need help reviving old computer

[rock33]

I have an old AST Asentia M laptop p166 32 mg ram 1.6 gb hardrive. The system originally came with Win NT, but since I inherited it I wanted to install win 98 to take advantage of the USB port on the side. I reformatted the hard drive and started the install, however from the get go the graphics were crappy. I did the complete install, but it looks like it used a generic driver for the graphics, I did some research and it has a Cirrus Logic 7556 card in it. I looked around and could only find a driver for Win 95 (Cirrus no longer makes graphics cards and does not support them) Right now I am stuck at 640 x 480 and 16 colors. The 95 drivers do not work no matter what i do. Anybody have any ideas.....it is not a great machine but an old laptop is better than no laptop.....

 

[ojai00]

Wow, I tried a search and couldn't find anything. All I found were Windows95B and NT drivers. Good luck!

 

[jmagg]

May as well go with Win 95 operating system.

 

[rock33]

does anybody know if a way I can get these win 95 drivers to work for 98????? There has got to be someway around this.

 

[DaiShan]

the problem is hardware manufacturer's make drivers for specific hardware/os combinations. The laptop manufacturer knew this and loaded the OS accordingly, the only thing I can think of is to email the manufacturer asking them if they have the driver for 98.

 

[mee987]

have you tried going to install new drivers then choose from a list? you can probably just pick a similar model from the cirrus logic section and get it to work

 

[mee987]

forgot to say this -- there is a version of win95 that has usb support.... i think it is win95B OSR 2.1 (or something like that). you might be able to download the OSR 2.1 from the net if you already have win95b

 

[rock33]

The mfgr is AST....who is out of business so I cannot go that route, I have not tried all of the Cirrus Logic options in Windows, so that might be an option. I do not have a copy of Windows 95 so going that route is also a pain.....I am almost inclined to say heck with it and install linux. Is there a way to fool windows 98 and get it think it is win 95??????

 

[mee987]

I dont think that win98 is rejecting the driver because it knows it is made for win95, i think that the driver is incompatible with win98 altogether
most win95 drivers work fine in 98, but if some dont there is nothing you can do

 

[zetter]

There have been reports of the win95 drivers not even working correctly, try this one which is supposedly a working one (under 95 anyway, may work under 98 too)

 

[jmagg]

Im working with a Cirrus 5436 as we speak, on an old desktop. Its blowing chunks with everything ive tried. Zetter's driver looks promising. Good luck.

Also, make sure plug and play monitor is checked in display propertys>settings>advanced>monitors. I dont know if this applies to notebooks as ive never owned one. But worth a look.

 

[rock33]

problem is solved! The driver Zetter sent me to was the same one I had used before,however this one was not broken into 2 floppys. I downloaded this one and burned it onto a cd.....next thing you know it works just fine. Thanks to all who helped and to Zetter for the link to the driver!!!