Oh man, oh man. I built 2 systems in the summer with a via apollo chipset. I don't remember whether or not i installed them. What do they do? BTW, they have win98 2nd ed. Also, one has some problems with shutting down (it hangs on the screen before), and it ALWAYS freezes when burning a CD with adaptec. Thanks.
Do I NEED to install my VIA 4-in-1 drivers?
- Thread starter Alansan
- Start date
Mem
Lifer
- Apr 23, 2000
- 21,476
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The Via drivers 4 in 1 should be the first thing installed,this from Viahardware.com
<< VIA has been offering their 4-in-1 driver for quite some time now. It is designed to solve all compatibility problems with Microsoft OS's and VIA chipsets. As MS has traditionally provided very little support for third party chipsets, the chipset manufacturers must provide their own patches.
The VIA 4-in-1 is updated regularly, as bugs are found and performance is tweaked. It is recommended you install the latest 4-in-1 >>
You can get them from
here
<< VIA has been offering their 4-in-1 driver for quite some time now. It is designed to solve all compatibility problems with Microsoft OS's and VIA chipsets. As MS has traditionally provided very little support for third party chipsets, the chipset manufacturers must provide their own patches.
The VIA 4-in-1 is updated regularly, as bugs are found and performance is tweaked. It is recommended you install the latest 4-in-1 >>
You can get them from
here
I haven't noticed the slightest difference with them installed. what differences do you all see? Is it only for VIA boards?
<< I haven't noticed the slightest difference with them installed. what differences do you all see? Is it only for VIA boards? >>
Riverhound, you are correct. There are no great performance gains when the 4 in 1's are installed. In fact, the only VIA driver necessary with 98SE or 2000 installed is the AGP driver.
I have done much research on the subject, as I build/configure/upgrade systems for a living, and have found that in many cases installing the 4 in 1's in 98SE & 2000 actually cause more problems such as BSOD's and errors than installing the AGP driver alone. Many people consider the 4 in 1's a "cure all" for many issues, and always reply to troubleshooting posts with the first question asked, "did you install the 4 in 1's?" I build/configure, and sell many VIA chipset systems, and I have very few customer complaints. When I do have a complaint, it is not because of the 4 in 1's not being installed. I take great pride in my work, and if installing the complete 4 in 1's made that much of a performance/stability difference, I would install them.
I am in the process of compiling performance/stability statistics between many different type VIA chipset mainboards in my spare time. I will post the completed results soon, but as I have stated many times on this and other forums, the most stable/best performing VIA chipset systems I have configured only have the AGP driver in Turbo mode installed.
Take my current primary A7V133 system for example. My benchmarks, and more importantly Content Creation Winstone 2000 score very high, and I have yet to have a BSOD or any problems with only the AGP driver installed. If anyone with a setup with the same specs as mine with the 4 in 1 's installed would like to compare system performance, I would be happy to share my results.
In many cases, installing the 4 in 1's do not cause problems. In some cases they have and do. But as far as these touted performance increases.. I have yet to see them, and I work at this 10-12 hours a day.
Alansan,
I am guessing you have a variant of SB Live card in your system? Seems like most people's DVD/CDR drives (with DMA) start acting up when the SB Live drivers are installed. Common recommendation has been to disable SB 16 Emulation and reseating the card on different slots. But I have had no luck whatsoever with these recommendation. The only solution I have so far is to either disable DMA (reduced performance), disable soundcard in general (no sound
), or reinstall VIA's IDE Bus Master manually and pick the Miniport version instead of the VxD version (VxD version is automatically installed in the 4in1). The Miniport version will allow everything to work, but HD Tach benchmark reports a slight CPU overhead (an increase from from 6% for VxD to 18% for Miniport) during HD access and a slight reduce in read burst rate (from 72 down to 64 Mbs).
BTW...what motherboard do you have?
I am guessing you have a variant of SB Live card in your system? Seems like most people's DVD/CDR drives (with DMA) start acting up when the SB Live drivers are installed. Common recommendation has been to disable SB 16 Emulation and reseating the card on different slots. But I have had no luck whatsoever with these recommendation. The only solution I have so far is to either disable DMA (reduced performance), disable soundcard in general (no sound
), or reinstall VIA's IDE Bus Master manually and pick the Miniport version instead of the VxD version (VxD version is automatically installed in the 4in1). The Miniport version will allow everything to work, but HD Tach benchmark reports a slight CPU overhead (an increase from from 6% for VxD to 18% for Miniport) during HD access and a slight reduce in read burst rate (from 72 down to 64 Mbs).BTW...what motherboard do you have?
Just as Technonut says, Via 4in1 might not be necessary with Win98SE. Quote from my Abit KT7 driver disk readme:
'"VIA Service Pack" includes Windows 95/98, Windows NT IDE busmaster driver, IRQ routing driver, VIA ACPI Registry and VIA AGP Driver. If you are using Windows 98 SE, you do not need to install the 4-in-1 driver as the IRQ Routing Driver and the ACPI Registry are already incorporated into the operating system. Users with Windows 98 SE may update the IDE Busmaster and AGP drivers by installing them individually.'
On the other hand, updating to newer versions of the Win98 drivers isn't necessarily be a bad thing, I guess...
'"VIA Service Pack" includes Windows 95/98, Windows NT IDE busmaster driver, IRQ routing driver, VIA ACPI Registry and VIA AGP Driver. If you are using Windows 98 SE, you do not need to install the 4-in-1 driver as the IRQ Routing Driver and the ACPI Registry are already incorporated into the operating system. Users with Windows 98 SE may update the IDE Busmaster and AGP drivers by installing them individually.'
On the other hand, updating to newer versions of the Win98 drivers isn't necessarily be a bad thing, I guess...
dennilfloss
Past Lifer 1957-2014 In Memoriam
dennilfloss
Past Lifer 1957-2014 In Memoriam
dennilfloss, With Win98FE, the 4 in 1's are required. It has been awhile since I have configured 98FE systems, but when I did, the 4 in 1's were installed, followed by the VIA PCI Bridge Patch.
ctk9090, I have not used an MSI Turbo at this time. I was one of the unlucky people that received one of the Pro2A's that had some issues, including the problem with setting/retaining multiplier adjustments, so I have been "waiting in the wing" to see if the same issue would occur on the Turbo. It seems that is has in some cases. To be fair, I did receive another Pro2A from a customer as a trade in recently, and it worked fine, including the multiplier adjustments. To answer your question though, I have configured the ABIT KT7A, KT7AR, and ASUS A7V133 with only the AGP driver with fine results. I would setup the MSI Turbo the same way if I had a request to do a customer build with that mainboard if using 98SE or 2000.
In the next few weeks, I plan on receiving a quantity of IWill KK266's, and other KT133A boards to test. I will post my results if forum members are interested. When I test systems, I test them loaded with business software, utilities, benchmarks, games, antivirus programs, and firewalls installed. This gives me clear "real world" results, instead of just throwing on an OS, and a couple of benchmarks and games.
ctk9090, I have not used an MSI Turbo at this time. I was one of the unlucky people that received one of the Pro2A's that had some issues, including the problem with setting/retaining multiplier adjustments, so I have been "waiting in the wing" to see if the same issue would occur on the Turbo. It seems that is has in some cases. To be fair, I did receive another Pro2A from a customer as a trade in recently, and it worked fine, including the multiplier adjustments. To answer your question though, I have configured the ABIT KT7A, KT7AR, and ASUS A7V133 with only the AGP driver with fine results. I would setup the MSI Turbo the same way if I had a request to do a customer build with that mainboard if using 98SE or 2000.
In the next few weeks, I plan on receiving a quantity of IWill KK266's, and other KT133A boards to test. I will post my results if forum members are interested. When I test systems, I test them loaded with business software, utilities, benchmarks, games, antivirus programs, and firewalls installed. This gives me clear "real world" results, instead of just throwing on an OS, and a couple of benchmarks and games.
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