Windows 98 comes preloaded with drivers for the Mwave Stingray multifunction (modem and sound) cards found on IBM Aptivas. These cards were also included in Acer Aspire computers and are also marketed by third-party companies such as Cyber-A Corporation.

As the Mwave Stingray is a plug and play card, the drivers are automatically loaded, assuming the hardware is in the computer when you load Windows 98 or installed shortly thereafter. These drivers are optimized for the Windows 98 OS.

Prior to the release of Windows 98, IBM and other Mwave distributors released the 20E version of the stingray software drivers. While these drivers work well under Windows 95, they can be problematic under Windows 98. If you ever need to RELOAD the Mwave drivers for Windows 98, the easiest way to do this is to reinstall Windows on top of itself.

In order to make use of some functionality only available with certain 20E builds (such as the 56K update below), some users have been using Cyber-A's 20E drivers under
Windows 98.

DOWNLOAD CYBER-A'S 20E MWAVE STINGRAY DRIVERS
APPROX. 3MB TOTAL DOWNLOAD (SORRY, I NO LONGER HAVE THE DISKETTE VERSION)
DOUBLE-CLICK DOWNLOADED FILE TO EXTRACT THE CONTENTS TO YOUR HARD DRIVE.  RUN SETUP FROM THERE. 
NOTE THAT THESE DRIVERS ARE NOT SUPPORTED BY IBM!   THEY ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS-IS" BASIS.

DOWNLOAD CYBER-A'S 56K UPDATE
DOUBLE-CLICK DOWNLOADED FILE TO APPLY THE UPDATE.  RESTART AFTER INSTALLATION.
NOTE THAT THIS UPDATE IS NOT SUPPORTED BY IBM!   IT IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS-IS" BASIS.

 If, after applying the above drivers under Windows 98, or 95, you experience problems, there is a patch that can help. This patch was released by Acer, and is similar to one released by IBM.

This patch fixes the following:

• Microsoft "Return of the Arcade" fails under 20E (Windows 95 or 98)

• *Ring Central 3.0.xx takes too long to answer with 20E (Windows 95 only)
  (RingCentral 3.0 itself doesn't run under Windows 98 anyway)

• Fatal Exception in vmm (vmwaudio.vxd) when playing DirectSound. (Windows 98 only)

To download the patch, click below:
VMWAUDIO.EXE

To use this patch:
1. Find the VMWAUDIO.EXE file you just downloaded.
2. Double-click on this file.
3. Click SETUP.
4. Installer will try and locate all of Mwave. If you have changed the Mwave installation directory, you will be prompted for its location.
5. Once installation is complete, restart your computer.

You should no longer have a 5-10 second delay under RingCentral and/or no blue screen errors in VMWAUDIO.VXD

For a complete archive of the IBM PCBBS files, see http://greyghost.mooo.com/pccbbs/aptiva