I'm rebuilding a machine a cyrix 686 200 with 32mb of ram it has 64 but the first ram slot is messed up. Anyway I'm building it for my little 6 year old brother all I want is some games and some word processing software on it like Staroffice or something.

But I installed 98 and it crashes because the video card driver is messed up so I tried to install the driver from cd but it won't boot or freezes then blue screens and says the video driver is corrupt or something.

I downloaded the 98 driver and put into my computer and then installed through my computer to the one I'm building but my computer doesn't have the card in it so it won't let me install it I have the driver cd but it says it's for Windows 95 Is there any hope to get this fixed or should I just install 95?

I also want to install Linux on this machine too I was thinking probably puppy linux or vector linux but because of the video card I don't know whether or not that's a good idea.

I've been trying to get it to work I finally put it back into my computer and installed the files manually but for some reason on the other machine the one I'm building I put it in there and it boots and then it freezes no matter what it freezes. I can hear the hard drive and cd rom spinning then they just stop what could cause this?

Is it possible there's not enough power coming from the 230w psu?

Has anyone got this video card to work in Windows 98? How?

I think I figured it out it's the ram. I have two ram slots bad apparently but it reads all the memory then it says memory test fail.

I have 4 16mb pieces of RAM any idea how to get it not to fail?

can I clean the ram slots?

because the first slot is bad but it reads the memory how is that possible but anyway if I have 3 16mb chips then it should be saying 48 mb of memory but it only says 32 so there has to be another module bad but when I run it with only 3 the memory test doesn't fail why is that?

Your RAM slots are working in pairs. Slots 1 & 2 are BANK1, and slots 3 & 4 are BANK2.
They may labeled BANK0 & BANK1. The way they're labeled depends on the mobo manufacturer. Anyway....

So, even though you have three modules in, it's only working with two of them.

"I have 4 16mb pieces of RAM any idea how to get it not to fail?"

If either the RAM or the slots are bad, there is no way to "get it not to fail".

what type of motherboard would I need to run this cyrix 686 chip I know it has to be an AT but I'm thinking about just getting a new board it's so old it shouldn't be that expensive 10 15 bucks maybe.

I think it's a socket 7 but will any socket 7 at motherboard work?

Old CPU = old mobo. I'm assumming that your memory modules are the old 72 pin type. However, if not, there are boards out there which accept either 72 or 168 pin memory modules. (You can run one module type or the other, but not both at the same time.)

Here's a link to some old boards for that CPU;

http://www.redhill.net.au/b/b-97.html

With this info you can phone around to some of your local computer stores/shops to see if any are available.

I'm almost positive it's the ram slots but like I said before I'm not 100% sure I tested the ram individually but I don't think 16mb is enough to even turn the monitor on as it doesn't turn on with one 16mb chip in it but if I put two chips in one in the middle and one in second slot and one in the third slot the pc beeps "the ram error beep". so if I put that 3rd chip in the last slot the monitor fails to turn on it's probably the board and the chips.

I can't really test them because the monitor won't turn on.
but when all 4 chips are in all four slots it reads all of them then it says memory test fail I've yet to understand why that is.

RAM really has nothing to do with turning on the monitor. If the RAM slots are bad, the machine won't POST properly.

As I stated, the RAM slots in these type boards usually work in pairs or banks. On some of these old boards, the RAM "pairs" have to be exact matches. (MB & RAM speeds. ie; 60ns, 70ns or 80ns. The last number (or two) on the RAM chip part number will give you the speed of the chips. You'll see either -6 or -60, -7 or -70 etc.) Ideally all RAM modules should be of the same speed to get optimum results on some of these older mobo's.

Some mobo's may appear to work with mixed speeds, but if the boards is not specifically designed to work with mixed speeds, you'll start seeing corrupt files on your hard disk from file copying and writing etc.

If you want to continue with that CPU (and RAM configuration) I suggest picking up a used mobo to fit them.

What is the Make/Model Number of the current mobo?