[dencorso]

BenoitRen, if you want a stable machine, specially with more than 512MB, do away with ACPI *and* APM.
Else you'll be plagued by spontaneous crashes with "Windows Protection Error" after >7h uptime.
Here's how:

1) In the BIOS, fully disable ACPI and select PIC, not APIC, as the programmable interrupt controller
mode.
2) Open regedit. Go to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Detect and add as a dword
value ACPIOption=2. Close regedit and redetect your hardware: windows will remove all ACPI related devices
from the system and add APM.
3) Right-click on the desktop, select Properties -> Screen Saver -> Energy Saving Features of Monitor ->
Settings -> Power Schemes and select "Always On", "Never" and "Never", the select Advanced and uncheck
the "Always show icon on the taskbar". Click Apply, then OK, and reboot if so requested.
4) Open MSConfig, select "Startup" and unchek both "LoadPowerProfile" boxes (there are two of them)
and click Apply , then OK, and reboot.
5) Right-click on "My Computer", select Properties -> Device Manager -> System Devices -> Plug and Play BIOS -> Properties -> Settings, check the "Disable NVRAM/ESCD updates and click OK. Now select PCI Bus -> Properties -> Settings, check the "use hardware" option for Device Enumeration click OK. Reboot if so requested. (note of Nov 20, 2008: this next step can be omitted, because some machines do not accept disabling IRQ steereing, although most do accept it) Go back to Device Manager -> System Devices -> PCI Bus -> Properties, select the IRQ Steering tab and uncheck "use IRQ Steering", click OK and reboot if so requested.
6) Right-click on "My Computer", select Properties -> Device Manager -> System Devices and if it shows
an "Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller", right click on it, select Properties -> Driver -> Update
Driver -> Specify the location of the driver -> Next, check "Display a list of all drivers...", click Next. It will
show only the driver already installed. Then select "Show all hardware" : A listbox will appear. In the
(standard system devices), choose "Programmable Interrupt Controller". You'll receive a dire warning.
Ignore it and click "Yes". Reboot.
7) Return once more to Device Manager -> System Devices and select the "IO Read Data Port for ISA
PnP Management", go to Properties -> Resources. If it says "The resources this device is using do not
match any of its known configurations..." click on "Set Configuration Manually". There may be a conflict
on the addresses of the Input/Output Range 0374-0377. Click on Change Settings and select a new
range from the list that shows "No devices are conflicting" in the Conflict information box (usually
0384-0387), click OK, OK, and reboot.
8) Return once more to Device Manager -> System Devices and select the "Advanced Power Management support" and *remove* it. Don't redetect the hardware and reboot. It'll not reappear automagically, but you should check for it every time windows finds new hardware, to remove it yet again if it ever reappears.
9) And, particularly if using more than 512MB, do not use EMM386.EXE at all. (Maybe many will disagree
with me about it, but in my experience Win 98SE and EMM386.EXE, Netroom, QEMM or 386-to-the-Max
don't mix, with more than 512 MB of memory, and, in fact, they are unnecessary to run windows).

And enjoy a stable Windows 98SE! HTH. Win 9x rocks!

Of course, the standard disclaimer applies: YMMV and I may also be just a raving madman, but, then
again, anything you do is of YOUR SOLE RESPONSIBILITY, anyway... You have been warned.

This post has been edited by dencorso: 20 November 2008 - 03:30 PM

[BenoitRen]

Wow, all those steps just to disable ACPI and APM? o_O I had already removed the LoadPowerProfile stuff, but the other things look a little daunting.

[Chozo4]

Quote

Else you'll be plagued by spontaneous crashes with "Windows Protection Error" after >7h uptime

I wouldn't go as far as removing ACPI/APM to 'fix' such an issue as it's likely caused by a certain piece of software running rather than the OS. I've literally hit around 908 hours last I looked (37+ days) before it got restarted due to a power outage.

[dencorso]

Well, BenoitRen, it is easier to do than to describe. I've just done it again today on another
machine and it took me no more than 15 min to do it all. After I'd done it I decided to edit my
previous post, because I'd forgotten to talk about the I/O port range conflict that uses to
appear, and how to solve it. So I think that now my previous post is a really precise guide on
how to remove ACPI and APM...

Chozo4, I'm glad your machine is so stable. I don't think the "Windows Protection Error"s I
mentioned are software related, as I've seen them happen on plain vanilla instalations having
just windows and nothing more. But I do believe they're BIOS or hardware related, as I've
seen them only on Asus (A7V600-X or A7V400-MX) or Soyo (SY-K7VTA PRO) boards, and
updating their BIOSes to the latest existing versions did not solve the problem. But removing
ACPI and APM did the trick. They may originate in bad code deep within the ACPI/APM part of
their BIOSes. Or they may be related to the VIA chipsets employed in all these boards. I really
don't know. But, as BenoitRen's board is an AsRock, and that is related to ASUS, I thought my
post might be of help. Of course, if the problem is related to the chipset, BenoitRen will never
experience it. But others may. And there may be others who want or need to remove ACPI and
APM completely for other reasons, whatever those reasons may be. But, up to now I'd never
found on the net a detailed recipe on how to do it, so I decided to provide one. Then again, let
me ask you: in a desktop, what's the use of ACPI or APM? There is no battery which charge
must be preserved at any cost to worry about...

[888]

Some of my computers run for months without any crashes whatsoever (I dont remember when was last time any of my PCs crashed lol); one's uptime is almost 2 years (it works as PVR/DVR/Media Center, stable W2K and no connection outside my home network except for weekly tv guide updates - hence no reboots because no updates or such is needed ;-) )
Im skeptic - I never "removed" (disabled) ACPI or APM from any machine, and I never had any problems with "spontaneous reboots" after >7hrs... but then I never run W98 or ME (just 95 on 1 old box for them DOS/9x games).

Why would your computer crash because of ACPI or APM? I really can't see how having ACPI/APM enabled may have bad influence on your machine (short of having f**d up BIOS).
Someone please explain?

This post has been edited by 888: 25 July 2007 - 12:00 AM

[Sfor]

I've been observing problems when some device shared IRQ with the ACPI controller. Looks like some devices do not want to share IRQ with others. Also, it is a good habbit to not to use IRQ 9 (ACPI controller is using it) if not necesary. Besides that, ACPI was not causing problems to me. My Windows 98 computers were working days without a crash, quite often.

I do believe some boards or devices do have problems with ACPI or APM. But, I'm using Intel based boards mostly. The last ACPI related conflict was caused by using the same IRQ 9 by Intel hardware monitoring software and TV tunner card. It happened on Windows 95, as far as I remember. I moved the TV tunner to the other slot, and everything was working fine. The SCSI controller was working correctly on the same IRQ 9 line.

This post has been edited by Sfor: 25 July 2007 - 12:34 AM

[dencorso]

888, Win 9x/ME is known to have issues with ACPI/APM, at least for some hardware scenarios.
It has been discussed before, both here and elsewhere. Just google for it and you'll find lots of
info on it. See, for instance: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...45373&st=51
But most places imply you need to do a clean reinstal with "setup /p i" to get rid of ACPI and
most don't tell you that you can remove the APM device and Windows will not spontaneously
reinstall (redetect) it (for setup /p i see: http://support.micro...om/kb/q186111/). My wish
was to point out that it IS possible to remove ACPI/APM from an already installed and
configured system, without a reinstall. But, in any case, it is a procedure that ought to be done
only when necessary. I am a firm believer that you shouldn't try to fix what isn't broken, of course.
I never talked about "spontaneous reboots" after >7hrs... What I was talking about are "black
screens of death", crashes in which windows returns to a DOS mode text screen and halts, after
printing the message "Windows Protection Error. You must restart your computer." These things
usually happen because of missing devices at boot time (by far the most common cause, as you
can find googling for it) or with faulty hardware, specially bad memory. But it usually hapens at
boot time, while the condition I described happens long after the system is up and running, usually
after 7 or more hours. I never found it described elsewhere and it took me a long time and much
trial-and-error to trace it back to ACPI/APM. I know for sure it is a problem on some ASUS and SOYO
boards for AMD processors, having VIA chipsets.

This post has been edited by dencorso: 25 July 2007 - 03:31 AM

[BenoitRen]

Well, I have a SiS chipset, so I should be fine.

By the way, one does not need to enter line breaks, except for making paragraphs, in posts. Lines wrap automatically.

[888]

thx 4 links, dencorso.

I still think its a very rare occasion when such circumstances may arise to need to disable ACPI or APM.
As I said earlier, it never happened to me while hundreds of computers set/fixed/build.
IMHO it have to be really bad bad luck to someone if it happens

And as Sfor noticed, it is general rule of thumb not only ACPI/APM related:
sharing resources is never good idea...

This post has been edited by 888: 25 July 2007 - 02:15 PM

[Chozo4]

dencorso, on Jul 24 2007, 06:40 AM, said:

I don't think the "Windows Protection Error"s I
mentioned are software related, as I've seen them happen on plain vanilla instalations having
just windows and nothing more.

Ah, It had meerly seemed very odd to me which is why I'd initially shot it down to a software issue. My apologies

dencorso, on Jul 24 2007, 06:40 AM, said:

Then again, let
me ask you: in a desktop, what's the use of ACPI or APM? There is no battery which charge
must be preserved at any cost to worry about...

2 Words - Device Life

If you leave the pc running for a time, shutting down the hard disks will help extend life through not running them. This will also reduce wear from heat damage depending on your disk and heat output as higher RPM disks run much warmer than their slower counterparts. Also shutting down the disks help the components inside the pc cool more as there is one less device producing heat and less strain on the power supply (which will also then produce less heat). Comes in very useful if you've multiple hard disks as the non-primaries [usually] won't be used so often and so will be turned off untill they are next accessed.

Shutting off the monitor will reduce burn-in effects on an idle CRT display (which also blur a bit the older they get) or the wear on an LCD (display gets dimmer when they wear out).

In all cases you also cut on power use thus reducing the electric bill a small bit. Surely you could just shut off the computer and/or monitor but there are those times you might just need it running.

This post has been edited by Chozo4: 28 July 2007 - 09:25 PM

[dencorso]

Chozo4, on Jul 29 2007, 12:13 AM, said:

Ah, It had meerly seemed very odd to me which is why I'd initially shot it down to a software issue. My apologies

Apologies accepted

dencorso, on Jul 24 2007, 06:40 AM, said:

Then again, let me ask you: in a desktop, what's the use of ACPI or APM? There is no battery which charge must be preserved at any cost to worry about...

Chozo4, on Jul 29 2007, 12:13 AM, said:

2 Words - Device Life [...]

You are right, of course! My apologies

I think I've had more experience with ASUS A7V600s, A7V400s and Soyo K7VTAs than is healthy, but they were rather popular around here, are pretty robust... and have issuses with ACPI/APM that usually go undetected because they mainly affect uptime...

But, more recently, I've found a scenario where this problem is easy to detect: if one installs eMule, and it consistently crashes the system after about one and a half hour or less, this is also due to the ACPI/APM issue! But much easier to detect!

Anyway, I think I've had more bad experiences with ACPI/APM than would be my fair share...

[888]

dencorso, on Aug 5 2007, 06:14 PM, said:

Chozo4, on Jul 29 2007, 12:13 AM, said:

Ah, It had meerly seemed very odd to me which is why I'd initially shot it down to a software issue. My apologies

Apologies accepted

dencorso, on Jul 24 2007, 06:40 AM, said:

Then again, let me ask you: in a desktop, what's the use of ACPI or APM? There is no battery which charge must be preserved at any cost to worry about...

Chozo4, on Jul 29 2007, 12:13 AM, said:

2 Words - Device Life [...]

You are right, of course! My apologies

I think I've had more experience with ASUS A7V600s, A7V400s and Soyo K7VTAs than is healthy, but they were rather popular around here, are pretty robust... and have issuses with ACPI/APM that usually go undetected because they mainly affect uptime...

But, more recently, I've found a scenario where this problem is easy to detect: if one installs eMule, and it consistently crashes the system after about one and a half hour or less, this is also due to the ACPI/APM issue! But much easier to detect!

Anyway, I think I've had more bad experiences with ACPI/APM than would be my fair share...

More than month ago I setup system based on A7V600.
I included emule as well (owner is a polish guy and he said this is the most popular filesharing soft among Poles, thus he need it to get polish-language content) and as always I enabled ACPI/APM on this box.
I haven't heard any complaints from him so far, last time we spoke his box was running smooth for 3+ weeks straight (emule).
Are you sure?
(edit: I fortgot this is 9x forum; I set it up with Win2K, perhaps thats why it works fine)

This post has been edited by 888: 11 August 2007 - 02:38 PM

[Legolash2o]

On windows 98SE, when you input the cd do NOT run Setup and go with CD-rom support (well the option that takes you to command prompt, type in "cd win98" so your in the windows 98 directory of the cd (equivalent to I386 folder on XP) and type "setup /?" there is a syntax where it skips the disk checking so it will get past the cannot read last cluster problem

graphics card... install it manually without the ATI program, cant really remember how to do this as i havent been on windows 98 for along time. Control Panel > Add hadrware and the inf needed is in the ATI temp folder bin > driver

This post has been edited by legolash2o: 11 August 2007 - 03:00 PM

[Eck]

What they all said about driver order and things, and doing the Via Hyperion drivers first. A little tip there. Install WinZip or WinRAR or whatever your favorite extraction program is and extract the files from the Via file. Copy the AGP folder to the C: root directory and manually use Device Manager to update the Microsoft standard PCI to PCI adapter in the System Devices section to the one in the Windows 95 folder of that Via AGP directory. This will give you AGP acceleration and Direct 3D texture acceleration that will otherwise run at PCI bus speeds if using the 98SE version Via's installer uses. The Windows 95 VXD driver works fine on 98, whereas Via uses a .sys driver in the default installation that doesn't allow AGP acceleration. Choose the AGP 2.0 3.0 Compatible Driver if that's what your board has. If your motherboard has a 4X slot, that's the one. If only a 2X slot, you can use either driver but the plain Jane one without the 2.0, 3.0 support has better compatibility with older motherboards.

Before rebooting (say no), install the Hyperions from the normal Via setup.exe and uncheck the AGP driver. Restart when done.

Then install Internet Explorer 6 SP1 and Direct X 9.0c. Doing those will also install Windows Installer 2.0 which should help the ATI installer as well.

Then install a downloaded from ATI Catalyst driver instead of that ASUS provided one. Make sure to get it from the Windows 98 or Windows Me (they're identical) sections of the website. The ATI setup should work fine. The Control Panel and Smartgart offer nice controls over your card, the 3D settings, and color and video settings. It's just nice to have them. It does not require DotNET to be installed as the later XP Catalyst drivers do. If you want DotNET, install it before Direct X so the managed Direct X will give applications more control over the hardware, increasing performance. Be aware there are Service Packs and security patches that need to be applied if you do install DotNET. They do funky things to Windows startup until the ATI driver is installed, then things return to normal.

I used ATI cards for a long time on Windows 98, 98SE, and Me and the last 9x official ATI Catalysts worked great for me as long as I did that little trick with the Via AGP driver first.

If your PATH statement in AUTOEXEC.BAT has been customized, you'll need to check it before restarting after the ATI install. ATI's installer will in those cases double up on the entries so you'll need to remove the redundant stuff so Windows won't get confused by it. When you check it out you'll know what I mean. Just open sysedit from the run box and check it out before rebooting. If no PATH statement was there before hand, ATI's installer will set it up correctly. It needs to be

SET PATH=%PATH%;

and then whatever ATI puts there. If something was there before then it will repeat that part, which messes the command up obviously.

[dencorso]

888, on Aug 11 2007, 05:35 PM, said:

dencorso, on Aug 5 2007, 06:14 PM, said:

[...]
But, more recently, I've found a scenario where this problem is easy to detect: if one installs eMule, and it consistently crashes the system after about one and a half hour or less, this is also due to the ACPI/APM issue! But much easier to detect!
[...]

More than month ago I setup system based on A7V600.
I included emule as well (owner is a polish guy and he said this is the most popular filesharing soft among Poles, thus he need it to get polish-language content) and as always I enabled ACPI/APM on this box.
I haven't heard any complaints from him so far, last time we spoke his box was running smooth for 3+ weeks straight (emule).
Are you sure?
(edit: I fortgot this is 9x forum; I set it up with Win2K, perhaps thats why it works fine)

Hi, 888!
You are quite right!
This ACPI/ACM issue is found only in Win 98SE and ME (perhaps also in Win 98, but it doesn't install it by default).
If you deploy eMule with Win 2k or XP, you'll not see it (because it's not there, in these OSs).

[bristols]

Eck, on Aug 13 2007, 03:06 AM, said:

The Windows 95 VXD driver works fine on 98, whereas Via uses a .sys driver in the default installation that doesn't allow AGP acceleration. Choose the AGP 2.0 3.0 Compatible Driver if that's what your board has. If your motherboard has a 4X slot, that's the one. If only a 2X slot, you can use either driver but the plain Jane one without the 2.0, 3.0 support has better compatibility with older motherboards.

Eck (and anyone else!), what's your opinion on using this Win95 VXD driver with an AGP 3.0-compliant 8x slot? The VIA board I have has a KT600 chipset, and the card I'll use with it is an NVidia GeForce FX 5500 (256 MB), probably with MDGx's unofficial NVidia drivers.