DirectX 9... are they kidding me?

[General Ludd]

ASUS P3B-F motherboard
Pentium 3 proccesor
128mb SDRAM
Geforce2 MX
Fujitsu 12gb Hard Drive
Plextor CD-RW drive
SB Audigy

I will be building a new computer soon though. (carrying over a few of my newer pieces)


By the motherboard driver, do you mean the BIOS? I was also thinking of that... but all the warnings I read sort of put me off.

[DrSpike]

No you can download updated drivers for the MB......it can help.....best to try it and see (along with up to date drivers for your hardware). Only flash the BIOS if you need to, like if you can't detect a new big hard drive.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Osweld
ASUS P3B-F motherboard
Pentium 3 proccesor
128mb SDRAM
Geforce2 MX
Fujitsu 12gb Hard Drive
Plextor CD-RW drive
SB Audigy

I will be building a new computer soon though. (carrying over a few of my newer pieces)

So you do have the latest SB Audigy drivers from their website, right? From the error you told me it sounds like the drivers you have just aren't signed by MS as being okay, which is pretty common.

By the motherboard driver, do you mean the BIOS? I was also thinking of that... but all the warnings I read sort of put me off.

You should update both. Official BIOS updates are usually a very safe bet, and fix problems in the motherboard that can cause issues. For example, with my SB Audigy, my motherboard would lock the computer up for 20 seconds and squeal loudly. I contacted Dell about it, two weeks later they had a new BIOS revision available which fixed the problem by updating the BIOS. Asus' website has the latest BIOS version for your board, 1006: http://cgi.asus.com.tw/cgi-bin/dl.as...f/bx3f1006.zip
Looks like they fixed a lot of bugs.

There are also motherboard drivers: Your board uses the i440BX chipset, which means you can download the drivers for it from Intel's website. I think this is your board: http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scri...?ProductID=203

It's an older board so there's no official Win2K and WinXP drivers. So they do have a "non-OS dependant" option but I'm not sure how it works.

Try the BIOS and Audigy drivers first, then the MB drivers if they fail.

[DrSpike]

I don't like flashing BIOSes..........it's scary.

[Asher]

I have a known working BIOS on a diskette that my computer shipped with, so flashing a BIOS isn't a problem for me...

[General Ludd]

I didn't see any MB drivers in that second link, just an Audio, LAN, and Video drivers, and a BIOS. (I'm using win98, by the way)

I installed the audio driver but it had no effect. I'd still rather not do the BIOS, but may get around to trying that some time.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Osweld
I didn't see any MB drivers in that second link, just an Audio, LAN, and Video drivers, and a BIOS. (I'm using win98, by the way)

I installed the audio driver but it had no effect. I'd still rather not do the BIOS, but may get around to trying that some time.

Is this just Win98 or Win98SE? Because I just had a thought that if you are running the first version of Win98, that there might be a problem with the OS. Just a thought (I really have to stop doing that).

[DrSpike]

Might well be time for an upgrade to XP or 2K. The drivers are ok now.......who knows.....your problem may disappear, and it is something you should think about doing at any rate.

[Scouse Gits]

Yes - I concur - at least ensure that you have 98SE - vanilla 98 had a lot of hardware conflict bugs ...

SG[1]

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Might well be time for an upgrade to XP or 2K. The drivers are ok now.......who knows.....your problem may disappear, and it is something you should think about doing at any rate.

Of course, if you going to do that, I highly suggest you:

1: Double that RAM of yours
2: Get a larger HD (see if you can find a local computer store that will copy everything from the old HD to the new one)
3: You didn't say what your CPU speed was, but make sure it's at LEAST 500MHz. Unless you like looking at the hourglass pointer.

[General Ludd]

I'm not going to change my OS untill I build my new computer. (aside from it being alot of work for something which I'm only going to be using for another couple weeks, I've also put it off for the same reasons Thrawn05 points out above)

And yes, it is just the regular win98.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Osweld
And yes, it is just the regular win98.

Perhaps a quick trip to the store to pick up the SE upgrade is in order, hell, it's a shot.