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#31
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Looking for BIOS Update
"SC Tom" wrote in :
"Boris" wrote in message ... "SC Tom" wrote in : "Boris" wrote in message .213... Ben Myers wrote in : Boris wrote: 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...File.asp?id=16 16 7 &dscr=Pentium%204%20BIOS%20update%20GB85010A%20P13 &uid=22398 53 69 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. Maybe the CD-ROM drive is bad? The Intel D850 motherboards are new enough that they should allow booting from CD-ROM. Most any P4 system can, and even some P3 systems... Ben Hi, One of the first things I did after discovering that I couldn't boot from CD-ROM in this P4 was to install a known good CD-ROM from another my Dim4550, that did boot properly in the Dim4550. But, it wouldn't boot while in the P4. Have you tried a different keyboard? You said in an earlier post that the log was showing errors. Maybe there's a glitch in the one you're using. If it's a USB one, try a PS2 one and see if that makes a difference. SC Tom Hi, SC Tom, The machine wants a PS2 keyboard, and I was originally using a DIN keyboard with a DIN-PS2 adapter, then I tried a USB keyboard (no adapter needed, the machine has USB ports), and finally a Dell Quiet Key PS2, which is what I'm running now. The Dell Quiet Key is not quiet. It's quite 'clacky'. Oh well, thought that might be it. Another suggestion might be to re-flash your BIOS back to an older version, boot up and set all BIOS settings to default, then re-flash it to the new one. Don't have anything hooked up except basic stuff- keyboard, mouse, HDD, and monitor. It's entirely possible the new flash didn't take even though it said it did. This is not the safest thing in the world to do, so I would certainly understand if you were reluctant to try it. SC Tom Not a chance. g But I do appreciate the keyboard thought. I was at work when I read it, and I had to remember all the keyboards I've tried. Now I'm home, and sure enough, I'm using the Dell QuietKey PS2 keyboard. I'm happy with how I've got everything set up now. XP Pro SP3, Office 2000, Xnews, WMP10, OExpress, IE6 and FFox, Acrobat 6.0 and Primo PDF, and wireless printing from the garage to the den upstairs. For a P4, 1.6GHz, with only 512MB ram, and a 400MHz FSB, it's really snappy. Wireless strength is excellent, pages load quickly. Drive has 8MB cache, one CD- ROM, and a CD-R/W. I do have an extra DVD-R/W or two if needed, but doubt it. I'll make an image of the drive once I get all of my apps installed, but I'm not sure if I can re-image the hard drive with the ability to boot from the CD-ROM. Thanks for the tip. Boris |
#32
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Looking for BIOS Update
In .213,
Boris typed on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:16:26 +0000 (UTC): I'll make an image of the drive once I get all of my apps installed, but I'm not sure if I can re-image the hard drive with the ability to boot from the CD-ROM. Thanks for the tip. It sure is interesting your CD drive won't boot, Boris. But some imaging programs will either create a bootable CD or USB flash drive for a recovery option. And the ones that doesn't allow for an USB option, there are tools that will make them be anyway for free. The next hurdle would be whether this machine can boot from USB? Your problem is common among netbook users and they can use flash drives instead of CD/DVD for booting. Most recent computers can do this too. So there is hope here. If everything else fails, there is still one standby trick that will always work regardless what this computer will or will not allow you to do. That is to make use of dual-booting. It can be an OS really small, but gets the job done like BartPE. Or a lite version of Windows 98, Windows 2000/XP or something. As something that your imaging program can run under. Say another thought is a lot of imaging software can restore the partition it is running from. Both Paragon and Acronis True Image both does this. Both have free versions too. The only catch of course is if it becomes unbootable for whatever reason. In that case you need to install some OS that the imaging program will run under. Then restore and the original will be recovered that way. -- Bill Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) - Windows XP SP2 |
#33
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Looking for BIOS Update
I have CF94510J.15A.0028.2006.1213.1629 The computer (emachine with XP home in it, but was originally vista which was wiped out and XP installed) keeps shutting down and telling me there is something wrong with registry files on boot up but says that it had to go look for them elsewhere and found/fixed the problem. (I've been running this computer without incident for over a year now) It'll run for a while then shut down again. When I sent error report into windows, it tells me I need to update the BIOS but the numbers on the updates don't match up with my mobo. (Processor Intel pentium D 925) Am unsure and don't want to mess up the flash... anyone able to help? This computer runs the automation for my radio station which is currently off air. An expedited answer would sure be MUCH appreciated! My advertisers are paying by the minute for their airtime! Thanks in advance! Micro |
#34
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Looking for BIOS Update
micro wrote:
I have CF94510J.15A.0028.2006.1213.1629 The computer (emachine with XP home in it, but was originally vista which was wiped out and XP installed) keeps shutting down and telling me there is something wrong with registry files on boot up but says that it had to go look for them elsewhere and found/fixed the problem. (I've been running this computer without incident for over a year now) It'll run for a while then shut down again. When I sent error report into windows, it tells me I need to update the BIOS but the numbers on the updates don't match up with my mobo. (Processor Intel pentium D 925) Am unsure and don't want to mess up the flash... anyone able to help? This computer runs the automation for my radio station which is currently off air. An expedited answer would sure be MUCH appreciated! My advertisers are paying by the minute for their airtime! Thanks in advance! Micro "When I sent error report into windows, it tells me I need to update the BIOS." If the Windows OS itself is telling you to update the BIOS, keep in mind that Windows/Microsoft can really miss the mark on hardware. You have a modern 945 chipset motherboard designed by Intel for Gateway. There is no reason why it should not run properly with XP. When you installed XP, did you install all the required hardware drivers, starting with the drivers for the Intel 945 chipset? When you installed XP, did you do so with a CD that has Service Pack 2 or 3? If not, either of these could explain the instability you are seeing. The BIOS identification string is for a motherboard made for an eMachines computer. A Gateway BIOS update will not work. But, as I said earlier, I do not think that the BIOS is the problem... Ben Myers |
#35
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Looking for BIOS Update
Thanks for your help. The computer was still shutting off and giving the same error on reboot. We called a local tech guy and he said to try and replace the power supply. He thought that the power supply might be faultering and causing it to reboot? We have replaced the power supply and so far it has not shut down any more. To answer your question, yes, we used a CD to load XP and it has been working fine for over a year, This is a recent development but haven't changed the O.S. recently so that is why it surprised us so. Also, my logmein that I use to access the station from home has recently updated. Now I'm thinking that if the power supply doesn't fix it, I'll try backdating to before the logmein update, as logmein account has been behaving strangely only on this computer since the update. Micro |
#36
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Looking for BIOS Update
micro wrote:
Thanks for your help. The computer was still shutting off and giving the same error on reboot. We called a local tech guy and he said to try and replace the power supply. He thought that the power supply might be faultering and causing it to reboot? We have replaced the power supply and so far it has not shut down any more. To answer your question, yes, we used a CD to load XP and it has been working fine for over a year, This is a recent development but haven't changed the O.S. recently so that is why it surprised us so. Also, my logmein that I use to access the station from home has recently updated. Now I'm thinking that if the power supply doesn't fix it, I'll try backdating to before the logmein update, as logmein account has been behaving strangely only on this computer since the update. Micro You got excellent advice. I momentarily forgot that eMachines have the really cheap and crappy Bestec power supplies, known to fail a lot and to take out the motherboard when they fail. Seems like you replaced the power supply just in time. A couple of months ago I recycled about 8 absolutely perfect and empty eMachines cases. I kept them for a while hoping that a good eMachines motherboard would show up. The cases were empty because I had removed the dead Bestec crapola power supply and the motherboard taken down with it. Even old eMachines motherboards sell for big bucks on eBay because people need replacements... Ben Myers |
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