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Help with Gateway 486 Rebuild

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First post, by oldpcguy

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Hello All!

So I am attempting to revive a Gateway 2000 486/33C that needed a few things to be 100%.

It's obviously a 486DX -33MHz, pure ISA system. It came with a 1MB STB Video card, IDE interface card, and a 5.25in 1.2MB floppy drive.

The onboard CMOS is dead, but it has the external battery back, that looks like it takes AA batteries.

I have installed an IDE-CD in the open bay, added a 3.5in 1.44 floppy drive and a CF to IDE adapter card.

The sound card I wanted to use to connect the IDE CD drive is toast, so that optical drive is out for now until I find a sound card with IDE interface.

So I have the CF to IDE, but how do I find out what parameters to input into BIOS to properly configure the CF card as an IDE drive? I have a 64MB and a 512MB CF card available. I doubt the system can handle even 1GB cards.

Any advice?

Reply 1 of 7, by KCompRoom2000

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oldpcguy wrote:

I have the CF to IDE, but how do I find out what parameters to input into BIOS to properly configure the CF card as an IDE drive? I have a 64MB and a 512MB CF card available. I doubt the system can handle even 1GB cards.

Any advice?

If you need to know the CHS parameters for your CF cards, here's a recent forum post with a tutorial on how to pull up the CHS numbers on a drive that doesn't have them marked down:
Re: SD/CF to ide CHS setup

If you have a slightly newer PC with IDE HDD auto-detect, you may be able to temporarily use the CF-to-IDE adapter on the newer system to pull up the CHS info. I believe most newer (P1-era) PCs list a few usable CHS parameter combinations when using the IDE HDD auto-detect feature.

Reply 2 of 7, by Deksor

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What is the internal cmos battery ? If it's a barrel battery, take it out right now ! You don't want this to leak and ruin your motherboard

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 3 of 7, by oldpcguy

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Deksor wrote:

What is the internal cmos battery ? If it's a barrel battery, take it out right now ! You don't want this to leak and ruin your motherboard

Yep, it's a barrel. Unfortunately, I'm not experience at soldering, and my go-to tech guy retired. I need a guy that does solder work locally. I have several projects stuck due to this. I've called around, but everyone want's $60 to solder a single joint.

I have a Pentium 1 that I think will give me the CHS info. I will try that and report back.

Reply 5 of 7, by Deksor

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You should be able to remove it by cutting the two pins of the battery. Removing that kind of battery is much easier than repairing the damage it can do to a motherboard, take it out as fast as you can ^^

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative

Reply 6 of 7, by CkRtech

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gdjacobs wrote:

Soldering is a useful skill to learn in this racket.

Word.

Displaced Gamers (YouTube) - DOS Gaming Aspect Ratio - 320x200 || The History of 240p || Dithering on the Sega Genesis with Composite Video

Reply 7 of 7, by oldpcguy

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Deksor wrote:

You should be able to remove it by cutting the two pins of the battery. Removing that kind of battery is much easier than repairing the damage it can do to a motherboard, take it out as fast as you can ^^

Will do! I got IDTHEIDE info and going to try to set it up tonight.

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