Figured it out. 8) had to load Failsafe defaults in BIOS, then go into advanced BIOS features and set 'Delay for HDD' to zero. for some reason it was defaulting to 6 seconds. :?
don't remember exactly what that setting does, but IIRC it's something to do with old hard disks needing a small delay to spin up before the system requests data, or something.... But in all my years I've never seen a BIOS default to anything other than zero... Weirdness.
Thanks anyhoo...
---For anyone who cares, This was the original problem post:----
We've got a load of these systems with this motherboard, and they seem to have some problem after installing windows (98SE). The installation goes ok, but after the very FIRST reboot (i.e. before it even asks for a CD key), it just seems to sit there on the 'Loading Windows 98' screen, with the blue progress bar at the bottom moving, but horribly slowly. One has been left for 10 mins or so and it still doesn't get into windows. There is a brief flicker of HDD activity just as it gets to that loading screen, but then the HDD LED seems to remain dead.
Any suggestions?
Yes, it has to be windows 98. These have to run an old DOS program which requires (among other things) direct comport access, which XP does not emulate properly, and yes I have tried 'DOSBOX' and similar emulator stuff.
FoxConn 6100K8MB-RS Socket 754 motherboard (geforce 6100 integrated + Nforce 410)
Sempron 2400+ (IIRC. might be 2800+)
512Mb RAM (PC3200. Cheapo generic).
some DVDROM (Disconnected for this test)
WD 40Gb IDE ATA133 drive.
No other add-in cards.
Temps are not quite as low as I'd like, but nothing of concern (CPU 41C in BIOS)
Theres no indication of any problems until Windows is installed.
I'm going to suggest we try XP/2000 on one of them just to rule out some mass hardware flaw (I imagine it's a 98 Issue), but at least two of them have this problem.
don't remember exactly what that setting does, but IIRC it's something to do with old hard disks needing a small delay to spin up before the system requests data, or something.... But in all my years I've never seen a BIOS default to anything other than zero... Weirdness.
Thanks anyhoo...
---For anyone who cares, This was the original problem post:----
We've got a load of these systems with this motherboard, and they seem to have some problem after installing windows (98SE). The installation goes ok, but after the very FIRST reboot (i.e. before it even asks for a CD key), it just seems to sit there on the 'Loading Windows 98' screen, with the blue progress bar at the bottom moving, but horribly slowly. One has been left for 10 mins or so and it still doesn't get into windows. There is a brief flicker of HDD activity just as it gets to that loading screen, but then the HDD LED seems to remain dead.
Any suggestions?
Yes, it has to be windows 98. These have to run an old DOS program which requires (among other things) direct comport access, which XP does not emulate properly, and yes I have tried 'DOSBOX' and similar emulator stuff.
FoxConn 6100K8MB-RS Socket 754 motherboard (geforce 6100 integrated + Nforce 410)
Sempron 2400+ (IIRC. might be 2800+)
512Mb RAM (PC3200. Cheapo generic).
some DVDROM (Disconnected for this test)
WD 40Gb IDE ATA133 drive.
No other add-in cards.
Temps are not quite as low as I'd like, but nothing of concern (CPU 41C in BIOS)
Theres no indication of any problems until Windows is installed.
I'm going to suggest we try XP/2000 on one of them just to rule out some mass hardware flaw (I imagine it's a 98 Issue), but at least two of them have this problem.
:roll: 
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram