While I don't have the update file I do think I have a Gateway Thor with the 1.00.03.CN0T BIOS version. If you're interested I be happy to look into dumping it and sending you a copy.

On a related note, I have question. Does your Gateway Thor take a long time to POST? Mine takes at least 30 seconds and it's very annoying. That seems totally unreasonable so I'm figuring it doesn't like something in my setup. I'd really like to sort that out because it's otherwise a nice 430fx board.

That would be nice! What's the best way to flash this? I don't have blank floppies on hand and all I got are blank cds. Would that do?

It doesn't take that long. Do you have 10 gig or so hard drive in it?

Checking in. Sorry about the delay. I just got my Gateway Intel Thor box setup and it does in fact have the 1.00.03.CN0T BIOS release. I'll now look into to dumping the BIOS and reflashing.

Speaking of which, does anyone have any recommendations for generic utilities to flash the BIOS on a 430fx board? I've only done this on much newer boards. 😊

@Kenny301
If you can somehow get the BIOS image and flashing program over to your Intel Thor computer and boot DOS, that should be good enough. I sometimes swap an IDE harddrive in between my modern computer and retro computers for large file transfers.

snickersnack wrote:

Speaking of which, does anyone have any recommendations for generic utilities to flash the BIOS on a 430fx board? I've only done this on much newer boards. 😊

I've always had great results with UniFlash. It has never failed me once, but please check the documentation to make sure your hardware is supported first.

That looks perfect 640k!enough. Thank you.

Now off to dump that BIOS!

Edit:
I uploaded a copy of the v1.00.03CN0T BIOS to my dropbox account. The link is below, filename is "BACKUP.BIN". It was dumped with uniflash v1.40 as suggested.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/95veacsra1enh9q/BACKUP.BIN?dl=0

Thank you. Are floppies needed for this?

Floppies aren't required but you'll want to run uniflash from a bare dos without himem.sys, emm386, or other stuff loaded. A floppy boot disk with just uniflash and the BIOS image can be a convenient way to do the job without touching your config files. You can make a boot floppy from dos pretty easily if you have a spare.

So I can also do this with a cd? I can't seem to get the computer to read floppies. I get that "The device is not ready" error.

I'm not sure. Flashing the BIOS from a boot CD on such an old PC strikes me as playing with fire. For firmware upgrades, I feel most secure with as simple a configuration as possible. I'd personally stick to running the utility from a floppy disk or hard disk running DOS or maybe Win9x with no memory managers loaded in the config files or much of anything else.

I do not think the Intel Thor/ Advanced ATX motherboard has a recovery option for the BIOS and the flash chip is soldered to the board. As such recovering from a bad flash would require the skills of a dedicated hobbyist. 😉

If you are in the USA and can sort out that floppy drive or borrow one from another machine I'd be happy to mail you a working boot disk with flashing utility and the 1.00.03.CN0T BIOS image.

If you are really feeling lucky, Intel released a newer BIOS for this machine for their retail Advanced/ATX. You have to hex edit the installer to get it to load on OEM boards, and you'll lose the Gateway logo on boot. The latest revision from Intel is 1.00.06.CN0

So I could also put dos on a hard drive and do it this way? I was able to set up the dos boot disk on a newer Dell machine with floppy drive so I know it isn't the floppies. I even put the floppy drive that was in the Dell in the old rig and same results. Same error. Is there something on this board that is preventing it from reading floppies? The BIOS detects it. Got a 4gb CF card with Win98SE in there via an IDE to CF card. Is it possible to install a very basic dos 6.22 on a separate partition for the purpose of doing this?

How do I load Windows 98 with no memory managers loaded? Please read my previous reply. I can't get this system to read floppies.

snickersnack wrote:

I'm not sure. Flashing the BIOS from a boot CD on such an old PC strikes me as playing with fire. For firmware upgrades, I feel most secure with as simple a configuration as possible. I'd personally stick to running the utility from a floppy disk or hard disk running DOS or maybe Win9x with no memory managers loaded in the config files or much of anything else.

I do not think the Intel Thor/ Advanced ATX motherboard has a recovery option for the BIOS and the flash chip is soldered to the board. As such recovering from a bad flash would require the skills of a dedicated hobbyist. 😉

If you are in the USA and can sort out that floppy drive or borrow one from another machine I'd be happy to mail you a working boot disk with flashing utility and the 1.00.03.CN0T BIOS image.

Kenny301 wrote:

How do I load Windows 98 with no memory managers loaded? Please read my previous reply. I can't get this system to read floppies.

Press F8 during startup right after the BIOS post, look for a menu selection named "Safe-mode Command Prompt", then press enter, that should bring you into a DOS prompt without memory managers. You can also try the Shift+F5 key combination while in the F8 boot menu (should be mentioned on the bottom of the screen).

As far as not being able to read floppies goes: Is there any damage on the motherboard's floppy drive connector? I've seen some motherboards with a pin pushed out of the floppy connector from trying to force insert the cable in the wrong direction. So it's worth a shot to check to make sure that didn't happen.

ok, did the safe mode command prompt option, tried it with bootblock got a writing error of some sort, then tried it without bootblock and it was successful, then hit ctrl-alt-delete, and now I get a blinkning green power light and the monitor doesn't come on. Something isn't right here. How can I recover this or this motherboard now toast? Any insights?

KCompRoom2000 wrote:

Kenny301 wrote:

How do I load Windows 98 with no memory managers loaded? Please read my previous reply. I can't get this system to read floppies.

Press F8 during startup right after the BIOS post, look for a menu selection named "Safe-mode Command Prompt", then press enter, that should bring you into a DOS prompt without memory managers. You can also try the Shift+F5 key combination while in the F8 boot menu (should be mentioned on the bottom of the screen).

As far as not being able to read floppies goes: Is there any damage on the motherboard's floppy drive connector? I've seen some motherboards with a pin pushed out of the floppy connector from trying to force insert the cable in the wrong direction. So it's worth a shot to check to make sure that didn't happen.

Hi Kenny, sorry to hear you're having problems. That bootblock write error doesn't sound good. You may have to remove the BIOS flash chip and reprogram it in another computer.

Have you tried removing the CMOS battery and letting the computer sit for say 20 minutes?

Also, did your Thor motherboard have onboard video by any chance? Mine did not. If your Thor does have onboard video, it may be worth trying the computer with a pci graphics card.

How would I do that?

I actually had the CMOS battery out all day and just now turned it on and nothing. Still same blinking green power light.

No on-board video. Has a PCI graphics card.

If your Intel Thor motherboard is like mine, the BIOS flash is unfortunately soldered to the board. You'd probably need to take that off with an iron and then reflash it or a suitable replacement in a compatible eprom programmer. It's delicate work.

If you'd rather not go down that rabbit hole, I have a spare Thor in my parts somewhere. I'll need to test it, but if it's good and you're not too far away maybe we could trade motherboards through the mail. How's that sound?

I'm in Maryland, USA.

Sounds good. I'm in Northern Virginia just south of the 495 beltway.

Mine is soldered to the board as well. It's a skill level I don't have. I was hoping someone on here I could just mail it to to have it revived and on the latest and last bios update.

snickersnack wrote:

If your Intel Thor motherboard is like mine, the BIOS flash is unfortunately soldered to the board. You'd probably need to take that off with an iron and then reflash it or a suitable replacement in a compatible eprom programmer. It's delicate work.

If you'd rather not go down that rabbit hole, I have a spare Thor in my parts somewhere. I'll need to test it, but if it's good and you're not too far away maybe we could trade motherboards through the mail. How's that sound?

I'm in Maryland, USA.

Ah that's great, you're not too far away.

I don't currently have the soldering skill either but I've been meaning to build it. I've been playing around with the coreboot/ libreboot replacement firmware on some of my Core2 systems and I'm about at the point where I'd like to try some customizations. Being just a tinker, I see bricked boards in my future and I need to be able to recover from that.

If that particular board has sentimental value, I wouldn't be surprised if someone here could replace the BIOS if you made it worth their while. There are some very skilled people here.

Well, I guess I'll go check out that spare Thor now. I'll let you know how it looks.