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Gateway 400 Series BIOS

bettablue said:
This sounds excellent! What am I looking at as far as cost to my door? I'll have to start budgeting for that expense, plus other vintage computer related items coming my way...
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I would expect anywhere between $5 and $20 shipped, but if you have some obscure oddball flash chip it could be more, the model of the flash chip will usually determine price, the service of flashing the chip is usually very minimal.

Try to get us a detailed photo of the board, close up on model numbers, and bios chip. Should help us figure out a lot of info for you.

EDIT: I should also note, some mfgs would SOLDER the BIOS chip, so a chip swap may not be possible, but the vintage you are talking about could go either way, these days soldered chips seem to be more common than older machines.
 
Great, thanks for the heads up. I believe I know a couple of folks here in the forums who have EEPROM/flash burners. Chuck G I think is one of them. But first, I'll pull the computer apart today, and I mean apart, without pulling the power supply or the Mobo, and I'll get you some good close-up shots. It will take some time though. First, I'll have to get my wife to lift the thing up to my work bench for me.

I'll send an update along with the photos soon.



RWallmow said:
I would expect anywhere between $5 and $20 shipped, but if you have some obscure oddball flash chip it could be more, the model of the flash chip will usually determine price, the service of flashing the chip is usually very minimal.

Try to get us a detailed photo of the board, close up on model numbers, and bios chip. Should help us figure out a lot of info for you.

EDIT: I should also note, some mfgs would SOLDER the BIOS chip, so a chip swap may not be possible, but the vintage you are talking about could go either way, these days soldered chips seem to be more common than older machines.
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RWallmow said:
Try to get us a detailed photo of the board, close up on model numbers, and bios chip. Should help us figure out a lot of info for you.
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If you can also provide the BIOS version number that shows during POST it would help. It will look something like 4W4SB0X0.15A.00XX.XXX
It should also be listed at the bottom of the BIOS Setup Main tab, look at the bottom of the screen for the current BIOS version.
 
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OK, guys and gals... Here's what we got. :computer:

When I opened the computer to really get a good look at the Mobo, I was actually surprised at the utter lack of information printed anywhere on the board. :hammermon: The are a few things of note though : The processor is indeed an Intel P2 part No.80011627 Rev A. Then to the lower rightnear the CMOS battery is a silver sticker labeled M02C8364.

Also, from what little I know about this computer, it has three slots for the installation of RAM, but I believe it is maxed out at 128Megs. Of course, I could be wrong. The board could accept up to 256 Megs. Although I do seem to remember something about this particular system having a max supported amount at 128. The P3 will accept 1 Gig!

If you look at the photos, I have included some very niceclose-ups of the Mother boards' visible silver labels/stickers. I have also included some photos showing as much of the mother board as possible, and close up views of the visible portions ofthe board. (Actually what is visible without completely dismantling the entire computer.) I looked behind the power supply by using acouple of angled mirrors and a bright light source, and didn’t see anything else that would be of any use, so I stopped there. If there is anything on the other side of theMobo, it will have to remain there, because I don’t want to strip the computer down any more than absolutely necessary. Also, as you can see in the photos, the case is completely closed off onthe back side of the Mobo anyway, just like any other machine I have ever seen. Because of the number of photos, I will be adding as may as I can in this reply, and the rest in another response.

I’m still considering the addition of a secondary floppycontroller. :lightbulb: I guess if I add an ISA controller capable of running dual floppy drives, I’ll have to disable the floppy drive in the system BIOS too, am I correct? :crutch:Which controller should I get that will work with both 3.5” 1.44 Meg, and 5.25” 360Kb DDSD drives? And, does anyone have an extra controller I can purchase? How much would it cost me including shipping etc.? Will Ihave to stick with an 8 or 16 bit ISA controller? or is there also a PCE floppycontroller I can use in the box?

Thanks everyone; especially to you stone; :bow2: If you weren’t so persistent we wouldn’t have even this one option and I would be looking at replacing the computer.

 

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Part 2

This is the 2nd post of photos I took of the Gateway system. I honestly do hope these help in some way to determine what course of action I need to take.

And, again; thanks everyone.
 

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RJBJR said:
Looks kind of like one of these http://support.gateway.com/s/MOTHERBD/INTEL/m00402/m0040201.shtml
The specs page indicates it has an SMC floppy controller that supports one floppy http://support.gateway.com/s/MOTHERBD/INTEL/m00402/M0040202.shtml

Here is the link to where I dug this up from, there are other Intel Tabor motherboards listed but they all support one floppy only
http://support.gateway.com/support/...OS update 4W4SB0X0.15A.0019.P14&uid=356834225
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You beat me to it. Unfortunately no BIOS update will ever get this thing seeing more than one floppy. Only option would be a floppy controller with its own BIOS.

Another option that may work for you, one that I use myself on newer PCs without a floppy controller, would be to use an IDE LS-120 drive as your 3.5" and then you could leave the 5.25" fixed on your floppy controller. The LS-120 drive will read and write 720k, 1.44m, and 120m disks all very well, never run into any compatibility issues with it, though its possible if you have some obscure real DOS program that tries to talk directly to the hardware it may not work, but I have always been able to do any disk imaging I needed from winimage under windows, and it handles it flawlessly. You could even do an external USB LS-120 if you are out of IDE ports, however I would doubt that a PC of this age would support booting from it, most do support booting from IDE one though.
 
So, I'm not crazy after all! Well, OK, maybe a little!

Does that also mean adding a second controller won't work? I'm perfectly OK with trying the USB floppy drive, AND, I don't need to add USB to the computer. It's already there, and integrated into the Mobo. Although, I do have a USB add in IDE card.


Thanks again to all of you who have orrered assistance. Depending on your feedback on me this entry, I'll probably set up the 5.25" drive and go with an external floppy, as suggested, unless I can add in the ISA floppy controller.

Stone said:
Here's a simple solution. Use the 5.25" drive inside the machine and add a USB card to one of the PCI slots. This one is under $6 shipped.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-1-Port-Ex...rnal_Port_Expansion_Cards&hash=item4abd00b1b4

Then you can use a USB 3.5" drive that can be found everywhere and very reasonable ($5 - $20). Doesn't get much easier than that.
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You can probably add another controller. But you will need to either disable the onboard controller via CMOS or change the address of one of the controllers if they conflict. Otherwise just use the USB option. I'd plug something into the USB port to test it before I would get a USB floppy. You don't want to get the floppy only to discover that the USB port doesn't function and then have to get a USB card in order for the floppy to work. :) It never hurts to be proactive.
 
Just remember any USB solutions will not boot in a computer of that vintage. That's personally the reason I prefer my IDE LS-120 drives in my machines. In my experience computers didn't start supporting USB boot till late in the P3, early in P4 genres.
 
Be cautious when choosing the USB floppy. Some of the newer models only work with 1.44MB not 720kB or those IBM and Microsoft specially formatted install disks. Depending on you planned needs, you may want one that has been sitting in a warehouse for a few years and can work with more varieties of 3.5" disks.

I would suggest looking for a secondary controller except I can't find any that are clearly able to handle 1.44MB drives and have jumpers allowing for changing address to make it a secondary controller. I wouldn't pay Ebay prices for "working pull" controller cards that have no indication of which chip is used. All Jameco has left are IDE+FDD controllers but I don't know if the IDE controller would conflict with your motherboard's IDE controller. At $3.95, it might be cheap enough to try. http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_291901_-1
 
Stone said:
He's not looking to boot from floppy. It's his tweener.
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No, he's not actively looking to be able to boot it, but I find that I frequently boot disks on my tweener to test things, or if I had to reload the OS, just saying it is something to think about, something to note.

If hes fine swapping internal floppys in the rare instance he needs to boot one, then no big deal.

Also with the large production of IDE LS120 drives back in the day, and relative failure commercially speaking, there's lots of cheap drives out there, might be cheaper than a USB 1.44 drive.
 
bettablue said:
So, I'm not crazy after all! Well, OK, maybe a little!
Does that also mean adding a second controller won't work? I'm perfectly OK with trying the USB floppy drive, AND, I don't need to add USB to the computer. It's already there, and integrated into the Mobo. Although, I do have a USB add in IDE card.
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You can add a second controller that has a BIOS and then disable the floppy drive in the Gateway/Phoenix BIOS. Since you have both ISA and PCI slots it should be easy to locate a card. Even an old SCSI card with floppy support will work. The alternative USB solution that was suggested should work, too. That motherboard probably has USB version 1.x (USB spec for V2 was released in 2000) so you would need to make sure that the external USB floppy supports legacy USB ports. You also mentioned you have a PCI USB card, that may support USB version 2 and would work with a USB floppy that supports USB 2. Then all you would need would be drivers that support that card in your operating system (Win98?)

I can't help but wonder what would happen if you connected the floppy cable that has no twists to both floppy drives and tried switching between floppy drives using the Gateway BIOS? :) No, on second thought, not a good solution. Lots of choices though.
 
I'm gonna come clean to all of ya'. When I boot my tweener to get something written to a 5.25" disk -- I boot to DOS!!! No USB, no HD, just A:, B: and a very large RamDrive. So, if Thomas wants to do it this way he's gonna need a dual floppy controller. Bottom line here, it works every time and there are zero conflicts. In the event I need to access the HD on that machine which happens to have a 10 gb drive in it I boot from a WIN ME boot disk which recognizes large disks and gives me access to the entire HD. I just don't like to be running WinBlows when I'm doing old DOS stuff.
 
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It looks a lot like a Intel WS440BX-based motherboard, in which case it should support up to 384 Mb.. At least they both use the 1-floppy controller FDC37C707 I/O chipset.
There used to be a lot of 16 bit multi i/o generic controllers around that let you set the card to the secondary controller addresses via jumper. If bettablue wants me to see if I can dig one up, let me know. I know I've got some, they're just a bit buried since I don't use them much, but don't want to chuck them.
patscc
 
Stone said:
I'm gonna come clean to all of ya'. When I boot my tweener to get something written to a 5.25" disk -- I boot to DOS!!! No USB, no HD, just A:, B: and a very large RamDrive....
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IDE LS-120's are accessible under real DOS (5.25 would likely be A, LS120 takes next free B), HOWEVER if an application tries to write to the RAW floppy hardware RATHER than using DOS calls/drive letter access it will not work. Only things like that I have run across that dont work on a LS120 from DOS is stuff like old disk utilities, and the self-extracting "reference disk" image for the IBM PS/2-25 (however Compaq's self extracting BIOS disks DO work).
 
RWallmow said:
HOWEVER if an application tries to write to the RAW floppy hardware RATHER than using DOS calls/drive letter access it will not work. Only things like that I have run across that dont work on a LS120 from DOS is stuff like old disk utilities,......
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I like to use old Norton stuff on floppies. Programs like Norton Disk Doctor, Disk Test and several others that I find to be indespensable. I also use the old List.com and PCTools regularly. These gotta work or I won't be happy. :)
 
Stone said:
I like to use old Norton stuff on floppies. Programs like Norton Disk Doctor, Disk Test and several others that I find to be indespensable. I also use the old List.com and PCTools regularly. These gotta work or I won't be happy. :)
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I can test some of those out and see, really the list of things that haven't worked has been pretty slim. Not saying its a perfect solution though, just better than USB options (due to less cable clutter, boot-ability, and decent floppy emulation in DOS).

I would bet list.com would be fine, it was maintained until well after LS-120 had been out, I am sure even if its using direct hardware access, it probably takes LS120, ZIP, etc all into account, but I will test it out and let you know.
 
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