Asrock reviving production of win-98 compatible motherboard (775i65G R3.0)

[98 Guy]

It appears that Asrock is reviving the production of this 5-year-old
motherboard:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=775i65G%20R3.0&cat=Specifications

This is a micro-atx form-factor board, with Intel socket-775 CPU
support. It has the Intel 865/ICHR-5 chipset, AGP slot for video, and
DDR-1 memory.

Has on-board video and SATA controller.

If you can find DDR ram these days, you'll pay 2 to 3 times the price
per gb vs DDR2/DDR3. And finding any socket-775 CPU's these days isin't
easy.

But if you can find the ram and the CPU, and if you want to run win-98
on a respectible motherboard, then if you can find this board - I
suggest you buy it.

Asrock even lists win-98/me as compatible OS's for it.

I've searched but haven't found any listings for it on the web.

[p***@gmail.com]

I just noticed today that Newegg has them for sale:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157338

It appears to the have pretty much the same specs as the 2.0 version, but visual you can tell they reworked the power subsystems; it uses new VRMs, less capacitors, and a few other things.

[98 Guy]

Post by p***@gmail.com
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157338
It appears to the have pretty much the same specs as the 2.0
version, but visual you can tell they reworked the power
subsystems; it uses new VRMs, less capacitors, and a few
other things.

Asrock should have revived one of their various 4core-DUAL motherboards
(DUAL VSTA, DUAL SATA2, Dual-880Pro, etc) instead of this dinosaur based
on the 865 chipset. The only component on the board that doesn't have
win-98 drivers is the 7.1 audio.

Those various DUAL motherboards have both AGP and PCIe slots and can
take both DDR and DDR2 memory. They are based on the VIA 880Pro chipset
which has win-98 drivers. I bought 6 of the DUAL-VSTA boards about 4
years ago (still have 4 of them new in-box) and it's a great board for
win-98.

Regarding the 775i65G motherboard - it sucks that it only takes DDR ram,
and I have my doubts about the SATA controller.

I have a Gigabyte socket-370 P-3 motherboard with i875 / ICH5r chipset
and unless Intel fixed this at some point, the SATA controller was very
unstable when used with Windows 98 (and possibly any NT-based OS).

Now try getting a socket-775 CPU these days, and DDR ram...