After the heartbreak of losing my Studioworks 775C, the basement started to feel a bit too quiet. I have a lot of standard grey frame LCD monitors from the early 2000s, so I decided to use a couple of them to replace the CRT with some dignity.
While digging through some boxes, I came across an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 card. While 256MB of VRAM may seem overkill for Windows 98, I decided to take the "overkill" philosophy for the whole project. It was the moment I found a white IDE high-speed LG DVD-RW 48x Writer & Player in a random box that I started thinking of a whole restoration.
Original Specs Before the Project
- Intel Celeron 300MHz (slot type)
- 64MB RAM
- 30GB HDD
- Daytona Trio 3D GPU
- Sound Blaster
- Broken Samsung CD Player
The Upgrade Process
I started by removing the old Daytona Trio 3D to fit the GeForce FX 5500, then installed new RAM sticks for a total of 128MB. I swapped the broken Samsung CD Player with the LG DVD-RW (despite being from 2004, it has a white faceplate), added a standard CD Player to protect the LG laser when writing is not necessary, and fixed the floppy drive connections.
I plugged everything in following this configuration:
- IDE 1: HDD [MASTER] + CD PLAYER [SLAVE]
- IDE 2: LG DVD [MASTER]
For some reason, putting the LG in Master caused Windows 98 to constantly report the drive as not ready. Plugging a SLAVE drive into IDE 2 fixed the issue. One wrong jumper and the whole system freaks out.
Then the CD Player started randomly not being recognised by the system, not even in BIOS. I temporarily swapped in a standard LG black faceplate CD Player until I find a white one. Current working configuration:
- IDE 1: HDD [MASTER]
- IDE 2: LG BLACK CD PLAYER [SLAVE]
Installing Windows 98
I burned a bootable Windows 98 CD to install the OS. My copy is a RETAIL version and only OEM copies are bootable without DOS already on the hard drive. The install went smooth as butter, taking about 45 minutes.
I then burned a CD with all the necessary drivers and installed them on the machine.
Success! Windows 98 Celeron on Dual monitor
In the next episode I will be trying to fix the 3 floppy drives that I have not been able to fix since 2020. They somehow throw errors despite having power and an IDE cable with the right orientation. I am pretty sure that will be a great adventure!