“Pheonix D686 142248891”

If you got that from a label on the bios chip, it’s probably useless, because that code is often only used by the manufacturer for a short time and they don’t make it possible to search for which mboard it is for by using such a code.

Your mboard may have a model printed on the mboard surface in obvious larger characters , between the slots, or near the middle of the mboard. If you find one that begins with E, it’s probably a mboard made by Intel, but the same number is used for many different models made at about the same time,so it’s not directly useful..

If the mboard boots….

The bios string is usually a long string of numbers/letters at the bottom of the first black screen as you boot your computer – it often begins with a date – usually you can press the Pause key to read it and copy it down.
Press any key but Pause to continue booting.

It could also be higher up the screen under or beside the bios version line, e.g. under or beside Award or AMI or Phoenix…

Post that bios string here, and include any dashes, etc.
Please make sure you copied it right. Most Award and AMI bios strings do not have spaces. Newer Phoenix bios strings, based most often on those for Intel mboards, are often like so: xxxxxxxx.xxx.xxxxxxxxx

If the mboard is still in it’s original brand name system case, or was in a brand name system case and you know which model it was in, quote the brand name make and model.
Or – if it was in a brand name system, the mboard often has a stuck on label on the mboard somewhere with the brand name’s part number for the mboard on it. It might be ontop of the parallel port if it’s not on the surface of the mboard. There is often also a bar code on that label.
Quote that or those numbers if you find them.
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If the mboard boots AND you have Windows working on a hard drive….
Go here, download BIOS AGENT.
Run BIOS AGENT to find your bios string.
– here’s the link that downloads Bios Agent
http://download.esupport.com/biosag…

The current Bios Agent calls the bios string the Bios ID.
Tell us the Bios ID it finds, or everything Bios Agent finds, and include any dashes, etc.
………..

Sometimes the bios string is not visible because a logo screen is displayed overtop of it while booting. In that case, if you are not able to use Bios Agent, go into your bios Setup while booting. Sometimes the bios version date, and sometimes the bios version number, are stated in the bios Setup screens somewhere, and/or some show the identifier part of the bios string at the top of one or more screens.
Or you could try disabling the display of the logo screen if there is such a setting, or disabling fast boot or similar, which often disables the logo screen.
Tell us what you find.
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Requirements for a mboard recognizing hard drives or hard drive partitions larger than 128gb (binary; 137gb manufacturer’s size) as their full size, in XP.

The original XP versions that had no SP updates cannot recognize hard drives or hard drive partitions larger than 128gb (binary; 137gb manufacturer’s size) as their full size – they’re detected as 128gb.

The Windows XP Pro CD (any XP CD) you use to install Windows must have SP1 or later updates integrated into it.

The bios version of the mboard must recognize the size of hard drives larger than 128gb (binary; 137gb manufacturer’s size) as their full (binary) size .
If the mboard was made in about 2001 or later, it does.
If the mboard is older than that it’s main chipset may not be capable of recognizing drives larger than 128gb binary even if you do find a bios update .
If the main chipset or the bios version cannot recognize drives larger than 128gb binary as their full size, the manufacturer of the hard drive you’re using has free software, generically called drive overlay software, that you can instal that will allow you to use the full size of the hard drive.However, you must be careful when you do certain things if you install that, otherwise you can lose access to the data on the hard drive. E.g. you must let the “overlay” software load while booting BEFORE you install an operating system – you can’t install it the regular way by booting the computer from the CD or DVD. If you’re not a careful person I don’t recommend installing it.

(If the main chipset or the bios version cannot recognize drives larger than 128gb binary as their full size, you can buy and install a PCI hard drive controller card instead and connect your large hard drive to that – it’s inexpensive and it has it’s own bios and will recognize any size of hard drive – but you MUST be able to select SCSI as a boot device in the Boot Order or similar list in the bios Setup, and list that before hard drive or similar, in order to be able to boot an operating system from a hard drive connected to the card . When you want to install XP on a drive connected to the card from a CD, you must load drivers for the hard drive controller from a floppy disk in a conventional floppy drive, after you have pressed F6 near the beginning of Setup, or you must make yourself a “slipstreamed” XP CD with the drivers for the card integrated into it, e.g. by using the freeware nLite.)

The bios Setup must be set to Auto detect drives using the Auto or LBA method,or similar

If the binary size of the hard drive is seen in the bios correctly – it’s always smaller than the manufacturer’s size – but not in the operating system when you use the CD to install Windows, your XP CD has no SP updates at all integrated into it.

You can make a “slipstreamed” XP CD that has had the SP3 updates integrated into the original contents of the CD, and use that along with your original Product Key to install Windows on the larger than 137gb manufacturer’s size / 128gb binary drive, instead of your original CD.
Lots of instructions about how to do that is on the web..
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Regular Microsoft XP CDs have SP2 or SP3 printed on them if they have those updates included. All the regular Microsoft XP CDs that have SP1 updates included that I’ve seen DO NOT have SP1 printed on the CD, but the volume labels – the labels you see for the CD in Windows – for CDs with SP1 updates included are different from those with no SP updates at all – you can search using that volume label to determine whether it has SP1 updates or not.

XP re-installation CDs that come with brand name computers usually have SP2 or SP3 printed on them if they have those updates and they may have SP1 printed on them if they include those.
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Sorry, I didn’t mean to say you should use Netscape specifically, not that it won’t work. I just meant to suggest you limit your surfing to whatever your browser can handle. That Netscape site is no longer, it was the default page after installing the browser. I don’t think it not loading has anything to do with DNS. It would direct you to AOL if the browser could load it.

I have never heard of K-Meleon, but if riider says its more capable and compatible then why not give it a try.

Do you know if your router is your DHCP server and providing you your DNS IP address? If you can connect with other computers on the same network, this is probably fine.

If you are unsure about your connection, try pinging (ping website) out from the command prompt (run command or cmd) and see what you get back. Ping yahoo.com for example, that should reply.

If it can’t find that, then the settings on the PC may not be right. Check the IP configuration of the PC. Enter “winipcfg” or “ipconfig /all” at the command prompt and see what it says there (one or the other commands may not work). Compare those settings against another computer on the network. Specifically your subnet address as determined by your IP address and subnet mask. Change it if necessary.

If winipcfg doesn’t do anything on windows 98, you will probably have to go into the windows control panel to change those settings.

If none of that works, it may be that your PC was given a static address and is not setup to get its address from DHCP. Or it maybe that your router has MAC address filtering enabled. Or any of a number of other things I’m sure.

Let us know how it goes.

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