Hi all. First I need to say that I haven't messed with Win98 in many years, so I can't recall much of this. Sorry for the long post, but details are necessary. 
I appreciate any info.
I went through HELL getting Win98SE drivers installed on a Biostar NF325-A7 mobo. (Not for me, it's for a customer). Once again I reaffirmed my belief that mobo manufacturers are insane, or, know absolutely NOTHING about English. Or, both. :disgust: First, when you put the CD, and then click "Drivers", it says "Scanning [blah blah].......", then NOTHING at all happens. The drivers are a bitch to install manually because they are in either cab files or those self-extracting Winzip executable files (which go to the Windows Temp folder, then are immediately deleted!!), and are in totally cryptic folders that have nothing to do with the mobo's model number! :frown: The PDF also allegedly says where the 9x drivers are, but that path is for.........WINDOWS XP!!!! [where is the banging head against the wall icon when you need it] LOL. And when you nav to that folder trying to get drivers installed, it says there are no drivers in that folder for the hardware!! Furthermore, the Ethernet drivers on the mobo's CD, were not even for the LAN on this mobo!!!! They were for "81xx" and this mobo has the 8201 chipset!! :beer:
After several hours of trial and error, and trying to get rid of "PCI Bridge" yellow marks in the DM, and the constant "New Hardware Wizard" for it even AFTER the yellow mark was gone.....finally no more yellow marks.
Now the first issue is I first installed those WRONG LAN drivers, and they installed without any complaint. When I remembered the mobo has the 8201 chipset, I then got the 98SE chipset drivers from Biostar and updated the Network adapter in the DM with the (supposedly) correctly drivers. I believe the first go 'round it said "Networking adapter", now it says "nVidia Nforce Networking controller". What I'm wondering about that, is neither one of them sound correct, but I'm not all that familiar with nVidia platforms. Is this correct? The "driver details" both times still say the same driver! That's the nVidia driver, I didn't make a note of any different M$ drivers for it, and there is a lot of those listed.
Prior to installing the Ethernet drivers, the LAN wasn't even listed in the DM, I would think that like all mobo's before drivers, it should have had a yellow mark next to a "LAN or Ethernet Adapter", but there was nothing there at all. Is that normal? Even more confusing is under "Network Adapters", instead there was, and STILL IS, "Dial-up Adapter"!! What is that doing there on a mobo with no modem, and with no PCI Modem card installed?? The driver loaded for it is pppmac.vxd from M$.
Also prior to installing them, the PC would boot in about 5 seconds. Now it takes about a minute!! Is that normal after installing LAN drivers? I remember a SLIGHT boot-up slowdown on XP after installing LAN drivers, but not that long of a wait. I disabled the LAN in the DM and that helped a lot, maybe about 10-15 seconds to boot now.
Another odd thing is in the DM under "System Devices", there are four "PCI standard host CPU bridge" entries, and two "PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge" entries. Are those normal?
Then under the "System Information" > Hardware resources > I/O there's a hundred or so "Alias of........." entries. Is that normal?
I'm concerned that those last two paragraphs above may be from all the driver installation problems I had.
UPDATED, the issue in this one paragraph is fixed: [Finally, the mobo refuses to recognize any USB flash drives. I put one in a USB port, and every time it pops up the "New Hardware Wizard" for a "USB 2.0" device, and regardless where the hell I tell it to look, it never finds any drivers. There are no more yellow marks in the DM, and the USB 2.0 ports are shown correctly in the DM (yes, USB 2.0 drivers were installed). So I can't understand why none will work]. I'm leaving that in, in the event anyone else has that problem.
I almost forgot, a WD740 Raptor is installed and no where in the DM or System Information do I see any mention of any SATA drive! It just says "Generic IDE disk". That can't be right.
Thanks for any help guys. Again, it's been so many years since I've installed '98 that I don't remember how things are supposed to behave.
I appreciate any info.I went through HELL getting Win98SE drivers installed on a Biostar NF325-A7 mobo. (Not for me, it's for a customer). Once again I reaffirmed my belief that mobo manufacturers are insane, or, know absolutely NOTHING about English. Or, both. :disgust: First, when you put the CD, and then click "Drivers", it says "Scanning [blah blah].......", then NOTHING at all happens. The drivers are a bitch to install manually because they are in either cab files or those self-extracting Winzip executable files (which go to the Windows Temp folder, then are immediately deleted!!), and are in totally cryptic folders that have nothing to do with the mobo's model number! :frown:
The PDF also allegedly says where the 9x drivers are, but that path is for.........WINDOWS XP!!!! [where is the banging head against the wall icon when you need it] LOL. And when you nav to that folder trying to get drivers installed, it says there are no drivers in that folder for the hardware!! Furthermore, the Ethernet drivers on the mobo's CD, were not even for the LAN on this mobo!!!! They were for "81xx" and this mobo has the 8201 chipset!! :beer:After several hours of trial and error, and trying to get rid of "PCI Bridge" yellow marks in the DM, and the constant "New Hardware Wizard" for it even AFTER the yellow mark was gone.....finally no more yellow marks.
Now the first issue is I first installed those WRONG LAN drivers, and they installed without any complaint. When I remembered the mobo has the 8201 chipset, I then got the 98SE chipset drivers from Biostar and updated the Network adapter in the DM with the (supposedly) correctly drivers. I believe the first go 'round it said "Networking adapter", now it says "nVidia Nforce Networking controller". What I'm wondering about that, is neither one of them sound correct, but I'm not all that familiar with nVidia platforms. Is this correct? The "driver details" both times still say the same driver! That's the nVidia driver, I didn't make a note of any different M$ drivers for it, and there is a lot of those listed.
Prior to installing the Ethernet drivers, the LAN wasn't even listed in the DM, I would think that like all mobo's before drivers, it should have had a yellow mark next to a "LAN or Ethernet Adapter", but there was nothing there at all. Is that normal? Even more confusing is under "Network Adapters", instead there was, and STILL IS, "Dial-up Adapter"!! What is that doing there on a mobo with no modem, and with no PCI Modem card installed?? The driver loaded for it is pppmac.vxd from M$.
Also prior to installing them, the PC would boot in about 5 seconds. Now it takes about a minute!! Is that normal after installing LAN drivers? I remember a SLIGHT boot-up slowdown on XP after installing LAN drivers, but not that long of a wait. I disabled the LAN in the DM and that helped a lot, maybe about 10-15 seconds to boot now.
Another odd thing is in the DM under "System Devices", there are four "PCI standard host CPU bridge" entries, and two "PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge" entries. Are those normal?
Then under the "System Information" > Hardware resources > I/O there's a hundred or so "Alias of........." entries. Is that normal?
I'm concerned that those last two paragraphs above may be from all the driver installation problems I had.
UPDATED, the issue in this one paragraph is fixed: [Finally, the mobo refuses to recognize any USB flash drives. I put one in a USB port, and every time it pops up the "New Hardware Wizard" for a "USB 2.0" device, and regardless where the hell I tell it to look, it never finds any drivers. There are no more yellow marks in the DM, and the USB 2.0 ports are shown correctly in the DM (yes, USB 2.0 drivers were installed). So I can't understand why none will work]. I'm leaving that in, in the event anyone else has that problem.
I almost forgot, a WD740 Raptor is installed and no where in the DM or System Information do I see any mention of any SATA drive! It just says "Generic IDE disk". That can't be right.
Thanks for any help guys. Again, it's been so many years since I've installed '98 that I don't remember how things are supposed to behave.
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