Question on Asus P3W

[pfell]

Has anyone had good / bad experiences with the P3W (not the P3W-E).

Intel 810 chipset, so built-in video and sound
no AGP slot

One is available to me for a very minor sum of money. I am looking at building a box for my 12-yr old daughter. So she would want to work on school projects, use internet, etc. She is not a big gamer at all.

I have a Celeron 400, slocket, 64Mb PC100 SDRAM, 6.4Gb 7200 RPM drive, 36X CD-ROM, old monitor, network card and el-cheapo ATX case & 250W power supply already for the project...but am looking for, I figure, an all-in-one board to complete.

 

[AndyHui]

It's a reliable board that will do exactly what you want it to do.

Be aware that the P3W is a Slot 1 board.

 

[pfell]

Well, I got the P3W

Flashed latest bios from Asus site (1014 if I recall correctly).

Downloaded latest Asus drivers for Video and Audio and also Intel drivers for Video, INF, ATA66.

Installed in new ATX case. 300W power supply, 64Mb PC100 (to start), board, Celeron 400, No-name Slotket, 6.4Gb Quantum 7200, 36x CD-ROM.

Installed Win98SE.

The fun began.

It seems the Asus video driver has a problem.....Win98 will not boot with that driver. Tried the Intel one. Seemed to work. Installed Intel INF updater. Installed Asus audio driver (SoundMAX).

Win98 would not shut down. Noticed control panel said ACPI not working. Mucked about, checking bios and trying to force ACPI 1 in control panel. Finally installed ACPI bios manually in install new hardware. Said did not match hardware...but at this point. Seemed to work except forced video back to stock PCI VGA. Re-installed Intel video driver. Seemed to be holding steady.

Added a LAN card (Realtek based AOpen). Devil of a time to get it to recognize the card. Every reboot and it is trying to re-install and this is after I have managed to get system to recognize the card.

Tried re-installing INF update. Ooops there goes the video driver again...back to PCI VGA. Re-intstall video driver.

Oops now I seem to have 3 copies of the NIC installed in networking. Remove them all plus all other networking components to start over and.......and...he he....there goes that darn video driver again.

Anyway, you all get the picture. The sequence may not be 100% here but the intent is.

Does anyone have a good solid recommendation on what drivers work well with the P3W....how to get it to recognize ACPI correctly and perhaps sequence for install?

In interim I am going to stick I think with Intel versions....at least they allowed Windows to boot.....perhaps downloading zip versions rather than exe versions and exploding them to a CDR prior to OS install...then wipe and try over.

I may just put that AOpen NIC card under the rear wheel of my wife's car before she leaves the house tomorrow.

 

[AndyHui]

You must install the items in this order, with the latest versions from Intel:

Intel Chipset Inf Drivers, version 4.00.1011

Intel i810 Integrated i740 Graphics Driver version PV6.6

It is not really a good idea to install the Intel Application Accelerators under Win98. They are great under Win2K, but can cause problems in Win98.

If you wish to have ACPI support under Win98, you must install Windows using the following command line:

setup /p j

 

[pfell]

Thanks....shall try your suggestions.