I've just finished installing everything with my Gigabyte GA-7ZX motherboard and AMD Athlon 800 chip. After turning the computer on for the first time, instead of getting the boot screen, it looked like the normal boot screen except that it was in all garbled font and it looked fuzzy (out of focus). Then a blank screen for 10 seconds before the Win 95 loading screen, and then back to blank again. Win 95 won't load from the HD, it comes up Blue Screen of Death before finishing loading. I can reset and boot into Safe Mode for maybe 30 seconds-1 minute before freezing up and getting the BSOD again. Now I know the HD/power supply/cables are all fine, it seems the CPU/RAM are fine if things boot and seem to run normally (I got the CPU fan running and single beep upon startup). My guess is either the motherboard, or perhaps the BIOS??? How could I get into Windows for a few seconds if the BIOS is messed though? I know the HD is fine, just installed Win on it. With things like they are right now, is there any way to flash to a different BIOS?

You need to explain more clearly what happened. IS this a new build or had it been running at one time? May I ask why you're bothering to install Win95...or is that all you have? I see no reason to update your BIOS at this time, but you may need to get into the BIOS to change some settings. Are you certain your HSF was installed correctly? Did you use a thermal pad or paste? What is your voltage setting? FSB? memory timing?

hello recheck all cable conections. reseat graphics card if you have one. boot to safe mode install drivers from mobo cd. if its got 95 compatable drivers. lots dont now days.check on mobo makers web sight see if they have 95 compatable chip set drivers listed. might just need to instal graphics driver.

Yes it is a new build. The reason for Win 95 is I threw in an old HD that I knew worked (with Win 95 on it) because booting w/o a HD only gave me a garbled BIOS screen. I believe with most BIOS you hit "delete" once you get a post screen to enter, but with this garbled screen I couldn't hit anything to get into BIOS setup. I just installed the HS/Fan with Arctic Silver so I know it is installed right. Voltage seems to be standard I guess with the AMD motherboard( didn't see anything in the manual indicating a way to change it). I don't understand why the system would boot with a weird-looking post screen, and only run in safe mode (and for 1 minute MAX at that). To me that indicates it shouldn't be memory/cpu/fan/hd/cables, I have a new case/350-W power supply. It seems to me to point to the MB/BIOS. When I'm in Win 95 everything looks fine, so I know it's not the video card, but it freezes and locks up after 1 minute max. If I can't seem to do anything without a lockup/freeze, is there any way to update the BIOS?

Yeah, it's something wrong with your MB/CPU/BIOS. It sounds like what I get when I try to overclock too high =P. It looks like your board uses jumpers to set the bus speed. Check that setting. I would also try clearing the CMOS.

Well, since you swapped a hard drive with Win95 already installed, part of your problem may be that the drivers & motherboard info are for the old system, not the new one...& that may be causing conflicts. If your BIOS is garbled, I would try reflashing it...might as well update while you're at it....

Just outta curiousity, what speed system did the Win95 hard drive come from? While reading some other posts, I was reminded that Win95 won't run on a system with a CPU above 350mhz without a patch being installed. Could that be part of your problem? The patch is available from the Microsoft website.