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re: having trouble [installing] 3com net card Monday, September 28, 2009 at 12:17 pm Posted by gewg_ (4444 messages posted) scott wrote: |I have an old pc with windows 98. | ...and don't realize that the kernel of your 10 year old (DOS-based) OS is DIFFERENT from that of the (NT-based) versions of Windoze sold since Y2000. |I have [installed] a 3com net card. | It's not "installed" until it's actually WORKING. What you did was "plug it in". |I used the windows drivers, | Again: "Windows" isn't necessarily "Windows". I bet you didn't read the packaging before you plunked down your cash. I bet the packaging doesn't say "Windows 98" ANYWHERE on it. I bet the documentation doesn't mention Windows 98 either. If you're going to use 10 year old software, you need to become a more savvy shopper. Big hint: Companies building products in 2009 generally DON'T bother to produce device drivers for OSes from 1998. YOU have to make the effort to seek out the ones that still DO. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: having trouble [installing] 3com net card Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 9:08 pm Posted by Kiwi (2228 messages posted) I ran into a very odd situation a few days ago with an ISA network adapter, a 3Com 3C509TP. Windows installed its own drivers, tested the device, and found that it had been forcibly rebooted by the driver it used interacting with the NIC. I couldn't get it to retest the card after changing drivers. The OS was paranoid about it. I ended up reinstalling, but without the NIC, until after running some 3Com software ahead of adding the card back again. The card was older than Windows98se, and Windows did have some drivers for it, but 3Com's instructions, which I thought I could skip over, warned that odd things happen in that situation (having the NIC in place when the Win98 install is performed). . Kiwi ** On Monday, September 28, 2009 at 12:17 pm, gewg_ wrote: >scott wrote: >|I have an old pc with windows 98. >| > >|I have [installed] a 3com net card. >| >It's not "installed" until it's actually WORKING. >What you did was "plug it in". > Agreed. >|I used the windows drivers, >| >I bet you didn't read the packaging before you plunked down your cash. >I bet the packaging doesn't say "Windows 98" ANYWHERE on it. >I bet the documentation doesn't mention Windows 98 either. > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: having trouble [installing] 3com net card Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 12:46 pm Posted by gewg_ (4444 messages posted) Kiwi wrote: |[...]I ended up reinstalling, but without the NIC, |until after running some 3Com software ahead of adding the card back again. Now you have me curious. Any clue what that process is doing? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: having trouble [installing] 3com net card Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 2:51 pm Posted by Kiwi (2228 messages posted) It looks like an "INF" database of driver information it creates and convinces Windows is a CD? It includes the usual OEM(whatever)INF, of course. It really doesn't look greatly different from what many driver CDs look like . . Even then, it doesn't seem to eliminate a variety of conflicts rising out of using pre-PnP hardware for every old chipset. It worked correctly with an i440BX chipset that an Abit BX-6 had, but while I didn't get the odd shunned like a leper reaction from a system with another, i430TX chipset, on a Micronics clone of the AN430TX, the 3Com software denied the existence of any NIC it was supposed to support. I've seen that before on other old systems, particularly from Creative software, some kind of interaction that varies depending on the particular chipsets, with Acer's ALi Aladdin series being afflicted very often. . Kiwi ** On Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 12:46 pm, gewg_ wrote: >Kiwi wrote: >|[...]I ended up reinstalling, but without the NIC, >|until after running some 3Com software ahead of adding the card back again. > >Now you have me curious. >Any clue what that process is doing? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: having trouble [installing] 3com net card Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 4:02 pm Posted by gewg_ (4444 messages posted) Kiwi wrote: |It looks like an "INF" database of driver information[...] |it doesn't seem to eliminate a variety of conflicts |rising out of using pre-PnP hardware for every old chipset. I'd like to know how my usual boast would stand up on those WRT Linux having the best hardware support of *ANY* OS. I was mentioning just the other day about how Linux Mint's built-in support goes back to i386 hardware (and the Mint Fluxbox edition works with RAM levels similar to what Win98 will). Hardware that is that old, however, is unlikely to be able to boot to a CD drive and certainly not to a USB thumbdrive. A bootable Linux floppy (1.44MB) will give you pretty much what a M$ floppy will (no graphical desktop). 8-( I'm pretty sure you don't want to *install* a non-M$ OS to demonstrate the point. ...though if you can't get that setup working with the M$ stuff, it's an option... [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows 98 Discussion Forum