hard to know if they are good...my current old one works. That's all I know.

Suggestions for a better fitting high quality psu are welcome.

Gigabyte P450B? Cheaper, 3 molex + floppy...sounds good.

Some say the gigabyte psu will kill your pc...I don't know how much truth is in that bold statement.

Meanwhile: I have the cheapo IDE-to-sata adapter (that might have issues with my Via chipset...) and I found a sata drive. Is there any risk in testing this in my pc if I set the adapter as slave? (I mean technically, can this corrupt my C: drive or something; I'm not worried about the sata drive being virus infested or anything)

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-06-01, 07:42:

Gigabyte P450B? Cheaper, 3 molex + floppy...sounds good.

Likely fine. Gigabyte had some really really bad press regarding their power supplies and TBH i hate that company as a whole, but that issues were related to specific PSU exploding in specific (reproducible) conditions and them being what they are and selling it to as many people as they could in as many shady ways as possible. Their other PSUs are likely fine...

Even that PSU did not kill the load BTW, it just very spectacularly exploded, but the load was not damaged in the process so yeah, whole "will kill your PC" is wrong...

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-06-01, 17:06:

Meanwhile: I have the cheapo IDE-to-sata adapter (that might have issues with my Via chipset...) and I found a sata drive. Is there any risk in testing this in my pc if I set the adapter as slave? (I mean technically, can this corrupt my C: drive or something; I'm not worried about the sata drive being virus infested or anything)

Just use it on a separate channel altogether. This adapters often do not like being with other device on the same channel anyway (slave-master functionality is not always implemented at all or implemented correctly).

Honestly i've used a lot of this adapters and the worst i've seen is one refusing to work with specific controller or device. And even that is rare.

OK I'll try it on the second channel to see if it works at all. If it works, I might , for the time being, put the current IDE aside and do a full clean reinstall on the SATA disk to hopefully get rid of the weird gameport and left-channel-only issues. If it doesn't work out, I'll still have the current IDE drive ready to go.

The SATA drive works perfectly fine using the converter! So now I've got 60GB available.

So I've redone the whole PC on the SATA drive. 4GB for Windows, 26 for tools and 30 for games. Or something like that. I might order another SATA converter with my next Amazon order, and add a 40GB SATA as slave for backup purposes. As long as I don't stack more than 40GB on the 60GB disc, I should be able to make images of its 3 partitions on the 40GB drive.

After a full reinstall, the PC now boots and works very fast. The DOS audio problem is solved. Just the very weird gameport issue (see other thread) remains.

Next on the to do list: install a few more games (I had to start from zero again) and get the CD drives (DVD rom and CD writer) working in DOS. In other words: find out what to type in autoexec and config.sys.

Do verify that it is using maximum available mode and is not locked to UDMA33, i've seen that happen with some combinations of ide-sata adapters and controllers/motherboards.

Other than that yeah, they usually work great. And since from software side it still looks like IDE there are no compatibility issues with old OSs and it opens up a lot of possibilities with using pretty much any storage you want. IMO as long as it works it is much better than those IDE-SD or IDE-CF adapters...

I'll check the UDMA mode. Feels faster though.

Today I installed all the fans and one Voodoo 2. No passthrough cable but automatic external vga switch.

Everything works! A bit of the typical banding at 640, perfect (Voodoo2 perfect 😀) image at 800 and 1024. Super smooth framerate in NFS3 at 800x600, all maxed out.

I couldn't feel the 3dfx chips due to all the fans, but the ram chips and surrounding air feel very cold.

Next step is SLI setup.

And CD support in DOS, and 2.5" brackets, and cable management...

Update on the SATA hard drive: I did not find something related to UDMA mode in the BIOS. However in Windows device manager, I have enabled DMA for the hard drive. It is a lot faster now. I notice this especially when loading a 23MB soundfont in Creative SFBM when booting. So is this as good as it gets for the hard drive or am I still missing something?

You should be able to see which mode is used in IDE channel properties in device manager. Or may be i just remember it totally wrong and there is no such thing in 98. Honestly i have not messed with 98 past playing a few games for so long i forgot how stuff works and a bunch of things from various old windows versions are hopelessly mixed in my head...

In XP it looks like this: http://www.hdtune.com/enable_udma_2.png

In my W98 it looks quite different. Based on what I find in Google, the DMA checkbox is all there is.