A7N8X Deluxe & 98SE Problems !

[Rick]

I know this is a very Generic Question : But is anyone else having
problems using 98SE on this mainboard?

SYSTEM:

A7N8X Deluxe
98SE
2500+Barton
2 X Corsair CMX 2700
WD 80 HD
Radeon 9200 128 DDR
Lite On Burner
Lite On DVD/Cd Rom
Antec Case 350PSU

My main problems have been with IDE.
I have had very strange messages on boot about the IDE Dual
Controllers. My CD Rom only reads CDR's sometimes and others it will
lock up. The DVD player jumps and jitters. (Both CD ROM and DVD
players worked fine in other system.)
Sometimes system does not want to restart expecially after new
software installs.

It seems from most Ive read about this mainboard have been from very
satisfied people running WinXP. I cannot find much on 98SE users.

Thanks Much,
Rick

Thanks,
Rick

 

[callsignviper]

I know this is a very Generic Question : But is anyone else having
problems using 98SE on this mainboard?

SYSTEM:

A7N8X Deluxe
98SE
2500+Barton
2 X Corsair CMX 2700
WD 80 HD
Radeon 9200 128 DDR
Lite On Burner
Lite On DVD/Cd Rom
Antec Case 350PSU

My main problems have been with IDE.
I have had very strange messages on boot about the IDE Dual
Controllers. My CD Rom only reads CDR's sometimes and others it will
lock up. The DVD player jumps and jitters. (Both CD ROM and DVD
players worked fine in other system.)
Sometimes system does not want to restart expecially after new
software installs.

It seems from most Ive read about this mainboard have been from very
satisfied people running WinXP. I cannot find much on 98SE users.

I use Win98SE on Rev 1.04 and Rev 2.00 A7N8X Deluxe motherboards without any
of the problems you have described.

Can you describe the error messages in more detail so someone can give you
some ideas as to what the specific problems may be?

Do you have DMA enabled for all IDE devices?

After your Win98SE installation did you install the drivers from the
motherboard CD-Rom disk as recommended by the manual?

Have you installed the MS slow hard drive update for Win98SE?


--
callsignviper


The truth is out there. You just have to look in the right places and ask
the right questions.

 

[JBM]

I know this is a very Generic Question : But is anyone else having
problems using 98SE on this mainboard?

SYSTEM:

A7N8X Deluxe
98SE
2500+Barton
2 X Corsair CMX 2700
WD 80 HD
Radeon 9200 128 DDR
Lite On Burner
Lite On DVD/Cd Rom
Antec Case 350PSU

My main problems have been with IDE.
I have had very strange messages on boot about the IDE Dual
Controllers. My CD Rom only reads CDR's sometimes and others it will
lock up. The DVD player jumps and jitters. (Both CD ROM and DVD
players worked fine in other system.)
Sometimes system does not want to restart expecially after new
software installs.

It seems from most Ive read about this mainboard have been from very
satisfied people running WinXP. I cannot find much on 98SE users.

Thanks Much,
Rick

Thanks,
Rick

I'm running a dual boot with XP and 98 on a A7N8X
MB. I don't boot 98 much anymore but haven't noticed
any problems when I do.
What exactly do the strange messages say?
How much memory are you running?
Have you installed the latest chipset drivers?
and if so did you load the IDE drivers?
And did it ever work with your current setup?

 

[Pug]

How much memory are you using, over 256Mb causes problems with 98se.

Pug

 

[Rick]

What exactly do the strange messages say?

It sounded so rediculous I wish I could remember exactly what the one
said. Something about the Dual IDE Controller - that I should check
with the Hardware Manufacturer. And something to do with "kids".
{I was relunctant to mention that - sounds crazy.) I wish I would have
written that one down.

How much memory are you running?

512 MB PC2700

Have you installed the latest chipset drivers?

I just installed from the CD that came with the Mainboard.

and if so did you load the IDE drivers?

I assumed the IDE Drivers were with the NForce2 driver selection on
the CD.

And did it ever work with your current setup?

I worked with it all day Saturday and it seemed to be running pretty
good. And then My CD Rom drive was having a hard time reading my CD'Rs
(Locking up at times.) and my DVD player was acting up again.

 

[dino]

I ran Win98SE with 512 pc3200..had no issues at all...everything ran great
and read fine..I am disappointed in the performance loss for gaming in XP
but love the stability way better..and I used the Nvidia drivers from there
website.Also did you do a clean format when you built this?

 

[JBM]

It sounded so rediculous I wish I could remember exactly what the one
said. Something about the Dual IDE Controller - that I should check
with the Hardware Manufacturer. And something to do with "kids".
{I was relunctant to mention that - sounds crazy.) I wish I would have
written that one down.

512 MB PC2700

I just installed from the CD that came with the Mainboard.

I assumed the IDE Drivers were with the NForce2 driver selection on
the CD.

I worked with it all day Saturday and it seemed to be running pretty
good. And then My CD Rom drive was having a hard time reading my CD'Rs
(Locking up at times.) and my DVD player was acting up again.

I would remove the nforce chipset drivers and reinstall
the latest one for 98 from NVIDIA's site.

 

[Rick]

I ran Win98SE with 512 pc3200..had no issues at all...everything ran great
and read fine..I am disappointed in the performance loss for gaming in XP
but love the stability way better..and I used the Nvidia drivers from there
website.Also did you do a clean format when you built this?

Yes, I did a clean install -- will go to NVidias site and try their
drivers.

Thanks very much !

 

[mrdancer]

How much memory are you using, over 256Mb causes problems with 98se.

No, Win98SE is good up to 512mb RAM. Beyond that point, you need to insert
the following in the system.ini file:

[vcache]
MaxFileCache=512000

Note that 512000 is a general number. You can use anything up to 524,XXX
(XXX being whatever the binary numbers work out to), but it's just as easy
to throw 512000 in there.

I'm using a Win98SE system that runs happily with 768mb RAM.

 

[Chris R]

Hello Rick - if you find a solution to this problem could you please
post what you did? I'm recieving I very similar setup in the mail and
plan to use Win98SE and would really appreciate it! Thanks and hope it
works out.

 

[dino]

you may have to point the ide drivers in the direction of the nvidia
folder..I believe I had to do that also..after installing the unified
drivers..I also had one install on a friends system that was corrupted right
off of the start(98SE)...confused me..thought it was a bad board..had to do
a re-install and he is fine now.

 

[mrdancer]

I ran Win98SE with 512 pc3200..had no issues at all...everything ran great
and read fine..I am disappointed in the performance loss for gaming in XP
but love the stability way better..and I used the Nvidia drivers from there
website.Also did you do a clean format when you built this?

Win98SE can be made to run very stable (I think my XP box crashes as much as
my 98SE box, which is not very often!).
It's mostly a matter of tweaking the memory settings in Win98SE and keeping
the registry clean. See http://www.aumha.org/ for some excellent tips.

It doesn't hurt to boot to DOS every once in a while and delete the
index.dat file, as it can sometimes screw up the OS. It will automatically
be rebuilt next time you boot into Windows.
Also, check out Fred Langa's excellent little DOS utility to help with
computer housecleaning, called cleanall.bat. Find it here:
http://www.langa.com/cleanall_bat.htm

Here're some other tips:
http://www.dougknox.com/index.html
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp.htm

 

[Rick]

I know this is a very Generic Question : But is anyone else having
problems using 98SE on this mainboard?

Just wanted to say thanks to all for the help.
I may have had a bad install of 98SE -- I did another clean install of
98SE and this time I went to the NVidia site for the NForce Drivers.

All is well so far !

Thanks Again,
Rick

 

[Scarletdown]

How much memory are you using, over 256Mb causes problems with
98se.

No, Win98SE is good up to 512mb RAM. Beyond that point, you
need to insert the following in the system.ini file:

[vcache]
MaxFileCache=512000

Note that 512000 is a general number. You can use anything up
to 524,XXX (XXX being whatever the binary numbers work out to),
but it's just as easy to throw 512000 in there.

I'm using a Win98SE system that runs happily with 768mb RAM.

Thanks for that tip. I tried it out last night, then plugged in a
256MB PC3200 DIMM to bring me up to 768MB, and I now no longer get
freeze-ups and random crashes. Now I just need to figure out how to
get the memory to run at 200MHz. During bootup, the info shows 166,
despite both DIMMs being PC3200...

 

[Ed]

How much memory are you using, over 256Mb causes problems with
98se.

No, Win98SE is good up to 512mb RAM. Beyond that point, you
need to insert the following in the system.ini file:

[vcache]
MaxFileCache=512000

Note that 512000 is a general number. You can use anything up
to 524,XXX (XXX being whatever the binary numbers work out to),
but it's just as easy to throw 512000 in there.

I'm using a Win98SE system that runs happily with 768mb RAM.

Thanks for that tip. I tried it out last night, then plugged in a
256MB PC3200 DIMM to bring me up to 768MB, and I now no longer get
freeze-ups and random crashes. Now I just need to figure out how to
get the memory to run at 200MHz. During bootup, the info shows 166,
despite both DIMMs being PC3200...

Sounds like you have FSB at 166 with memory at 100%, try memory at Auto
or SPD, but I think most of us would agree it's better to set the FSB to
200, ram to 100% and lower the CPU multiplier (if unlocked) to get CPU
back to it's normal speed is so desired.

Ed