Old Packard Bell Bios

gimpguy2000 · Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:35 am

Hello,

Well my question after numerous hours of searching is this...

I have a packard bell multimedia 720 desktop PC which I threw an old 120 gig drive in. Ok, I knew about the 8 gig limits on older bios but cannot find any upgrade or software to bypass this limit. It's a WD 120 drive BTW. I can't get the bios specs currently as I'm not by the PC. It's just for my 9 year old to play some games on so not an urgency but I can't install any OS on there even with 8 gigs it seems. I thought ME, or older ubuntu should only take a couple, maybe another issue then... Anyway, if more specs are needed I can get them later.

Thanks!

Paul

Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:50 am

Can't find it offhand, will need bios info.

gimpguy2000 · Tue Jan 15, 2008 9:17 am

edwin wrote:Can't find it offhand, will need bios info.

Thanks, I will try to get it ASAP!

Paul

Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:11 am

W2K SP4, WinXP SP1, Linux
You won't need native Bios support if you have Windows2000 SP4, Windows XP SP1 or Linux with a somewhat recent kernel (2.4.18 upwards). Install your OS into a partition within Bios limits and allocate space above Bios limits within the OS.

source: http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/topic8931.html

just make sure to install the os within the bios-known space.

gimpguy2000 · Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:18 pm

edwin wrote:Can't find it offhand, will need bios info.

This is what I got from it.
Award plug and play bios extention
v1. 0A C 1996
PBBV V1.251

04\28\98 - i430VX - smc37c93 - 2a59gb3jc -00

Thanks!

Paul

gimpguy2000 · Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:24 pm

cp wrote:
W2K SP4, WinXP SP1, Linux
You won't need native Bios support if you have Windows2000 SP4, Windows XP SP1 or Linux with a somewhat recent kernel (2.4.18 upwards). Install your OS into a partition within Bios limits and allocate space above Bios limits within the OS.
source: http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/topic8931.html

just make sure to install the os within the bios-known space.

Thanks for the reply. The hard drive is about\under 120 "stated 111" when hooked to other computers and I installed Windows ME as XP wouldn't install. I tried Linux but kept getting an error "unable to locate RSDP" Tried two versions of Ubuntu and even Knoppix live. I think the PC is simply too old. Anywho, ME installed fine, had to work the floppy disk magic to get it going though.

Thanks,

Paul

Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:18 am

http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/pb/mb/810.htm

RSDP is the ACPI Root System Description Pointer. since your mainboard doesn't have ACPI there is no such pointer. this shouldn't be a problem since ACPI just isn't used then. it could be that your system is so slow that you should wait a while for the setup to continue.

btw. the intel 430VX chipset is quite old. you should either install a lightweight linux on the machine (handmade kernel, small X11 and FluxBox) or you'll end up with a quite unusable slow machine. using linux would enable you using the full 120GB. on the other hand you could install W9x/ME on the machine which would leave you with a crippled hdd and of course a very slow Windows ;)

BiosMan · Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:12 am

Just out of curiosity, how much RAM do you have installed?

Thanks.

gimpguy2000 · Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:52 am

Thanks for the replies. I was going to mention the RAM as I ran into an odd scenario. It's a 128 mb stick and was detected by the bios prior to Win ME install, now it states only 32. I am thinking a small Linux install may be the way to go. I know that ME supports 128 or more without a doubt so not sure why it's suddenly at 32.

Not to mention securities which don't support ME anymore.

Wonder why, lol.

So yah, for this ancient machine, I think I will go over to Linux. My son uses my Linux all the time so it won't be anything new to him. I hate to even bother anyone with this as it's a dinosaur but just trying to get it up and running "enough" and refuse to buy a 9 year old a new machine. I can't even do that for myself right now, lol.

Thanks all,

Paul

Wed Jan 16, 2008 7:57 am

the 128MB stick is high-density, the i430VX chipset can only address 1/4 of it.

we may be able to patch the bios so it sees the 120GB harddisk for what it is but as cp points out, that would be for cosmetics only.

Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:40 pm

if you really want to keep that machine and use it as a workstation, you should get at least 64MB RAM (2x 32MB SDRAM) and an AMD K6 233MHz (not K6-2) or the integer-monster Cyrix MII 300 (running at 233MHz).
you should be able to get those things for virtually nothing at some auctioning platform.
anyway you should be better off with any Slot1 machine, you probably get for virtually nothing, too. and turn your trusty old Packard Bell into a file serving/audio playing/p2p machine on a LAN or something.

gimpguy2000 · Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:30 pm

cp wrote:if you really want to keep that machine and use it as a workstation, you should get at least 64MB RAM (2x 32MB SDRAM) and an AMD K6 233MHz (not K6-2) or the integer-monster Cyrix MII 300 (running at 233MHz).
you should be able to get those things for virtually nothing at some auctioning platform.
anyway you should be better off with any Slot1 machine, you probably get for virtually nothing, too. and turn your trusty old Packard Bell into a file serving/audio playing/p2p machine on a LAN or something.

I agree. Although where I live, believe it or not, **sigh** I must move, people are still selling these machines and want 300 bucks, no kidding. <<That from my neighbor with and even older machine. Or they keep all this old stuff and think they have gold. I keep telling them it's just junk to make a franken-pc out of but they refuse.

I can't get ONE free pc part in my area. I know a guy with a whole box of 7 MB to 1 gig drives, or 10-20 gigs, wahoo right? He won't part with them. Very greedy or stupid around here, depends which way you look at it. What good are they if not used?

That said, I think I will simply leave this beast and just use it as is until I find something else. And yep, it's the Cyrix monster

Thanks for the help though it's been greatly appreciated!

Cheers,

Paul

gimpguy2000 · Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:33 pm

edwin wrote:the 128MB stick is high-density, the i430VX chipset can only address 1/4 of it.

we may be able to patch the bios so it sees the 120GB harddisk for what it is but as cp points out, that would be for cosmetics only.

Yeah, I think it's best to leave it be now. It's not worth the trouble for sure. I sort of figured this would be a not - worth -while project before it began but took the plunge anyway. This is just one of those times where I jumped but the chute didn't open..

Anyhow thanks again for all the replies on this, much appreciated!

Paul