Hey, I've got a custom built PC here that I do NOT know the background on it. He told me it had "resource conflicts" on it.

I went into Safe Mode and removed a LOT of duplicate drivers all over the place, and even drivers for hardware that wasn't there! Anyhoo, I got it cleaned out just fine. My guess is he took this HDD from a different PC into this one. Or at least installed a new motherboard. But I don't know the background.

This procedure worked fine. Upon restart, Windows 98SE reloaded what it found and I helped it along.

Then I went on to ECS web site and downloaded the 3 mobo drivers. AGP, Video, IDE. Didn't have to install IDE though. So only the video was left to install.

First I installed the AGP driver, restarted, no problems.
Then I installed the Video driver, on reboot it says Windows Protection error. It will NOT go anywhere near normal mode!
So I have to go back to Safe Mode, load Standard VGA driver, and then I can work in Normal mode again.
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So the problem is, I've done a ton of things to clear this out and get these SiS drivers to load, NOTHING works. At the most it won't throw the protection error, but will freeze on a black screen with a small blob of color in the middle of the screen.
I've used Driver Cleaner to clear out all traces of the SiS driver, with no luck.
I've manually searched the registry and hard drive for all traces of SiS video driver and deleted them, with no luck.
I've moved the whole INF folder and started with a completely blank one, no luck.
I've downloaded the SiS driver from ECS as well as from SiS themselves with no difference.

The system works like a charm in Normal Mode with VGA except it looks like junk. It has very few startups, and I don't see signs of spyware or viruses. It's just this driver problem.

The motherboard is an ECS 741GX-M
The driver they give you is like an all-in-one driver. Or "uni"driver. But that's pretty much what SiS gives me as well. Here is the mobo: http://www.ecsusa.com/products/741gx-m.html

I might be able to get it, given enough time. But I'm about to kick this POC. I've never had so much trouble loading a driver. So unless SiS AND ECS gave me wrong drivers, I don't know what else to try.

Anybody had this issue? Thanks.

You need to format and do a clean install of Windows. Once you have problems like you're having with 98 there is no way to fix it. It just gets worse. If you dont have the OS, check Ebay. Ive gotten new copies of 2000 Pro for $60. You can get 98 and ME for about $40.

Well whatever I do I have to pass by the owner. If it were mine I'd reload. We'll see what happens.

But I mean, when I load the driver and go into Safe Mode, Device Manager shows the right driver loaded. And it's only using like 3 driver files. I know it would be difficult to find the issue, but besides loading a driver, the system works just peachy. So I don't understand why it gets a Windows Protection Error when using a driver. Doesn't make any sense at all.
But then again, when does any Windows behavior make sense?

I wish I could fix it, cause reloading always feels like giving up to me. I want to fix it cause I want to know what the issue is, so I can fix it again should I ever come across it.

Tomorrow a decision will have to be made by the owner to reload or not. Oh well I guess.

Well to anybody who comes across this or who is interrested. I didn't get it fixed, but we ended up reloading, thank goodness, and it took a driver fine. To be expected.
But MAN I would have liked to fix that!