For nostalgic fun I bought some memory for a FIC PA-2002 that's been in the
garage for years, to try installing Win98 with 96MB of memory. For all
combinations of BIOS versions and settings that I tried, either memtest86
failed or Win98 was unstable, unless I ran with external cache disabled. I
think the actual cache hardware is OK because it sometimes passed memtest
when enabled, although Win98 didn't like those settings. I kept looking
because I wanted the cache enabled. Today I flashed the BIOS to 407J800
with the result that I still can only run with external cache disabled, and
now I have floppy failure at boot. Not fun anymore - this mobo is destined
for the trash.
Just out of idle curiosity, I'd like to know, has anyone successfully run
Win98 on a PA-2002 with external cache enabled? Which BIOS? The most
recent BIOS at the FIC site is dated 10/08/96. I'm thinking maybe this
mobo and Win98 never did work together.