Wireless on win 98 SE?

Solouko · 1 May 2006 at 18:48

ok dudes, i know i'm a bit stupid still running anything with win 98SE on it, but i got a free laptop from work and i got it working but it's only powerfull enough to run 98SE, it's a celeron 366MHz and has 192Mb of ram.

anyway, i'm wondering if there's any way you can hook it up to a wireless network? i know 98 isn't compatable with wireless, XP SP1 isn't even compatable with it

but is there any way it can be done?

it'll be connecting to my netgear wireless broadband router so if there's some USB device that might be able to connect them please let me know.

btw... i'm not getting my hopes up

Lummux · 1 May 2006 at 19:06

Not sure about 98, but if it`ll do win 2000 then i think one of the service packs has support in it.

NickR · 1 May 2006 at 19:12

There are some Wireless USB adapters that work with Win98SE - the 2Wire 802.11g USB Wireless Adapter is but one.

although you may find that operation is a bit flakey under 98SE ........

Solouko · 1 May 2006 at 19:20

NickR said:
There are some Wireless USB adapters that work with Win98SE - the 2Wire 802.11g USB Wireless Adapter is but one.

although you may find that operation is a bit flakey under 98SE ........

are there any netgear dingles that support 98SE? i'm not a net gear fanboy or anything >_>.... <_< i'm thinkging about compatability with router, yeah thats it! compatability!

i'm open to any sugestions thougn, provigin it doesnt involve the word linksys

mattbrown91 · 1 May 2006 at 20:12

I can get a 266Mhz lapton with 128 meg ram to run windows sp2 with nod 32 at a *reasonable* speed. why not bump it up to XP sp2 or 2000 sp4?

Solouko · 1 May 2006 at 21:46

mattbrown91 said:
I can get a 266Mhz lapton with 128 meg ram to run windows sp2 with nod 32 at a *reasonable* speed. why not bump it up to XP sp2 or 2000 sp4?

the reason i dont want to run it with XP is because i already have 2 XP systems, i want a win 98 system to run all my old games on that wont run on XP, even with the compatibility thingy... but i'm just trying to make the laptop a bit more accessable, i can conect to the internet fine if i plug the RJ45 in it, but that limits me to useing it only in the living room where the router is, or in my room but it means unpluging my computer, which is a bad idea because you dont want to go behind my computer... *stares at the mass of wires trying to escape from behind the comp*

yeah i cant get games like worms, age of empires, Z, comand and conqure: tiberium sun and grand theft auto (the original) to run on XP

it's a bit like having an old games console (eg sega megadrive) and playing all your favorate games on it from your childhood

Six6siX · 1 May 2006 at 23:37

I have set up a VERY old laptop (P1 166Mhz MX or something, 96MB ram and a huge 2GB harddrive) on Windows 98SE and was able to install a Netgear wireless PCMCIA adapter and it worked fine (but was quite slow accessing internet pages).

The actual signal reception wasnt too good either, but the card worked fine in another laptop so it definately wasnt that at fault. I think the laptop itself must not have been able to cope that well. You may fair better though as your spec is quite a bit higher.

Hope this helps.

Scream · 2 May 2006 at 00:35

On a low spec system that just about supports win98, usb adapters epecially Netgear will cause you grief as the cpu has enough work on its plate never mind trying to deal with a usb stick on top of it.

If you can borrow one, do so and see how well it performs for yourself but if you have a pcmcia slot, use it instead.

Wireless and win98 can be a nightmare so don't expect things to run smooth.

Try to stay away from usb with win98 and go for pcmcia as it will make life easier and your system will reduce in performance.