How big is the partition on which you install Windows 98SE? It should not be the whole 200GB (without 3rd party patches). Keep it under 128GB. If not it could introduce data corruption and strange problems.

It's partitioned to be a 120GB drive using the standard fdisk found on the Windows 98se installation floppy (the one that asks to boot from CD or HDD).

"every time I put some files on the machine" this sounds suspicously like you moved the drive to another machine to copy those files. I presume you dont actually do that?

You are just copying from floppy or a network share?

I did that earlier. But recent 2 tries I installed the USB driver first and copied it from USB

Maybe a resource problem (IRQ/DMA) as you use 3 sound cards? Else (if there are no hardware issues) it could be a driver problem. Maybe try older/newer drivers. Also you could remove all (sound) cards and try adding one by one until you find the culprit.

What is the motherboard and bios version btw? Did you install chipset and USB drivers if so which versions?

Currently reinstalling Win98SE again. My plan was to keep it a fresh install and then test tomorrow by slowly placing files and installing each driver one by one. And removing the AWE first from device manager (as I don't plan on using it under Win98).
If it has issues tomorrow with a fresh install it's likely a hardware issue. Otherwise I'd probably at some point run into the file or driver that causes it. And if any of that is soundcard related I'll remove the soundcards and slowly reintroduce them in to the system. And if all drivers are successful it might be one of the games and test programs, but I doubt that as they shouldn't be ran on boot.

I had installed the USB drivers on all previous attempts when it got stuck but also other drivers, never installed chipset drivers.

Edit:
Finished installing. Nothing installed, not even USB drivers, a completely fresh install. Now get errors that it can't find the Windows CD, even when I directly point to the location on the CD (because I can browse to the location somehow). And due to that also get a few errors on startup missing files it wants to add, but can't find the disc or the files on the disc.

Many motherboard are unpredictable when using a physical drive larger than 137GB on an LBA28 controller. I think if you use a tool to artificially limit the drive's to 120GB, or use a drive with 137GB or less the problems will disappear.

If you have any CF cards or any other small drives capable of installing windows 98 (even if they may not be large enough to actually use) you can test the theory.

Yea, I have a 4gig CF card I could try, I'll try that later today. Also might have some <137GB HDD's, I'd need to check.

relo999 wrote on 2026-03-10, 12:44:

Yea, I have a 4gig CF card I could try, I'll try that later today. Also might have some <137GB HDD's, I'd need to check.

Or see if your hard drive has the jumper to limit it's capacity (as previously sugested) - many don't though,
Turn off any unused parallel and serial ports in the BIOS as well, in case it is a resource thing.
And also USB in case it's a buggy implementation?
Flash the latest BIOS?

Aureal Vortex 2 can be a pain on some mainboard, because of irq.
There are drivers to solve this on Phil's Computer Lab website.
The first thing I would do would be remove this card first, and see if it improve.

I would start with Just the motherboard and video card and see if it stays stable with minimum drivers \ testing software... then go from there and see where it chokes.

NeilKnows wrote on 2026-03-10, 14:06:

Or see if your hard drive has the jumper to limit it's capacity (as previously sugested) - many don't though, Turn off any unuse […]
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relo999 wrote on 2026-03-10, 12:44:

Yea, I have a 4gig CF card I could try, I'll try that later today. Also might have some <137GB HDD's, I'd need to check.

Or see if your hard drive has the jumper to limit it's capacity (as previously sugested) - many don't though,
Turn off any unused parallel and serial ports in the BIOS as well, in case it is a resource thing.
And also USB in case it's a buggy implementation?
Flash the latest BIOS?

Hard drive didn't have a limiter but I just noticed it's a 120GB drive.

Currently trying to install Win98se on the CF card, but formating that seems significantly slower than formating the HDD. I'd expected it to be much faster because it's only 4 gig. At this rate I suspect it would take multiple hours. If my calculations are correct it takes about ~7minutes to get 1% and it's currently at 4% so it would take 11 hours... Going to end that, reinstall on the 120GB drive and hopefully the bad install was a fluke and format the CF on my Win11 machine with FAT32. Didn't have a different IDE drive laying around, might need to look in some other PC's later.

I'm using the latest BIOS. And will try and see if turning off parallel, serial and USB things in bios solves anything.

nali wrote on 2026-03-10, 18:49:

Aureal Vortex 2 can be a pain on some mainboard, because of irq.
There are drivers to solve this on Phil's Computer Lab website.
The first thing I would do would be remove this card first, and see if it improve.

Already using phils drivers, and already tried without the Aureal vortex. But that sadly didn't solve it.

tomcattech wrote on 2026-03-10, 18:55:

I would start with Just the motherboard and video card and see if it stays stable with minimum drivers \ testing software... then go from there and see where it chokes.

That's what I've tried but often just installed the audio drivers and deamon tools right after. Latest install doesn't even recognize the windows CD though directly after installation, hopefully that's a fluke though.

Update:
Removed all audio cards, installation went fine and everything seemed to work. Added the Vortex card and installed it and now seems to work fine, somewhat of a hassle to install though so installed it manually. Only "Issue" with it that the Aureal Monster Sound II config program says it doesn't have the "Dirver" programs installed. The test programs from Aureal work fine. Later today will introduce the other card one by one and see what happens.

It was the soundcards conflicting.
Installed the Vortex first installing the drivers, then the ESS and the drivers, installed the AWE32 but not installed the drivers for it and now everything seems to work. Still need to find the drivers for the Monster II config program (it's not installed with the Monster sound II CD it seems), but the card works fine in the demo's.

Good news !
Why the "Monster II config program " ?
I just took a look at the doc, and it seems to be a generic config panel.
I suppose you already have one coming with your drivers.
Or is there anything else ?

Not sure, but I can't find any other config program. It's not a big deal, the only thing I might need it for is setting the type of audio output I have as I do sometimes switch between headphones and satellite speakers.

My bad, I immediatly thought about a Voodoo2, not a sound card 😀