Windows 98 Builds

I wanted to create a thread where we can talk about Windows 98 builds and nothing but Windows 98 builds. I find it quite fascinating about the wide range of hardware that can be used to create a Retro machine. 

I have an old beige computer that has a floppy drive and a white DVD drive with a failing motherboard that has a dual core 2 processor I think its a socket 775 motherboard but seeing that the board is failing, it will have to be taken out and replaced regardless. Normally I can repair some motherboards if the problem is fixable like bad capacitors or something but this board has a different problem on the board that is beyond repair which is effecting USB, Floppy Drive CD Rom Drives plus applications often do funky things on this board.

This computer would be great for a retro Windows 98 build. 

Socket 775 boards are cheap and some will take Pentium 4 processors.

Sound Cards are cheap

SATA Drives are cheap.

RAM can be hard to find in small capacities if its DDR2 I prefer to use 256 MB for Windows 98.

The only costly part is the GPU

The reason for using a SATA hard drive is that IDE hard drives are hard to come by now and probably wont last that long. A SATA drive is more robust and they are dirt cheap like pennies cheap. People like to use Solid State Drives but in my opinion I don't think they are suitable or at least not long term because Windows 98 has no trim for SSD support.

Older motherboards that have Pentium III processors are ideal boards for windows 98 builds but are hard to find and can be pricey plus being as old as they are they can fail although they are built better than most modern boards today. A more common easier to find motherboard containing a P4 processor often have bulging capacitors which need replacing and even if they don't its only a matter of time. So you'd need to be prepared to change any bulging caps.

Socket 775 boards are more modern and probably the cheapest and most easy way to build a retro Windows 98 PC.

I have quite a few retro Win 98 PC's I've built over the last year or so.  I think most people don't want to go through the hassle of assembling parts or whatever and just go the VM route or use DOSBOX.  Nothing wrong with those options, but it's fun to acquire the parts and bring dead systems back to life.

I've been concentrating on the P2's and P3's, since they work well with Windows 98 and drivers can usually be found.  

Going with a SATA drive is a good choice.   Get one of the IDE/SATA adapters and throw a 64 GB drive in and it'll fly.  

Most of the boards came from eBay, but prices kinda got too high for me to build any more.  I did get a few that didn't boot for whatever reason.  Go for the combo boards that have CPU and memory together where the seller says they tasted it.  I had the most luck with those.  

Good Luck!  

I don't have any machines with that limitation.  My two oldest revivals are a P2/233 and a P2/350, both based on 440BX chipset boards.  The P2/233 has a 32 GB drive and the P2/350 runs a 120 GB drive.  Both are Windows 98SE on SATA SSD's with an IDE converter.  

Overall the boot up pretty fast.  The P2/233 has some issues with the BIOS and won't boot by itself.  It complains about a bad configuration but when I press F1 it continues to boot just fine.

The P2/350 came out of a Gateway machine.  It's got the Gateway splash screen and everything, but it's in a generic case now.  Works really well and is quiet because the CPU has a huge passive heat sink.

I don't have any Pentium's in the 166-200 range, which maybe would have had that HD limitation.  

The only thing I'm really missing is a Voodoo 2 card, which I had back in the day but somehow disappeared.  Looking on eBay they are going for 75$ to 200$, which seems like a lot.  

The battery had been replaced a while ago.  It ended up being the CPU fan in the BIOS. It was set to look for a fan, but the CPU has a passive heat sink so there was no fan.  No issues now.

Yeah, I have a Win98 machine that still flies out the window. Has a graphics card, and runs DOS based games great. Fun to see the '98 screen boot up and the old games.

I used to have a few old PC's but many of them died over the years. I've only got 3 old computers now. My Dell Dimension XPS D333 is still going strong that is my oldest that hasn't died. 

Recently on my COMPAQ Pentium III machine I have been having to replace the fuse a bit to often PSU is going faulty. Normally it would be a case of just changing the power supply but this computer takes a very different kind "small form factor PC"  finding a replacement is hard  and when one does show up it has a ridiculous price on it. Its probably better to repair the original.

The hard drive in my PIII IBM PC died and had not backed up the drivers for it like a plonker so I will have no audio or video once a new hard drive is put in and Windows 98 reinstalled. I put that away in the cupboard years ago and have not bothered with it since. I don't know if it will power on again because the capacitors on the motherboard don't look to good. One day I will have to change all those and then either hunt for drivers for it or replace the video and sound card that do have drivers.

I recently bought a 486 but can't use it until my AT keyboard arrives which seems to be taking forever.

I don't like Virtual box or VM  I like old PC's with floppy drives, beige boxes clicky keyboards and CRT's.

Edited by Party-like-its-1998, 04 November 2021 - 12:34 PM.

I've been experimenting with Pentium 4 and even Dual core 2 duo boards. 

Dual core 2 duo are still pretty good for Windows 2000 but if you can change the processor to single core and lower the Ram you can run Windows 98. I've done quite a few builds and managed to find drivers for all even though the drivers where not made for Windows 98 you can get them working in Windows 98 on those newer boards. Its amazing what you can do with a newer motherboard and in some cases they are better than older boards.

I've managed to round up a few boards that were going cheap I have socket 7 boards now although those are more Windows 95 territory for older DOS games and the socket 370 Pentium III for the mid 90s to early 2000s games. I also bagged a few Pentium 4 boards and nearly every single one has bulging caps apart from two I got them for next to nothing I can use them for future Windows 98 builds I've also had to re-cap a few PSU's on some of my builds. Its always best to get these things while they are going cheap whenever the opportunity comes up.

There are many ways you can build a Windows 98 PC whether that be from a newer board like a socket LGA775 or something more period correct from the time.  

With more modern motherboards people will say you need an AGP slot but I've had success with getting PCI video cards to work just fine in Windows 98 but if you can get a board with an AGP slot then obviously that is a better option. You can also use the onboard VGA. The onboard VGA on some of these more modern boards is amazing and are more than capable of running 3D graphics for old games with good performance. I can use SATA hard drives as well as IDE on those boards and the ones I use have a floppy header. All my retro builds have to have at least a 3.5" floppy drive.  

Edited by Party-like-its-1998, 07 December 2021 - 10:02 PM.

I've got an AMD dual core CPU and it's running Windows 10 on 8 gigs of RAM just fine. A bit slow, but that's to be expected.

I will be building a new/old 98se box on an AM2 platform in the next week or so. If anyone is interested, I'll post my progress.

I will be building a new/old 98se box on an AM2 platform in the next week or so. If anyone is interested, I'll post my progress.

Ok, I'll play along...............Why?

I'm quite aware of that. Chipset drivers are not necessary.