Converting an old XP computer to 98 SE, RAM limitations

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ImperialGuardsman

ImperialGuardsman

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Sep 22, 2014
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Hello everyone!

In my attempt to get some old programs running properly, I am considering converting an early Windows XP computer to 98 SE. Here are the components:

Asus A7V8X-X Motherboard (in a beautiful brown pcb)
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ at 1.8 ghz
1 gig Crucial DDR 333mhz (or 400) Ram
Western Digital 250gig hard drive (ahh, the good old days of IDE connectors)
410 Watt power supply
ATI Radeon 9550

I think all of these parts should work fine, but I am concerned about a whole gig of RAM. I thought that 98 does not play well with that amount of RAM. Will I even be able to do the install? Or, if that worked, would I need some sort of patch to keep everything stable?

Thanks for your help!
 
Solution
synphul
With win98 1gb of ram should be fine. It's when ram goes over 1gb that it tends to have issues with boot looping.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/304943

This describes some of the issues that may come up when running over 512mb ram.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/253912

It's been awhile since I've run win98 (and 98se) so I don't recall exactly all the changes I made. I did make a number of changes to the system just due to the fact that win98 was horribly optimized and had very poor memory management. However I did run it with 768mb ram without a ton of 'out of memory' errors.
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JWoody

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Oct 30, 2014
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Not that i know of if i remeber right you should be fine with whatever the motherboard supports, the only limitation that would apply beyond Windows 95 OSR2 is the same 32-Bit limitation that even 7/8/10 have to deal with (3.5/4GB - With usually 512MB Reserved) Though if i am corect OSes older than Windows XP but newer tha the Original Windows 95 do treat memory differently.
 
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synphul

synphul

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Mar 11, 2011
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With win98 1gb of ram should be fine. It's when ram goes over 1gb that it tends to have issues with boot looping.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/304943

This describes some of the issues that may come up when running over 512mb ram.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/253912

It's been awhile since I've run win98 (and 98se) so I don't recall exactly all the changes I made. I did make a number of changes to the system just due to the fact that win98 was horribly optimized and had very poor memory management. However I did run it with 768mb ram without a ton of 'out of memory' errors.
 
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ImperialGuardsman

ImperialGuardsman

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Sep 22, 2014
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Unfortunately, I need to use my graphics card and the Virtualbox video driver only does the bare minimum with 98. I have read that it will do more with XP, and I am going to try that for some other programs. The Readeon 9550 does have drivers for 98 and they can still be downloaded from AMD's website. I am glad that they have not pulled their legacy support.

 
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ImperialGuardsman

ImperialGuardsman

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Sep 22, 2014
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In case any of you are still interested, I got it to work and even used an SSD with an IDE adapter. Runs great (after all the drivers were found and installed), though it does tend to get a bit flaky when I fiddle with certain settings (such as folder management, see all files). My guess is that it either has to do with KernelEx or some feature of the unofficial Win98SE service pack 3.
 
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