I have been asked by a Manufacturing firm to come up with a new computer spec to replace their old machines.

They need to machines to run Windows 98 SE and Win2000 (dual boot). They want a fast machine (both Graphics and Processor) for CAD work which runs on both Win9x. They stressed they want it to have the least amount of compatibility problems as they have tried running Win98 on new machines and have had lots of problems.

I was thinking along the lines of:

CPU: Pentium 4 650 - 3.40GHz (HyperThreading will have to be turned off in the BIOS settings)


MOTHERBOARD: ASUS P5PE-WM (865G Chipset, AGP 8)
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&...amp;modelmenu=1


HARD DISKS: 2 x 120GB ATA130 Drives (I know there is a solution to the 137GB problem but I don't wont to risk it in a business environment)


GRAPHICS CARD: nVIDIA 6800 (Quadro doesn't support Win9x) or a ATI Raedon 9800


SOUND CARD: SoundBlaster Audigy 2Z or maybe just a SoundBlaster Live (then again the onboard sound is probably up to the task)


add a DL DVD Burner and a Floppy Disk drive and they should be set.



Thoughts?

Oosps I forgot another important part.

How much RAM should I use.

I know Windows98 can in theory support upto 1GB with a few system setting tweaks, but remember the prime importance of my mission is an enterprise stable system.

Would 768MB be a good compromise?

Since these are to be enterprise machines, and the work doesn't involve any music, I would stick with the on-board sound card.

I don't know how much resources CAD programs need. You'll have to use your best judgment for that.

By the way, why a Pentium 4? AMD processors are cheaper, and are just as good. Word has it that for games, which are graphically intensive, they are even better. Since CAD is graphical work, maybe...

Seconded. Use AMD. Great results here with a 3100+ Sempron, but you can go higher if you wish :-) But take plenty of time thinking about motherboard. Critical and key decision folks.

1GB memory used. No problems with various tips on this Group and mdgx.com.

Beware of /possible/ shutdown problems with Nvidia. Usually possible to fix, though; e.g. cut out nvcpl and services. I take issue with need for 6800 unless you really want high-end games. Hey, it's for office use, right? ;-) I use 6200 with passive heatsink (quiet). But don't use a "TC" or turbo charged one. A 6200 is more than adequate for office work, DVDs and a fair number of games, including Flight Simulator. And much lower price of course. ATI has gotten strong recommendations by this group, and has no shutdown problems AFAIK. See other postings by this group. HTH.

There goes the high performance part.

Well unfortunately Hyperthreading is not supported on Win9x.

2ndly, a good graphics accelerator is important as the CAD program uses OpenGL acceleration for rendering onscreen models.

I would consider AMD but have no idea of compatible motherboards, processors or chipsets. Any suggestions?

Well I use Nforce 2 which is ok even on Vista.
The only thing is, the videocards are only good till ATI 9800 then thats it, no X1950pro agp or x850xt pe either.
Also no games. I think Halo is where it ends. You cant run any new software on 98 anymore.
I would like to hang on to 98SE too but its hopeless.
Things like google maps and myspace players kill 98 in no time.
I'm also wondering what to do myself, I'm running Vista which is pretty good.
I would say via kt600 or kt880 or a nforce 2 board will do but you kickin a dead horse

Thanks for the Chipsets

Fortunately they don't want it to run the latest software, just existing legacy CAD programs they have.

And anyone familiar with 3D CAD will know you can never have enough CPU, RAM and Graphics Acceleration.

So building a top of the line Win9x system should see a nice jump in performance over the Pentium III, 256MB RAM systems they are using now.

This leads me to compile a list of compatible processors with Win9x

The basics are:
- Multiple CPU's are not supported.
- Hyperthreading isn't supported but can be turned off in the bios.
- Dual Core is not supported. Only one CPU core is detected making it a waste of money.



CPU's that are compatible with Windows 98

INTEL

486
Pentium
Pentium MMX
Pentium Pro
Pentium II
Pentium III
Pentium III processor Extreme Edition
Pentium 4
Pentium 4 supporting Hyper-Threading Technology - Must Disable Hyperthreading in the BIOS
Intel® Pentium® 4 processor Extreme Edition supporting Hyper-Threading Technology - Must Disable Hyperthreading in the BIOS

Celeron (Covington - PII)
Celeron (Mendocino - PII)
Celeron II (Coppermine-128 -PIII)
Celeron II (Tualatin-256 - PIII)
Celeron 4 (Willamette-128 -P4)
Celeron 4 (Northwood-128 - P4)
Celeron D (Prescott-256 - P4)
Celeron D (Cedar Mill-512 - P4)

Pentium II Xeon
Pentium III Xeon
Xeon
Xeon supporting Hyper-Threading Technology - Must Disable Hyperthreading in the BIOS
Xeon MP (32-bit) supporting Hyper-Threading Technology - Must Disable Hyperthreading in the BIOS
Xeon MP (64-bit) supporting Hyper-Threading Technology - Must Disable Hyperthreading in the BIOS


AMD
K5
NexGen K6
NexGen K6-II
Athlon (K7)
Athlon XP (K7)
Athlon 64 (K8)
Athlon 64 FX (K8) (MAX = FX-57 - 2800 MHz)


Duron "Spitfire" (Model 3, 180 nm)
Duron "Morgan" (Model 7, 180 nm)
Duron "Applebred" (Model 8, 130 nm)
Sempron - Thoroughbred B/Thorton (130 nm) Socket A
Sempron - Barton (130 nm) Socket A
Sempron - Paris (130 nm SOI) Socket 754
Sempron - Palermo (90 nm SOI) Socket 754
Sempron - Palermo (90 nm SOI) Socket 939
Sempron - Manila (90 nm SOI) Socket AM2

Operton K8



CYRIX
Cx5x86
6x86
6x86L
6x86MX
6x86MII
MediaGX








CPU's to avoid with Windows 98
Intel Pentium D - May work but one of the processor cores will not be available
Intel Core 2 Duo - May work but one of the processor cores will not be available
Intel Core 4 Duo - May work but three of the processor cores will not be available
Intel Xeon Dual Core - May work but one of the processor cores will not be available
Intel Xeon Quad Core - May work but three of the processor cores will not be available

AMD Athlon 64 FX - (FX-60 - 2600 MHz and above) May work but one of the processor cores will not be available
AMD Athlon 64 X2 - May work but one of the processor cores will not be available







Win98 COMPATIBLE MOTHERBOARDS

ASUS P5PE-WM (865G Chipset, AGP 8) Supports: Intel® Core2 Duo/65nm Pentium D/Pentium 4/Celeron CPU

Gigabyte GA-8I865PE775-G-RH (Northbridge: Intel® 865G/865PE Express Chipset) Supports: Intel® Pentium® 4 /Pentium® D Processor

What is the Fastest Win98 Processors?


Intel Pentium 4 660 3.6 GHz
Intel Pentium 4 3.73Ghz Extreme Edition
Intel Xeon 3.6 GHz



AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2400 MHz L2 - 512 KiB
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (E6) 2400 MHz L2 - 1024 KiB


The biggest problem I could foresee was that these chips might require a specific Chipset, that is not compatible with Windows 98 ?????
Based on Win98's shaky support of PCI-E, you would need a board that supports AGP 8

Alright I am basically going to recommend this system.

The 2nd Hard Disk will allow the Swap file to be placed on a separate drive than the Windows and Program installations increasing performance. With big renders there is often a lot of Swap file activity.

(Prices from http://www.centrecom.com.au. Links give further product details)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Asus P5PE-VM motherboard - $81.40
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/produc...oducts_id=19619

Intel PENTIUM 4 651/ 3.4GHZ/ 2MB CACHE/ 800FSB/ LGA775 - $134.20
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/produc...oducts_id=22182

Corsair DDR 1GB PC-3200 Value Select RAM (VS1GB400C3) - $128.70

Seagate Barracuda 80Gb 7200 rpm Hard Disk - $54.90

Seagate Barracuda 80Gb 7200 rpm Hard Disk - $54.90

ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 256Mb (AGP) - $90.20

LG GSA-H10NBB DVD Re-Writer (16x/Dual Layer Beige) - $43.00

1.44Mb Floppy Disk Drive (Beige) - $15

ATX Midi Case H306 (500W) - $40

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total: $643 (Australian $ incl GST = Aprox $480 US)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not a bad price or a top notch Windows98 system.



Basically I will just disable HyperThreading in the Bios and will enact option 2 & 3 (below) to be sure, to be sure!







If it wasn't a 'business' computer I would have gone for 2GB of RAM and just carried out step 2 and given it a try as there have been a few people who have had success with more than 1GB.

But anyhows.....

Wow, I'm exited!

This Win98 beast should fly!!!

Just to be sure I would build one system first with those specs to test everything out on before buying the parts to build lots of them. Just one mans opinion.

Would you like the new system to really fly?

1GB is an enormous amount of RAM for Win98 and far more than it knows how to deal with properly, in my experience.

I suggest that you experiment with a monster RAM drive (768+MB) and use it for temp files, swap file, all of Win98 and as much of the CAD software as possible (the last two on compressed drives) and omit the second hard drive.

Running Win98 and apps entirely from RAM is amazing and you do not need anything like 1GB to give it a try.

Yep I'll indefinitely test the system before I fullfill the entire order.

2ndly, I just wonder if the power of a Xeon would be utilised enough on Win98 to be worth the extra expense. I know it they were using Win2000 or XP I'd be recommending one.

3rdly - RAM drive you say. As in allocating some of the system RAM to create a virtual drive, or buy a dedicated storage device that uses RAM chips instead of a hard disk? Can you tell me more or point me in the right direction to learn more about this.

Where's the AMD Athlon XP on your list of processors?

with the list of processors,
what about 386 thats the bottom processor supported because its the first 32bit cpu
all you dont have to always disable hyper-threading in the bios for p4's i didnt when i tried 98se on a p4 2.8 on an intel board

As far as I can tell, GeForce 6800 Ultra (AGP 8X) would work with Windows 98SE quite well. To be honest, though, I'm still using a 6600GT in WinXP. I have heard of problems with Windows 98SE and RAM sizes larger than 512MB, so I would limit myself to that. My recommendations are the following:

Athlon XP 3200+
NForce2 Motherboard
GeForce 6800 Ultra
512MB of PC3200 RAM
120GB IDE Hard Disk

Ironically, this is similar to the machine I currently use for XP. I apparently chose components that weren't outside 98Se's range, without realizing it.

Wrong, unless it's NT-based, because UPDATE.SYS of Windows 9x don't support AMDs!

When I tested graphics performance with 3D Mark 2001 SE, ALWAYS slower than with Windows 2000 and XP on AMD!

That gives me a performance idea for at least Direct3D performance.

With CAD, you can easily be SOL if the drivers don't support Quadro.

There's a major gap between Windows 9x and Windows 2000 and XP with AMD systems.

Between the two, was an alarming FPS drop with Windows 98 SE.

With AMD, you're SOL, because Microsoft didn't add AMD support to UPDATE.SYS, AFAIK!


Also, beware of possible reboots with nForce chipsets.

Also, you may get nothing else but a black screen after installing the video drivers, especially with ATIs on nForce chipsets



But the performance issues may be less severe with Via chipsets.

With AMD, Via chipsets likely are the best chipsets for Windows 9x

nForce2 sucks with Windows 9x!
I know, because I tested it on my Asus A7N8X-X and the benchmarks were degraded noticably!

I can't trust it with nForce2. I lost at least close to 10 FPS in 3D Mark 2001 SE!

nFarce2 (/sarcasam) sucked in everything, not just win9x. I'd give SiS chipsets a go as well. I've had very good luck with them in 9x/NT4 vs Intel and Via chipsets.

On a second note i'd seriously talk the folks into getting newer (and possibly better) software that would support at LEAST Windows 2000. You'd be less prone to losing data due to a random BSOD whenever 9x decides to vomit everywhere.

they do have newer CAD software that runs on XP Pro, but their problem is two fold.

1. they have clients who still submit files in an older format that the latest software doe not support

2. a few of their CNC machines are powered by older DOS software but are controlled by win9x programs.

This motherboard works under Windows 98SE:
Gigabyte 8I915P Duo, as another person at this forum wrote 915P looks like the best chipset for Win98 compatibility. However, I'm not sure if you'll find these mobos on sale.

I have tested three 250 GB hdd's connected to the onboard RAID controller. They worked properly. It didn't matter whether the system's esdi506.pdr had or had not HDD size-related bugs.


I've had bad experience with the stability and performance of onboard sound driver on this i915 board and another i965. I don't think it's a good choice if you actually need audio.

I work in the IT industry and if I saw your suggested setup come across my desk, I would drag you behind the building and beat you with legacy mainframe hardware. Then put you in a requirements gathering 101 class.

So have the employees run Virtual PC 2007 (which is free) with a Win98 session & the old software so they can convert them, or have a couple old boxes lying around just for conversion. Don't cripple the entire setup just because SOME clients are using the old software. Keep in mind pretty soon they won't be, and the company you're at will be the one with a new setup running old stuff!

Ok so don't touch those machines, you shouldn't be touching those anyways. There isn't something crazy like the CNC controlling computer is also somebody's workstation, is it?! If they are concerned with these boxes, it's time to upgrade to a Windows (or Linux or whatever) solution by now. Windows 9x came out almost 12yrs ago, time to upgrade.

Considering what you want, I really think you should stick with Win XP here, sorry 9x people, but I think this guy is barking up the wrong tree for what the company really needs. Most importantly, going with XP will allow you to get them a "high performance" cpu, a Core 2 Duo. From experience, they will be happier if they run XP and a good stable setup. It's up to you to get their head out of their arses and give them a proper setup, which is what they really want anyways, they just don't realize it.

lol

This is a fairly large company and 99% of their machines are XP.

They just wanted a select few Windows 98 machines. And these do have to have some workstation ability to manipulate old cad files. As for using a Virtual PC, why run on operating system over the top of an operating system. Surely that would be a worse situation as sure CoreDuo is fast, but it aint that fast!

I will be calling the owner tomorrow and giving them my advice.

the funniest thing is they have an IT department, and they don't want to have anything to do with Windows 98. But the boss doesn't want to have anything to do with their new suggestion of getting custom hardware controller boards made for their cnc machines when he knows a Windows 98 system (an absolute fraction of the price) does the job he needs.

I think Win98SE + monster RAM drive (using most of the 1 GB system RAM) is the best option here and I know it's not difficult to setup.

You may want to think about how noisy the new systems will be compared to the old ones and look at measures to make them quieter. See http://www.silentpcreview.com

Actually it is that fast, even on my old P4 HT I can run Vista very fast on VPC2007, as I currently do. You're forgetting that an OS doesn't use much CPU, especially when idle. So say if you're running XP then swap over to 98, when XP is sitting idle it won't be doing anything so it will be very fast. Despite, I only brought up VPC2007 as I assumed you needed 98 in order to open these old files, if not, then forget about 98 and just stick with XP

I've ran across these kinds of people in my life, once in awhile they're absolutely valid in disliking IT. I've seen IT shops so arse backwards running 4 different vendor LDAP servers, all of which have to be logged into and synch'd, with a dozen mainframes with heavy usage of Novell. But if the only problem this group's boss has is that IT demands he runs XP, then I can absolutely say he's the trouble maker who thinks he knows more about computers than the computer people do, and he's dead wrong.

In one way, he's right, Win98 was great, it worked well, but he obviously doesn't understand the lack of driver support of newer hardware (which excludes him from HT, multi cores cpus which are very efficient and substantially faster). I should point out that Core Duo is Intel's biggest innovation since the original Pentium, which is now 13yrs ago, a lifetime in computer terms. The fact that Intel canceled all other CPU production (even Xeon cpus) lines to replace them with Core 2 based CPUs really goes to tell you how much better they are, heck even the upcoming Celeron is Core 2 Duo based along with all their proof of concept supercomputers.

Anyways, my earlier point about the CNC machines was to leave them be. Let an old 98 box control them, and give the workers XP boxes on their desk to work on the files/data. I understand that using DOS based for the CNC is cheap/free, but realize it's because nobody wants DOS based. He has to realize that one day (and in my opinion that was a couple years ago) he needs to upgrade. Despite, I'm not going to inist you upgrade the CNC controllers, I'm only concerned about the employee's workstations beinc crippled with Win98 limitations. I know this is a 9x friendly forum, but I really insist 98 isn't cutting the cheese anymore for work needs. It has it's uses, and in my book I even say 98SE is the 2nd best OS Microsoft ever made, I run it on some setups I have, but I really insist it's not for business grade setups.

so lets begin with hardware:

Cpu:
choose anything you want, if pentium avoid celeron...

Motherboard:
AGP8x (at least), Award Bios, avaliability to disable ACPI and onboard devices. USB, SATA, PATA133 Onboard, 5x pci slot, 1x agp slot.

Ram:
Try to fill all free memory slots with same type and serie of memory sticks. this can little bit upgrade system performance. I dont know how and why but it helped much when i changed two mixed sticks for three brand new. If Hi-End construction use at least 1,5 Gb, more than 2gb is not necessary, but could be useful.

Disks:
Buy at least two disks. First shall be "System Disk" on Primary Master. best performance was with 20gb ata 100 disks with fat32, larger disks like 80gb can cause loss of performance due to limitations of FAT32. Second one shall be "data disk". Put it on Primary Slave, or on any other type of connection including SCSI, SATA, PATA 133. If you are using more "data disks" you can use RAID.

PCI slots:
Fill them all. There are several possibilities. High quality lan card, sound card, TV tuner, Radio Tuner, disk controllers, Physical Ramdrives (quite rare),

CD /dvd roms:
If you need to change CDs (if watching multiple movies) install two devices... One of them can be cd/dvd writer.

Graphics, Net, Multimedia:
Feel free to use any upgrade. Graphics are limited by drivers, but there is still large spectrum of drivers and devices. I like Ati Radeon 9800 If Cpu is computers brain Graphic card is its heart. Most of its performance is affected by it.

SCSI:
if you want to use multiple disks or scanners this is good choice.

TV Tuner, Radio Tuner:
I like multifunctionality... Many devices of these type are already available, and also can be used in win98 without any limitations.

System Settings:

Why two harddisks and ram over 1GB?
There are three basic types of operations which are giving multiple tasks to disk.
1. Swapfile or virtual ram.
2. Data which are readed for application (such as game).
3. System - Loading drivers, and some "invisible" system operations at background.

If we want to use simple 3d game we are giving multiple tasks to single harddisks. Because Harddisk is the slowest perifery in PC (except external media periferies like cd roms and diskettes) there is necessary to split these tasks. If system is installed on "system disk" and game is running from "data disk" we are on good way - two disks are solving two types of tasks separately and this is giving some performance.

Also if we put swapfile on Ramdisk (for instance 512mb ramdrive created by XMSDSK) we have created most fastest type of drive for quick access - 10 times faster than acessing swapfile located on harddisk.

1gb of classical ram is limit which can be crossed by using of ramdisk tools such as XMSDSK. You have to keep 512-1024Mb of as classical ram and rest can be used as ramdisk.

Why possibility to disable ACPI?
it can mess up system. i shall take a look at this. i have to examine one possible tweak in bios which dont have this possibility.


Rest is depending on drivers which you shall use, and system tweaks you shall use.

I'm surprised that even you don't see the game that Wintel plays with corps and institutions.

Intel makes faster chips, and Microsoft writes apps and OS's with more lines of code, the result is that MS word can spell check a document just as fast now as it could 10 years ago.

We have 8 office machines that run 98se on P4-2.6 ghz, 512 mb NVidia Geforce-4 hardware, gigabit nic's (with gigabit switch). Office2k premium/pro/what-ever. Exchange (any version) is crap, but the calendar and shared folders is what we use it for (we don't use it for e-mail messages). We run our office on software from our MSDN subscription which we had for about 5 years from 1998 to 2002 so we could put any OS on any system. Dozens of MS apps and sht that most people have never heard of.

If you need to put something like 2k or XP on a worker's desk, it's because either you have more than 50 machines to manage, or because there is no trust between management and employees and you can replace trust with secure login and rights/permissions/and all that junk.

Our office workers run (mainly) outlook, IE, word, excel, coreldraw, AccPac (accounting), Jana Contact (sales/contact management) on their win-98 systems. What is the biggest security threat? It's user web-browsing. How do I address that? With Spybot, spyware blaster, a good hosts file. AV software is least useful because we just don't see malware. We run an old program (post.office) on an NT box for our internet e-mail, and Symantec corporate AV runs on that box and catches any viral e-mail bodies, which have been VERY rare during the past year or so.

There is no benefit, other than more $$$ in MS's pocket, to us moving to XP for office machines.

Win-9x got a bad reputation back in the day when very bad drivers and systems with paltry amounts of ram were the norm. By 2001 or 2002 when driver stability improved and systems with 128 or 256 mb of ram were common, the IT people had fully moved to 2k and XP and didn't know how stable 98se really was. Do our systems see BSOD's or low resource messages? Of course not. Because what also changed was that apps became 32-bit, and all the old 16-bit stuff disappeared.

The new dual-core sht is hype. How many apps are written to take advantage of them? Hardly any. Hardly any apps are even HT aware. The OS being HT-aware or multi-core aware is only half the story.

The big hardware push the last few years was aimed directly at gamers. Office machines don't need 512 mb directx-9 video cards or dual-core cpu's or 1 gb ram. And now we have vista, with DRM enforced at the driver level - as if corps and institutional systems need that.

You know, you'd go a long way in reducing that security threat if you made them use another web browser.

just few security threats are real. Biggest one is "between keyboard and chair". antivirus, firewalls, "vista protecting premium" shall be useless if there is no compenent person using the computer.

There is no 100% safety. Computers have to be programmed against incompetent usage. XP was one attempt of this type, and we know how safe they are.