• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

What would be a better operating system for this almost-retro PC?

H

hunterjwizzard

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 21, 2020
Messages
846
I have this system that's not living up to its potential. The motherboard is an Intel D865PERL equipped with a 3.2ghz Pentium IV, one of the fastest single-core CPUs ever made. It supports DDR1 RAM in 4 slots, AGP, and plenty of PCI slots. I currently have 512 RAM in it for win98SE. The graphics card is a Geforce 6800, also one of the faster AGP cards out there.

The motherboard and GPU have full driver support for windows98se, which I currently have installed. But it doesn't seem to run '98 "quite right". I went through several blue screens getting it installed, and now its unstable. Also Daemon Tools freezes this system, no idea why. Some games I've tried(like Diablo II) do not work. All in all its just an unstable system on '98.

So.

What's a better choice for the OS?

XP is right out. I already have an XP machine that is infinitely faster. 2k is a contender, but is there really anything win2k does that is not covered by '98 or XP? I am tempted to try WindowsME because I might be a closeted masochist. Open to suggestions. At present the machine is running on an new old stock 80gb IDE hard drive, but I have one more CF adapter and I am tempted to convert. Getting files onto this machine has always been a PITA.
 
Win98SE is the best overall OS for that system. If 98SE is unstable, Me would be even less stable.

Have you checked the VRM capacitors? Those seem to have been a common source of instability which would probably be worse with the power hungry 3.2 ghz chips.
 
Its only unstable under win98SE. When I use Windows 2000 SP4 or XP on it, it runs like a champ.

It might be worth trying the install again on an SD card. The hard drive is knew old stock, but still VERY old.
 
Wiz:
I have an Intel mobo and a P4 which I used to run with XP and maybe I even gave 2K a shot a long while back. I never tried 98SE on it. The whole setup is in pristine condition and has been put away in the original packaging. I'm a bit reluctant to drag it out at this time as I have several gaming projects in the works. I got the whole lash-up from my IT son and he only used it once and didn't like the heat from the P4.

So, I just got off the phone with my son and he seems to recall using 98 on that system. Your problem leaves me to wonder if you may be encountering some driver issues. If you have a garden variety video card, you may want to try that with the installation. Also, it would be prudent to wring out your RAM, as 98 is a little more intensive than 95 or 3.1. Good luck with your project.
 
It is certainly worth running the RAM through a memtest.

Drivers were downloaded from Intel, but I could try and see if the original driver disk can be had on Archive.org

What gets more garden variety than a Geforce 6800? I suspect every other AGP card in my collection is in some ways more exotic. I do have an AGP-era Quatro I could try, though that's installed in a machine I've been robbing for parts.
 
Playing DOS games on a 3ghz P4 must be fun.

I needed an image of a basic XP install for an unrelated project, so I am tossing XP on there for now. Going to try and image it to a CF card(never ran XP off of CF, should be interesting). While I have it booted I'll do a stress test and run memtest, that should rule out an hardware issues.
 
Windows XP is "period correct" for your system. Windows 2000 is also a good choice and will run a bit better with only 512MB RAM.

The NT line is always going to be more stable than 9x, where one buggy VXD can take down everything.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Must be--I've never done it. :)
Click to expand...

Plasma said:
Windows XP is "period correct" for your system. Windows 2000 is also a good choice and will run a bit better with only 512MB RAM.

The NT line is always going to be more stable than 9x, where one buggy VXD can take down everything.
Click to expand...

I have oddles more RAM if I want it. This machine used to have 4x1gb sticks(though it can only "see" 3.25). I may bit the bullet and load up 2k w/3gb of RAM later. It definitely ran better. Just muling this over - any software I have that won't run on 2k will run on '98 and probably doesn't need the extra "oomf". ANd anything later I've got that badass XP machine for. Might as well embrace it. This will be my dedicated Windows2000 machine. 2k has always held a special place in my heart.
 
Windows 7 - 32 bits. Better and faster than XP and still able to handle the older 16-bits programs like Turbo Pascal.
 
Ruud said:
Windows 7 - 32 bits. Better and faster than XP and still able to handle the older 16-bits programs like Turbo Pascal.
Click to expand...
I have MUCH faster systems for win7. Then again, it would definitely be fun for a go. I can change OSs like changing pants on this box.

Caluser2000 said:
Define better OS please. There are quite a few you can muck around with on that system....
Click to expand...
I suppose I could better rephrase the question. What would be a fun OS to muck about with on this system?
 
Have any of you ever tried to run Windows XP from a CF card? The stress test maxed out at 8.8mbp/s. I'm seeing better speeds on a straight speed test, but so far XP does not seem to be thrilled with its new home.
 
I've got NT4, 2K and XP installed on CFs. Not fast, but usable, once it gets booted up. However, be aware that the XP installer doesn't like CFs that identify as "removable". And even if you get it installed, it won't put the swap file on CF. However, there are a couple of hacks to get around that.
 
AROS http://www.aros.org/ would be my first pick. It is the Amiga desktop environment for more modern x86 systems. It is very well executed IMHO.

32-bit Linux Mint Debian Edition 6 or just plain Debain or one of the various BSDs.. TinyCore Linux with the 5.x kernal will run fine. I installed 32-bit Debian 11 in low mem mode on a P3 with 256megs of ram without any issues. Just disable video compositing on old systems and Xwindows speeds up dramatically.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top