BIOS Updates forum

What is the MB within a Gateway P55C-200? (Lawman/G-Man)

BIOS CAPABILITIES TEST REPORT
===============================

Generated by: BIOS Wizard 2.10
Date: February 16, 2005
Time: 17:00

PnP Version : BIOS currently supports latest version 1.0
PCI Version : BIOS currently supports latest version 2.1
PCI IRQ Routing Table : BIOS currently supports this feature
Enhanced Disk Drive Specification : BIOS currently supports this feature
DMI Version : Current version is 2.0. The minimum DMI version is 2.1
ACPI Version : BIOS currently supports latest version 1.0
APM Version : BIOS currently supports latest version 1.2
Booting From CD-ROM : BIOS currently supports this feature
Supports ESCD : BIOS currently supports this feature
Can be Updated (flashed) : BIOS currently supports this feature
Can be Shadowed : BIOS currently supports this feature
BIOS Chip in Socket : BIOS doesn't support this feature
Supports Selective Booting : BIOS currently supports this feature
Supports LS-120 Booting : The testing of this feature is not supported by the current DMI version
Supports ZIP Booting : The testing of this feature is not supported by the current DMI version
Supports Network Booting : The testing of this feature is not supported by the current DMI version
BIOS Manufacturer : American Megatrends licensed to Intel
BIOS ID : 51-00-00648200-00101111-071595-I430TX
BIOS Date : 07/15/95
BIOS OEM Signon :
BIOS ROM Size : 256K
Chipset : Intel Triton 430TX rev 1
Super I/O Chip : SMC 67x rev 1 found at port 3F0h

Your BIOS is shared by G-Man and Lawman motherboards:

http://www.de.gateway.com/bioses/deskto ... p_bios.asp
http://www.cc-solutions.com/tech/8501705.zip
http://www.cc-solutions.com/tech/8501706.zip

Thanks!

I ran the BIOS update, but it's the same one that was there before. I guess they decided not to support XP or some other feature that is need to load XP.

db

Like a decent CPU and ample memory to run it. I think the max that board will take is P1-233MHz and caching memory stops beyond 64MB (i430TX chipset limit). Not the best of boards to try and run XP on...

Ha-ha, conditionally true!

The basic 200/233 MHz Pentium system with 128/256 MB and faster/cached HDs will support XP just fine. I have an AX-5 board humming away with XP as a browser/email multimedia playback center; tossaway P-IIs playing videos; P-IIIs processing movie DVDs and working as sound mixers and music composition tools.

... saves people $$ if they can update their old favorites with a usable splashy OS with the latest office software ... and cheap hardware: 80 GB - 8 MB HDs $39... ATA-XX cards $20 ... sound cards and video accelerators $20 ... scanners/printers under $100 ... 17" CRTs being thrown out every day for scavengers to redeem.

... may run a bit slow compared to 98/95, but then a lot of us are from the CPM/PDP-XX era, and it's still a luxury to run many of today's applications. ... and in color, ha-ha.

Usable and somewhat practical? Yes. If it can load XP, someone will gleefully use it somewhere, regardless of the speed of execution.

I take obsolete software donations to pass along to budding young programmers. They're even happy with books on 95/98/NT.

... I concede though ... this old Gateway may have one less feature than necessary to run XP. Perhaps it's destined to continue scanning with an old SCSI Mustek deprecated to win 98.

Then there's always that hope that someone has successfully loaded XP on this ol dog.

Thanks for the input.

regards,
db

That is exactly what I was saying. I'm not scared to run new OSs on systems considered old junk but there are limits to what you can combine

Sometimes the challenge is just to walk away from the challenge. I'll kick this old crate a few times and then leave it to antiquities such as 98.

Thanks!

db

At what stage are you getting stuck in setting up XP on this system?

Ritchie, this post is beginning to merge with #29804. It started here with seeking the motherboard type which turns out to be a Lawman/G-man.

In the other post, I'm looking for anyone that has succesfully loaded XP on the Lawman/G-man motherboards once I got the answer here.

Anyway, XP setup hangs at the netdisp.c error(0) right after the initial file-load stage, which Microsoft says is bad memory, and others say it's bad memory, MB (BIOS or hardware ???), MB slots, HD, CD, or CDROM, but no one discusses the BIOS with certainty. I was hoping the gurus here might have come across this BIOS before and had ripped it apart by now.

So ... One licks his index finger and holds it to the sky for direction at this point, with his back to MS, of course. Sometimes a lot of wind is generated by Gates & Co.

So far, as time permits, I have swapped XP CDs, CDROM, HD, cables, PC66/100/133 memory modules, but not CPUs, and will retry CPU speeds 133/166/200/233, always leaving the FSB at 66.

If someone comes along that has been able to load XP on a Lawman/G-man board, then I'll jump through these last hoops a lot faster.

It could be that the last BIOS update just doesn't have the support widgets necessary for XP execution.

Or, I still am using 2-clock vs. 4-clock SDRAM memory modules, which I cannot identify yet.

I have even tried dropping in a pre-loaded/ghosted XP drive (which works great no matter what system the HD/XP migrates from/to, in my experience, such as P-II to P-I, or P-II to P-III, etc.), however, that process caused even a different file-oriented BSD . I may retry that step using another AX-5 P-I XP image to see what happens again and take note.

db