Ben Myers wrote in
:

Boris wrote:
Ben Myers wrote in
:

Boris wrote:
Justin Thompson wrote in
:

On Sat, 3 Oct 2009 17:06:08 +0000 (UTC), Boris
wrote:

I've got P4, E4600, 1.6MHz desktop.

The BIOS is version GB85010A.15A.0044.P12. I'm looking for an
update, but all I can find is the P13 version here.

http://support.gateway.com/support/d...e.asp?id=16167
&dscr=Pentium%204%20BIOS%20update%20GB85010A%20P13 &uid=223985369

Anyone know where I can find the P12 version?

Thanks.
Silly question - im sure - but you say you looking for an update -
you have found an update... but then say you dont want it???

im confused

I cant see any release notes from the link - so not sure what
changed in v13, but in general - you should expect a later version
to be better, more stable, recognise more CPUs etc. so why you not
want it?

Cheers

Hi,

I'm not aware that the P13 version is an update of the P12. I've
always seen updates called out at v.1, v.2, etc. But maybe you're
right. I'm not familiar with how Gateway numbers updates. Are you
sure?

Thanks.
With the Intel motherboards used in Gateway systems, Gateway follows
the same conventions as Intel does. P13 IS the latest, last and
only update for your Intel D850 motherboard. Note also that the
BIOS is slightly customized, but only with a Gateway identifier.
You CANNOT use a GENERIC BIOS update from the Intel web site for
this board... Ben Myers

Nice to see you, Ben.

I went into the BIOS and read the event log. There was one listing
that said CMOS battery failure, but just one. There were a lot
keyboard failure listings. I don't know why, because the keyboard
always came up fine on the POST screen, and operated properly all the
time when in Windows. But, since the CMOS battery was probably the
original battery from circa 2001, I replaced it, thinking that that
might cure my inability to boot from CD. Nope.

Curiosity got to me, and I decided to clear the BIOS. I did, by
removing the motherboard BIOS jumper, but still no boot from CD.

Finally, I downloaded the BIOS update on the Gateway site. I was
running with version P12, and the newest version was P13, dated
August 2001. I had to put it on a FAT floppy (not NT), and the
instructions said to boot from this floppy. When I tried, I got
invalid BOOT diskette, insert proper diskette in A. Oh, no. I used
the Win98SE floppy to boot up the machine into DOS, and then removed
the Win98SE floppy, and inserted the BIOS 'boot' disk. I logged on
to it, and clicked on the autoexec.bat on the floppy. The BIOS
update program came up, and I installed the update successfully.
When the update was completed, the instructions on screen were to
remove the floppy and press enter, and the machine was supposed to
reboot. I'm not sure how this was supposed to happen, since the
machine was set to boot from floppy, and there would be no floppy in
the machine. But I removed the boot floppy, and pressed enter. The
screen said no operating system found on C (normally it would say
invalid BOOT diskette if there's no floppy in A, and set to boot from
floppy). I had to press the power button off, and restart into the
BIOS (keeping my fingers crossed the BIOS upgrade worked -- it did
report BIOS versin P13), and set to boot from the hard drive. I did,
and it booted up just fine. I then restarted and set to boot from
CD, but it still wouldn't boot from the XP CD. Oh, well. I tried.
I'm calling it quits trying to solve this. It may be a hardware
problem that I just can't diagnose, and it's not all the important.
The only time I'd need to start from CD is if I was going to do a
clean install. Maybe I'll just make an image of the system before I
gunk it up too much. Oh, wonder if I have to be able to boot from CD
to install an image.

By the way, I just installed a Linksys WMP54G wireless adapter card
in the machine. I didn't use the Linksys install CD, but instead let
Windows install it's native drivers and networking interface. It
works just fine, with excellent signal strength. Previously, I had
it connected to a D-link wireless router, but sitting right next to
the router connected with an ethernet cable. I was going to run
ethernet into the garage, which is the final destination for this
machine, but I thought I'd try a wireless card. I hope the signal is
still good when I move it into the gargage, about 30' away. We'll
see. If not, I'll run ethernet. (I don't mind running the cable, I
just hate putting the connectors on. My eyes aren't what they used
to be g.)

Here are the items that the update addressed, per the readme.txt file
within the update folder:

Reason for Update

Option to enable or disable the ISA Enable Bit on PCI bridges.
Adds D-stepping core support for latest generation processors.
Adds WFM 2.0 Remote Lockout support.
Adds support for the Security Freeze Lock command on resume from S3
to IDE devices that support the Security feature set.
Adds workaround for Windows 98 SE issue where ATAPI devices are not
reprogrammed on resume from Suspend-to-RAM (S3).
Implements Force Network Boot feature that allows users to force the
computer to start to network by pressing a hot key.
Fixes issue where the computer was always reporting 80-conductor IDE
cable type (regardless of actual cable type) when certain ATAPI
devices were connected as the slave device on an IDE channel.
Adds support for PCI IDE Bus Mastering (DMA) for BIOS INT 13h hard
disk reads and writes on IDE devices that support IDE Bus Mastering.
Adds Mode 5 (UDMA/100) option to the IDE UDMA Mode.
Corrects functionality of IDE PIO Mode.
Fixes issue where BIOS was incorrectly reporting UDMA modes on IDE
devices that do not support UDMA.
Sets ISA ENABLE bits on PCI bridges that do not have VGA behind them.
Adds support for doing 32-bit IDE PIO mode data transfers inside BIOS
INT 13h.
Fixes issue where ATAPI Removable Devices that support UDMA modes
were not getting programmed for UDMA mode.
Updates the display of the processor BIOS update information to
account for the new naming convention.
Adds the display of UDMA mode for ARMD.
Sets Wake on Modem Ring default to Power On.
Fixes an issue where the Fault Tolerant Boot Block Test would fail
and not be able to boot if ECC was enabled during the test.
Fixes the incorrect display of hard disk drive capacity for larger
hard disk drives.

Boris

Did you change the boot order priority in the last screen of the BIOS
CMOS setup to boot first from CD, then from floppy, and then from hard
disk? If so, the computer should boot from CD. If not, pressing F12
with a modern BIOS gets it to present a choice of boot devices, from
which you select one... Ben Myers


Hi,

Yes, set it up just like you described. No luck.

F12 gets me nothing.

F8 gets me the Troubleshooting and Advanced Startup screen with Start Up
options, as it should, such as Safe Mode, Enable Boot Logging, Debugging
Mode, etc.

F10 is weird. It gets me the BIOS screen, with the a message as if I've
just made changes to the BIOS settings, "Do you want to save changes and
exit?"

F1 gets me the BIOS setup screen, as it should.

By the way, when the machine boots up, it never shows "Hit F8 for Boot
Options", or "Hit F1 for Setup" in the upper right hand corner, even if I
have it set to go through the long POST, where it shows everything it
finds as it boots up. The long boot does show that it found the CD-ROM
when set to boot from CD-ROM.

I think the book is closed on trying to get this to boot from CD-ROM.