Windows 98 SE problems

[funkvibe]

I have an old Compaq with a Celeron 400, 64MB PC100 RAM, Integrated Sound, Ethernet & Video Motherboard. I formatted 6Gig hard drive and installed Windows 98 SE fine with no problems. When it was trying to start Windows for the first time it freezes. I found out that the only way Windows was able to start was in safe mode. I can't seem to figure out what could be the problem here. Need some help!!!

[funkvibe]

I installed redhat linux 8.0 and it didn't have any problems starting up. actually, i am surfing the net with it right this moment. I still don't understand why windows 98 se could not start up at all after the installation.

[risk_reversal]

When you say Windows freezes, at what point does it freeze. As the Windows98 logo appears on screen, at the desktop stage? Could you be more specific.

Windows boots into safe mode generally because of a software conflict somewhere along the line.

You say that when you installed Windows98 it installed correctly? What drivers did you install after the installation of the o/s? How did you install the drivers for the sound/VGA. I have never had a mobo with integrated sound/VGA/ethernet but I suppose these are enabled/disabled at mobo level. In you shoes I would have firstly disabled all functions in the Bios (VGA of course is required and you would not be able to disable) prior to loading o/s. I would firstly, load o/s, then the VGA driver (if you have one/even possible that windows would have a driver for that on the installation disk since hardware is so old) then enable the sound in the Bios and load driver (or perhaps windows knows that one too) and lastly ethernet if you are using it.

After every stage you should check that windows boots correctly. No point in shoving everything in and at the end it doesn't work.

I hope this helps

[funkvibe]

the point at which windows freezes is when the windows splash screen comes up and the bottom clouds graphics stops moving. windows doesn't even get to finish starting up at all in normal mode. i even tried re-installing windows and disabling everything in Bios except VGA and it still didn't work. any more suggestions?

[Budfred]

When that has happened to me, it has usually been a driver problem. Have you checked in Device Manager while in Safe Mode?? If not do that and note if you have any problems....

[funkvibe]

While in safe mode i was able to to check the device manager and everything is installed properly... no problems there. i gave up on win98 and moved on to winxp

WinXP installed perfectly and everything seems to be running very smoothly now. No start-up problems or driver blues :)

It's funny because my friends were warning me not to install WinXP on this system because they were afraid that it would be too slow. This Intel Celeron 400 seems to be humming along quite well with WinXP, I guess the 128MB PC100 ram upgrade was worth it!

[Budfred]

128Mb RAM is considered to be the bare bottom of the RAM needed to run WinXP. If you can, you may want to add at least another 128... if your mobo supports it...

[jeeza]

OTOH, I read somewhere that you can tweak XP to deactivate a number of bells and whistles which are activated by default but rarely needed.
This might lighten the load on the RAM (but please correct me if I am wrong).

[ErnieK]

For tweeking XP and disabling un-needed services go here http://www.blackviper.com/ and have alook. This is a very good site and highly reccomended by XP users. He does have a downloadable PDF file with all his reccomendations

[mjc]

Still runs better with at least 256MB.

It seems to me (my observations only, no hard data), that below 256MB XP wants to use the paging file more than with over 256MB, regardless of how much free RAM ther is. Using the paging (swap file) will always slow things down somewhat.