Wireless PCI Card in Win 98SE

[b1177]

I recently purchased a TP-LINK TL-WN535GD with the intention of installing it in an old machine I am setting up. Specs as follows:

M/B: QDI P5I437/FMB (Most Recent BIOS)
HD 1: WDC Caviar 21200 (1.3Gb)
HD 2: Seagate U4 ST34311a (4.3Gb)
CPU: Intel Pentium 120MHz
RAM: 64Mb
OS: Windows 98 SE

The motherboard has on it 4 PCI slots and no USB ports, so I figured a PCI wifi card would be a good idea. The problem is, Win98 SE doesn't seem to be able to detect it, or any PCI card I put in, for that matter. I am wondering if there is some step that I am failing to do, so I will run through what I have tried:

1) Ran the setup.exe to install the "TP-LINK Wireless Adapter Driver and Utility". It installed the utility just fine, but a quick look at the device manager shows no trace of any device resembling it. The utility has "Disable Adapter" permanently set to on. The TL-WN353GD has the drivers for Win98SE on it, so it has to be capable of working in Win98SE.

2) Thinking it may have been a problem with the installer, I downloaded and installed the equivalent file from realtek to install the "REALTEK RTL8185 Wireless LAN Driver and Utility" - Same results

3) Tried to install the drivers manually by either going through Add Hardware, or Control Panel > Network > Add... ---- I located the Win98 folder and the appropriate ini file, but whenever I tried to install it I get a "Rundll32" error, and a forced close.

4) Tried updating the BIOS to the most recent version, as well as sorting through the BIOS to see if Plug and Play was disabled (it wasnt)

5) Tried another PCI card I had lying around (didn't work either)

So as of now I don't really have any idea what I should try next. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

b1177

 

[Pointertovoid]

"Rundll32" error is a hint to a defect in Windows.

Would you have a spare HDD? Then, install a new W98se on it and check if it works better.

I supposed your chipset has all necessary drivers? Like InfInst if you have an Intel one.
v3.20.1008 works on i430tx +W95 and later. Not for i430mx.
v4.00 works on i440bx +W98se and later - probably not your P1 120MHz.

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Another useful trial would be to detect your Pci hardware independently of Windows, by using Siw for instance:
http://www.gtopala.com/download/siw-setup.exe
it doesn't word on W95-95a-95b but does on W2k. Just try on W98se.

I didn't try Siv on W95-98-Me, here it is (or was):
http://siv.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/downloads/siv.zip

Craigs Pci Diagnostic was there
http://members.datafast.net.au/dft0802
v1.1 is said to run on W9x

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Plug-and-play OS is the right setting with W98.

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Try to remove as many Pci cards from the mobo as possible.

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I wish you could boot Ubuntu from its Cd, in order to distinguish bad hardware from damaged OS, but Ubuntu won't fit on 120MHz and 64MB. Is there an alternative?