Looking for BIOS Update
Boris
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/drivers/getFile.asp?id=16167
&dscr=Pentium%204%20BIOS%20update%20GB85010A%20P13&uid=223985369
Anyone know where I can find the P12 version?
Thanks.
Justin Thompson
wrote:
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
Boris
news:jt2fc5t4oocoo6d1s...@4ax.com:
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.
Ben Myers
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
Boris
news:ha8g2m$6f3$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
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
Ben Myers
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
SC Tom
"Ben Myers" <ben_...@charter.net> <<<snip>>>>
>
> 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
F10 on my Gateway brings up the boot menu. F12 tries to do a network book.
SC Tom
Ben Myers
Good enough. There is no standard function key for changing the boot
device after POST. I'm accustomed to F12 from working with Dell systems
and Intel motherboards a lot lately... Ben Myers
Boris
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.
Ben Myers
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
BillW50
Ben Myers typed on Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:37:57 -0400:
> Boris wrote:
>> 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
Did you try pressing the ESC key as soon as the screen lites up? As on
my Gateways and Asus netbooks, this pops up the BIOS boot menu. And it
shows all devices that the BIOS can see and allows which one you want to
boot from.
--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G8 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Windows XP SP2
Boris
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.
Boris
news:hafe4l$hcu$1...@news.eternal-september.org:
I just tried that. Seems that it ignores the ESC key (probably supposed
to), and just boots normally to Windows.
BillW50
Boris typed on Tue, 6 Oct 2009 17:25:18 +0000 (UTC):
> I just tried that. Seems that it ignores the ESC key (probably
> supposed to), and just boots normally to Windows.
Well before you give up, the rest of the function keys that you haven't
tried yet. Also worth trying is holding down one of the following: DEL,
Insert, Tab, Shift, or CTRL right after the screen lites up are also
sometimes used to get to other menus like the BIOS boot menu.
BillW50
> supposed to), and just boots normally to Windows.
Well before you give up, the rest of the function keys that you haven't
tried yet. Also worth trying is holding down one of the following: DEL,
Insert, Tab, Shift, or CTRL right after the screen lites up are also
sometimes used to get to other menus like the BIOS boot menu.
--
Boris
september.org:
> In news:Xns9C9C6A04BF72no...@188.40.43.213,
> Boris typed on Tue, 6 Oct 2009 17:25:18 +0000 (UTC):
>> I just tried that. Seems that it ignores the ESC key (probably
>> supposed to), and just boots normally to Windows.
>
> Well before you give up, the rest of the function keys that you haven't
> tried yet. Also worth trying is holding down one of the following: DEL,
> Insert, Tab, Shift, or CTRL right after the screen lites up are also
> sometimes used to get to other menus like the BIOS boot menu.
>
I tried them all:
F1, BIOS Setup Utility
F2, boots to Windows normally
F3, boots to Windows normally
F4, boots to Windows normally
F5, give Windows Advanced Menu Setup (Safe Boot, etc.)
F6, boots to Windows normally
F7, boots to Windows normally
F8, boots to Windows normally
F9, boots to Windows normally
F10, BIOS Setup Utility
F11, boots to Windows normally
F12, boots to Windows normally
Del, BIOS Setup Utility
ESC, boots to Windows normally
Del, boots to Windows normally
ALT, boots to Windows normally
Shift, boots to Windows normally
Pause/Break, nothing ever comes up, not even cursor against all black
screen, held for a minute, when released, still nothing
Ben Myers
This is the way the BIOS setup works on Intel D850-series motherboards
(and many other Intel D845 and D865 boards). I worked on a Gateway
board like yours some time ago, and I am nearly 100% certain that
Gateway did not screw around with the Intel BIOS code. I know of no
instance when a Gateway BIOS setup behaved differently from a generic
Intel one. Gateway never had the software engineering expertise to
modify BIOS code.
Okay. So press F1 to enter the BIOS Setup Utility, then use the right
arrow key to highlight the Boot menu. When the word Boot is
highlighted, press Enter.
The Boot submenu will allow you to choose the order in which the BIOS
tries to boot from devices. The default is to try to boot from floppy,
then CD-ROM, then hard drive, then network adapter.
You can find the technical manual for your motherboard on the Intel web
site in the category of archived (e.g. older) motherboards. It is worth
reading, even if it tells you more than you need to know.
In summary, your board is capable of booting from a CD-ROM. You just
have not figured out how to get it to happen. Perhaps the above will
help... Ben Myers
Boris
Hi, Ben,
I went here:
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/CS-012681.htm
and ran the tool. I got:
"No Intel� Desktop Board was detected in this system."
The instructions say, "If you get the message that an Intel desktop
board was not detected, you likely have an OEM desktop board."
I do have the Gateway E4600 System Manual, and it has very little
information about the BIOS screens. All it says is to press F1 to enter
the BIOS Setup Utility. I've done this many times, and set it as you've
suggested, with no luck. I have BIOS version GB85010A.15A.0011P13. I
updated from P12 a few days ago.The Gateway System Manual says I have an
Intel 850 chipset and an Intel Pentium 4 fc-pga Socket 423 processor
with a 400 MHz system.
The GB850 motherboards listed by Intel are :
D850EMD2
D850EMV2
D850GB
D850MD
D850MV
I checked all the manuals for the above boards, and they all say to
press F2 to enter the BIOS Setup Utility. My Gateway System Manual says
to press F1.
I'm at my wits end with this, because it should be as simple as going
into the BIOS Setup Utility, to the BOOT menu, and setting to boot from
ATAPI-CD. I've done this with many, many machines, including older
Gateways (PII). This should be a no brainer.
I do appreciate all the feed back.
Boris
Ben Myers
Boris,
From the BIOS code, the E4600 board is a D850GB.
Last ditch try. Unplug from wall. Remove the CR2032 battery. Let
system sit there for a half hour. Put battery back in. You will surely
be prompted to enter the BIOS setup because the CMOS settings have
become corrupted due to loss of battery power to keep them OK.
Even before the last ditch try, power up the system and quickly hold
down several keys on the keyboard at once. This should cause a keyboard
error with the chance to enter the BIOS CMOS setup... Ben Myers
BillW50
Boris typed on Wed, 7 Oct 2009 04:04:05 +0000 (UTC):
Both F8 or the CTRL key should show the Windows start menu. Holding down
the shift key while Windows boots should stop all programs from
auto-running.
The Pause/Break key should freeze the screen output. And it will set
there until another key is pressed. It only works in the BIOS and DOS
though, maybe at the Command Prompt too under Windows. The old way to do
the very same is CTRL-Q to freeze and CTRL-S to continue. These keys
should still work today.
Back in the early days, graphic cards were so slow that you could see a
list scrolling on the screen. Usually too fast to read, but slow enough
that you can pause and continue the list. Not too handy nowadays, as you
have to be really quick before the screen starts to scroll off and you
missed a lot of what you wanted to read. Although they put a switch
later on for most of those commands anyway to help in these cases. Like
"dir /p" for example.
Ben Myers
True. But that is not his problem. His problem is getting the system to
boot from a CD... Ben
BillW50
Ben Myers typed on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:04:31 -0400:
Yes we know. I was just explaining FYI stuff.
Boris
With battery out for at least an hour, and then back in, the machine
booted with CMOS battery low, and forced me to hit F1 to enter setup.
All settings were same as before, but I had to reset system clock. The
machine then booted to the Windows desktop, even with the XP install CD
inserted into the CD-ROM, and the BIOS set to boot from CD, then floppy,
then IDE.
> Even before the last ditch try, power up the system and quickly hold
> down several keys on the keyboard at once. This should cause a
> keyboard error with the chance to enter the BIOS CMOS setup... Ben
> Myers
Nothing. Just rebooted to the Windows desktop.
Thanks, Ben.
SC Tom
"Boris" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:Xns9C9C69BF61F0An...@188.40.43.213...
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
Ben Myers
Wow! This is really strange. I still cannot understand why the system
will not let you get into the BIOS in the normal way, by holding down F1
or F2 or whatever. I can olny surmise that either the CD-ROM drive is
defective or the CD from which you are trying to boot is damaged... Ben
Ben Myers
Yes! That would be another reason why Boris could not enter the BIOS
CMOS setup. Worth a try... Ben
Boris
This is strange. When this first happened, tried the CD in the CD-ROM
in my trusty 4550, and it booted just fine. I tried a number of
bootable CDs in the 4550's CD-ROM, to be sure the 4550's CD-ROM would
boot a bootable CD.
I then installed the 4550's CD-ROM into this Gateway P4. It installed
just fine, it shows up where it should, it shows in POST, and reads CDs
fine, but it won't boot bootable CDs when in the P4.
Strange indeed.
Boris
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'.
Boris
Well, I'v never had problems entering the BIOS setup. F1 always works,
as per the Gateway manual,to get me into the BIOS setup. I've also
never had problems modifying the BIOS, and the settings 'stick', but the
boot from CD just doesn't want to cooperate.
Twilight zone stuff.
SC Tom
"Boris" <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
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
Boris
>>>>>>>>>>>> 53 69
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
BillW50
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
micro
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
Ben Myers
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
micro
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
Ben Myers
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