First off, Here are the posts I have made to the
MSI forum. AS you see I am not getting very far.

**********************************************

Should I just forget about Win98?
Well on my new machine anyhow!
I am dual booting Win98 & WinXP on my 648 max with a P4 2.4 Gig,
GForce2 mx, 512MB PC2700 ram.
I'm not overclocking.

Grand Prix 4 & F12001, games that use to run great on Win98 on my old Athlon 1.2gig and Soltek MOBO, are now
locking up with the error: DDhelp causing invalid page fault,
and other times locking up and having to restart in safe
mode, and having to remove 8 repeting lines of
"IRQ holder for PCI Steering" from systems devices in
device manager. I done this cause it didn't look right to me.
It got it booting again anyhow.

FI2001 & GP4 run great on XP, but I need Win98 to run
other games.

I am wondering if Win98 is capable of handling
these new boards & chips?
There are no clear instructing on how to load the Win98
drivers on the driver disk that came with my 648 board.

I have run Rally Masters with no problems on Win98,
but I still smell a rat with what is happening.

*****************************************

98 or 98se as msi drivers are 98se only

That would explain the sorts things I'm
experiencing I would say.
Thay have a very wrong driver in the
works feel to them.

****************************************8

basic 98 gets no support as i found out after 2 weeks trying to get an nforce to work

you can try looking for ? in device manager and manually see if drivers will go in,you might find sound drivers on chip makers web site but its very pot luck

*******************************************

Yes, there is a vast difference between 98 and 98SE.
One could really see 98 (Gold as it's called) as a hotted up 95, and 98SE as a precursor to ME.
98SE has all sorts of stuff built in that 98 didn't have.
I'm dual booting 98SE and Win2K on a couple of machines and it's fine.
You might have a few issues with things colliding when it comes to IRQ and so on, like graphics and network, for instance - but persevere and you should be OK.

****************************************

I managed to get W98 to work correctly on my 845E Max-L. USB 2.0 isn't recognized and there's an unknown PCI controller device in Device Manager, but everything else is running stably. (I'm not a gamer, though, so I can't help you with that.)

As for the sound drivers, you can try here.

**********************************************

Well I just tried Win98 SE and still getting the same Prob.

It can run plenty of games and programs fine.
But then some games, as stated above, and when I try and load my Wingman Joystick software, just lock up.

AS I said above.....I can only restart in safe mode and
have to remove the following from system devices
in device manager...

IRQ holder for PCI Steering
IRQ holder for PCI Steering
IRQ holder for PCI Steering
IRQ holder for PCI Steering
IRQ holder for PCI Steering
IRQ holder for PCI Steering
IRQ holder for PCI Steering
IRQ holder for PCI Steering

.....yes that's 8 lines.

These lines are not there before the crashes.
In fact there is not even one of these entries
before the crash.
But if I don't remove them I can't restart Win98.

*******************************************
try changing pnp setting in bios

try swapping pci slot any sound cards in

******************************************

Tried changing slots and stuffed around a bit in the
BIOS but no diff.

Here's my IRQ's

IRQ 5, which has my sound card looks fairly crouded eh,
Could be the problem.
It locks whenever my Wingman Software trys to find my
joystick on the sound card. I have no probs with my USB
controllers at all.

Device manager won't let me change the IRQ's though.
I've tried having ACPI turned off in the BIOS but still can't.

What's the story,,,why won't windows let me change my IRQ's.

0 System timer
1 PC/AT Enhanced Keyboard (101/102-Key)
2 Programmable interrupt controller
3 Communications Port (COM2)
4 Communications Port (COM1)

5 Creative SB Live! Value
5 SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering

6 Standard Floppy Disk Controller
7 Printer Port (LPT1)
8 System CMOS/real time clock
9 SCI IRQ used by ACPI bus

10 SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering

11 SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
11 NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400
11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering

12 Microsoft PS/2 Port Mouse
13 Numeric data processor
14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
14 SiS 5513 Dual PCI IDE Controller
15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
15 SiS 5513 Dual PCI IDE Controller

************************************

Were Now back at Tom' Hardware.....
So what I'm asking I suppose is how do I chage the
IRQ's when Win98 says that I can't change them.
Well I am assuming its a IRQ conflict.

<b>The Safest IRQ rerouting</b>, can be accomplished by either moving the PCI cards to different slots, or if you're not using your serial ports to disable them in the CMOS, which will free up those IRQs for Windows to reassign.

You're basically tricking Windows into reassigning on its own.


Details, Details, Its all in the Details, If you need help, Don't leave out the Details.

Yeah, I disabled a few things, com/printer Ports,
but windows ain't reasigning them. It's just not
displaying them in the IRQ list.

What more detail do you need about my problem?

Here's what I get when I remove my 2 com and LPT port.

0 System timer
1 PC/AT Enhanced Keyboard (101/102-Key)
2 Programmable interrupt controller
5 SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
5 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
6 Standard Floppy Disk Controller
8 System CMOS/real time clock
9 SCI IRQ used by ACPI bus
10 SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
10 SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
10 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
11 Creative SB Live! Value
11 NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400
11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
11 ACPI IRQ Holder for PCI IRQ Steering
12 Microsoft PS/2 Port Mouse
13 Numeric data processor
14 Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
14 SiS 5513 Dual PCI IDE Controller
15 Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
15 SiS 5513 Dual PCI IDE Controller


Notice Win98 doesn't reasign. IRQ 3,4, and 7 vanish,
and it sticks my Bloody sound card on the same IRQ as
my video card.

Can anyone tell me how I can stop windows telling
me that my IRQ's cannot be modified, so that I can
change them my self.