Asrock 775Dual-VSTA

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=775Dual-VSTA

This board has:

- Via PT880 Pro/Ultra northbridge
- Via VT8237A southbridge
- Realtek ALC888 7.1 channel audio codec with high-def
- 1 PCI-express slot
- 1 AGP slot 4X/8X (supports only 1.5V boards, not 3.3V)

Ok, so win-98 installed relatively easily. After messing with various drivers, here's what I get:

In Device manager, I'm seeing 2 unknown items under "Other Devices":

- item 1 is listed as a PCI card
- item 2 is listed as an Unknown Device

Using a program called "unknown device identifier" it seems that item 1 is this:

- High Definition Audio Controller
- Chip Vendor: Via Technologies inc
- Device: PCI card
- OEM Vendor: ASRock Inc.
- PnPID: VEN_1106&DEV_3288&SUBSYS_08881849&REV_10

I have no idea what Item 2 is. There are no resources listed for it in device manager, and the unknown-device-identifier does not list an "unknown device".

The joystick driver is also listed as being a problem, and there is also a PCI bus listed with a yellow (!). This is what device manager is saying about this PCI bus entry:

"Windows could not load the driver for this device because the computer is reporting two PCI VXD bus types (Code 2)."

It's listed as using I/O resource addresses 0CF8 - 0CFF, which apparently can't be changed. This is conflicting with the other PCI bus entry right above it in the device manager list.

Would that be the PCI-Express bus slot? I am seeing a "Via Standard PCI to PCIE bridge" entry that appears fine.

All other motherboard resources appear to have been found and drivers installed. This includes the USB 2.0 drivers, the AC-97 audio drivers, the on-board NIC, and the SATA drivers (again, the SATA controller appears as a SCSI driver in device manager).

So, I take it that there is no high-def win-98 driver for the realtek codec - is there?

Anyone know what this PCI problem is, and how I can solve it?

What - did someone cut off all your fingers or something?

Don't all post at once now...

I was wondering how this board has been working out for you.

Had you managed to find drivers for the remaining items?

Is it stable with Win98?

I've had to put that project on the back -burner for a while and hope to get back to it in a week or two. My plans are to build about 8 win-98 systems using that board, and a couple for home use too, using a pair of either 340, 400 or maybe even 500 gb WD hard drives (I have the drives and motherboards, just waiting to put them together). I'm still waiting for the availability of the Celeron 365 (3.6 ghz) which Intel supposedly started making in January. Should be able to over-clock it to near (or above) 5 ghz. The one board I've been working on so far is with Celeron 360 (3.48 ghz) and 512 mb memory.

But to answer your question:

1) I haven't been able to get a PCI-E video card working in anything other than 640 x 480 x 16. I've been trying only NVidia boards (6200, 6600). I've tried 3 different boards, but I might have cross-contaminated the system by trying too many driver packages. I still would like someone to post the definative writeup on PCI-E video and Win-98. The AGP slot works great, and I've gotten Nvidia 6200 AGP boards to work fine.

2) There is something not quite right with ACPI. I don't think I can turn if off in the BIOS. If I have power-saving turned on (hard drive or monitor power-down after so many minutes of inactivity) then the computer locks up when it enters energy-saving mode (ie when the screen goes into hibernation).

3) The only large hard drives I've had attached to the system so far were 160 gb sata, and I've been able to format them (single partition) with 4kb cluster size and have been able to run DOS scandisk on them, as well as Windows ME version of Scandisk and Defrag, and have filled the drive with 1 gb VOB files with no corruption.

I'm not familiar with the Celeron 360 or 365. Are these Conroe chips? Can you disable the second core and/or hyperthreading in the BIOS?





There's a thread over on the Unofficial 98SE Service Pack forums...
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=63727
...Apparently, people have had VERY limited success with VERY specific hardware and drivers. I wouldn't hold your breath.





I always leave power management disabled in the BIOS. Does it behave correctly when it's turned off? Also, I think you can force the ACPI mode from the command line when installing 98SE. That might help your situation.




Can you boot off a SATA drive? I always limit my 98SE systems to 120GB PATA drives to eliminate any headaches.



Anyway, thanks for sharing your experiences here. If you do any more with it, make sure to update this thread.

Hi, all-

New poster here but have been lurking in these forums for awhile. Sorry, I'm late to this thread, but to add to the topic:

1) Yes, you can boot to SATA. Win98SE runs just fine on SATA (providing your BIOS allows 'compatibility' mode. Views SATA as a PATA drive). I use a third-party boot manager (BootMagic) and multiboot between Win98SE and XP Pro.

2) PCI-express does seem to be the limiting supported factor for 98 (although I understand some folks have had some success). With limited time (and brain-cells) at my disposal, I went with AGP (ATI X850 Pro, driver only installed). The ATI Catalyst software chokes on install; that's just as well- I'm removing from my main XP O/S. Too much bloatware for me.

3) Initially, I installed 98SE to the 775Dual-VSTA Asrock board and also had one "Unknown Device" error in device manager (probably video-card related- didn't install the catalyst software, remember?), but this did not hinder the card performance. As I recall, I had some audio issues (no audio support for 98/ME), but I had planned to install a separate soundcard, anyway.

Ultimately, I had to RMA the board (bad memory module- 1 out of 2. Like me). Replaced it with the Asus P5PE-VM (runs with the Intel 865G chipset).

My system:
Asus P5PE-VM
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Corsair XMS 1GB (system.ini tweak)
ATI X850 Pro (AGP)
2 HDD's (200gb SATA boot drive
and 120 gb IDE for data and extra 'stuff')

This board is limited to DDR memory only but runs like a screaming banshee. Period.

The only issue is extracting the daughter from the motherboard (she helped build it so claims a part-interest).

The Core 2 chip was installed for the additional cooling and the benefit of XP; Win98SE does not utilize the dual-core. Nonetheless, performance does not seem to suffer noticeably. (The SATA interface on this board, as well as the Asrock board, is limited to SATA 1 regardless).

The ATI X850 Pro card delivers full native resolution on my 19" Samsung.

On a side topic- one of my 'Scout parents' is a Web Designer by trade. In the process of emailing her about some Flash code, I mentioned that I was running it on Win98SE. Of course, she had to inform me (tongue-in-cheek) that 'no one runs 98 anymore- not even her mother-in-law'.

Well, last month XP did a major implosion (another story!). So,while forwarding an important document to her, I noted that 'luckily, I had Rock-Solid Windows 98SE installed to shore up XP'. With the help of my workhorse (Win98SE), I was able to diagnose and forensically recover XP.

This forum was a valuable and much-appreciated resource while building my system; hope this is of some benefit to others.

hannahsdad