Did you try moving it in a different PCI slot ?
Problems often happen with Win98 and network cards if they share Irq with other devices.

nali wrote on 2026-03-10, 17:40:

Did you try moving it in a different PCI slot ?
Problems often happen with Win98 and network cards if they share Irq with other devices.

Hi!
Unfortunately, it's a chip integrated into the motherboard, and the board only has one PCI-E slot, but I'll check the IRQ.

If the chip is integrated, I suppose it's a "modern" mainboard.
Maybe with also sound.
I would disable every integrated device in the bios, excepted the network card of course, to see if it makes a difference.

nali wrote on 2026-03-10, 18:01:

If the chip is integrated, I suppose it's a "modern" mainboard.
Maybe with also sound.
I would disable every integrated device in the bios, excepted the network card of course, to see if it makes a difference.

That's right, it's a modern motherboard with the Intel H81m chipset.
Also, I'll check the BIOS devices now to disable them.

There's definitely no conflict with other devices; it's the only device with IRQ 3. I think I'll have to look for a PCIe card with an older Realtek driver, because the one integrated into my motherboard is somewhat incompatible, even though Windows recognizes it.
Or maybe I'll install Windows 2000 and try installing it there jejeje.

Even if some drivers pretend to work, very often they don't in fact.
Maybe you could try to boot a Linux from Usb, just to make sure the card has no problem and really work.
For Win98, I have a basic Realteck 8139, and I had to try many drivers before I find one that really works.