Gateway 2000 P5-90

[Gateway2K]

I recently acquired a Gateway 2000 P5-90 that is in a state of neglect and am having trouble getting it running. I am currently attempting to get Windows 95 to install. The bios loads and it reads the boot floppy, but it will not detect a hard drive, nor will it read anything from the CD drive. I have tested both the CD drive and hard drive in other computers and know that they work. The CD drive doesn't even open when the button is pushed. Am I looking at a power supply failure?

Thanks,
Gateway2K

 

[deadcrickets]

I recently acquired a Gateway 2000 P5-90 that is in a state of neglect and am having trouble getting it running. I am currently attempting to get Windows 95 to install. The bios loads and it reads the boot floppy, but it will not detect a hard drive, nor will it read anything from the CD drive. I have tested both the CD drive and hard drive in other computers and know that they work. The CD drive doesn't even open when the button is pushed. Am I looking at a power supply failure?

Thanks,
Gateway2K

More than likely a loose or bad IDE cable.

 

[Chuck(G)]

I recently acquired a Gateway 2000 P5-90 that is in a state of neglect and am having trouble getting it running. I am currently attempting to get Windows 95 to install. The bios loads and it reads the boot floppy, but it will not detect a hard drive, nor will it read anything from the CD drive. I have tested both the CD drive and hard drive in other computers and know that they work. The CD drive doesn't even open when the button is pushed. Am I looking at a power supply failure?

I doubt it. Does the fan spin? If so, you're probably just looking at a bad power supply cable or connector. The fan runs from the +12V, so you have that and the rest runs from the +5 and that's enough to run both the CD and hard drive.

 

[lucasdaytona]

Please confirm that IDE cables are in correct position, usually the red wire(on the IDE cable) must be on pin 1 side. Does it have onboard IDE controller?

 

[Gateway2K]

More than likely a loose or bad IDE cable.

The IDE cable is firmly in place. I will check to see that the cable is in the correct position as suggested by lucasdaytona first, and will try a different cable if that doesn't work.

I doubt it. Does the fan spin? If so, you're probably just looking at a bad power supply cable or connector. The fan runs from the +12V, so you have that and the rest runs from the +5 and that's enough to run both the CD and hard drive.

The fan does spin. I have tried other power supply connectors that are available, but will do a more thorough job of going through them when I next look at the P5-90. That will probably be tomorrow.

Please confirm that IDE cables are in correct position, usually the red wire(on the IDE cable) must be on pin 1 side. Does it have onboard IDE controller?

I will verify the IDE cable is in the correct position. The cable in the P5-90 is unmarked, so I will need to take a closer look. It does have an onboard IDE controller.

 

[Chuck(G)]

If the IDE cable doesn't have a red stripe on the pin 1 side of the ribbon cable, use a felt-tip marker to put one there. Make sure that the stripe is always on the side of motherboard/IDE drive connector marked as "1".

Many IDE devices are engineered to be unresponsive if the cable has been put in upside-down.

 

[deadcrickets]

And make sure it's the right kind of IDE cable. You can't use the later UDMA cables with earlier systems unless you have a plugin card.