Ok... here is the deal! I no little about computers, but my husband is about the biggest computer geek there is. J/K, but he does know his computers and currently works for IBM. I asked him about your problem and this is what he said (I will copy and paste it on here). If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask me.
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Ok, it the motherboard truly did not support that processor, it would not boot at all. You can go into the Bios, (usually something like pressing F1 at boot) in the bios you can see if the motherboard is properly detecting your CPU, it is is, then that really isn't your issue. Windows 98 missupporting the chip could be due to several things.
F you have an old version of windows 98, you may need to go to www.microsoft.com and start downloading all of the service packs. That'll get 98 up to speed because when win98 was first released, a 1GHZ proccessor didn't exist. Now why it's causing instabillity and crashes:
Windows 98 isn't the best OS, and expessially if it's an old copy, those service packs may help. Otherwise I'd check out the memory as bad ram can cause all kinds of weird crashes, and you already formatted your drive so that would rule out a bad sector etc...
To check your ram you cam either swap it out with some new ram, or take the ram you have into a PC store and ask them to test it. You can also download free ram testing programs online... (search Google
BUt after all of that, if you just bought it, RETAIL, I'd probably take it back cause it's not worth your effort when they can give you a new one... BUt if you bought it off a friend or something, and you can't just exchange it, then I'd work with it cause it's really not THAT much... Goodluck
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So, let me know what happens... good luck!
Holl
[email protected]
P.s.- no one said he can type or spell... he he he