But why?

The Serpent Rider wrote:

But why?

but why what? restore it to stock? if that's what you mean that's a really odd question, especially in a forum like this.

why do any of us even pay for old parts to build any retro machine when the majority of it can be done for free on DOSbox? why do people restore anything to stock? just because.

I mean, sure it's fun to upgrade the hell out of a retro PC but sometimes that gets old and it can be just as fun and challenging to restore something to a stock config and see how close you can get something to a state it was when it was bought new from the OEM.

I just restored my Gateway 2000 486dx 33mhz.

read my thread
Gateway 2000 486dx-33 Restoration

High recommend you put a NEW cmos battery in it before you start.
other wise you run into all kinds of problems with the bios.

Micronics mobo
ram - 64mb max
256kb cache max
HD - 512mb max

See my thread for what cards I used.

can confirm these ol' GW2Ks are finicky... and he's absolutely right, replace that CMOS battery ASAP

I am pretty sure most of the gateway 2000 486s used an OEM SCSI Toshiba 2X CD-ROM drive with a special faceplate that matched the gateway front bezel. They also seemed to commonly have first generation SB16s like the CT1770. Normally, the VLB ones also had a special OEM Mach32. I think it was typically the "XLR", or the "CLX", but you're better off with a normal "retail" version.

I've got one of these that I picked up maybe 15 years ago that appears pretty stock. 486DX2-66 with 16 MB RAM. It's got the Mach32 VLB card and a SB CT1330A. The IDE controller is on the motherboard. It's got an optical drive that doesn't really match the faceplate, but I think it's IDE. It also has a combo 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drive instead of the sideways mounted 3.5".

Edit: mine was manufactured in September 93 for reference.

I've got a picture of it posted in this thread: Re: Getting my first PC (Gateway 4DX2-66V) configured properly

Another good source for this info is searching Google books for the model of the computer. You'll get a bunch of period PC magazines with either advertisements or reviews of the system.

If it has an IDE CD-ROM drive, it's likely not original. I think Gateway also used the Panasonic/Matsushita 1X and 2X drives that came in the Creative bundles, though I am pretty sure they had OEM bezels to match the case. These were used in systems without SCSI.

There were other options too of course, I am merely listing the ones that I have seen frequently.

Mine was pretty bare when I got it. only had a 3 1/2 floppy drive in a 5 1/4 to 3 1/4 bay adaptor. Its proven to be a challenge adding other drives since its a rails system and I only have 2 rails for the one drive.

Inside the only 2 cards were a VLB Buslogic SCSI controller and a ISA video card from ATI, its not a VGA wonder card though, forget what it is ATM.

Back around 2000 or so, my mom got one of these secondhand, but I have no idea how much of the hardware it had when she got it was factory-original. I remember she got it with 12MB RAM, a ~500MB hard drive, DOS 6.something and Windows 3.11. IIRC it also had both 3.5in and 5.25in floppy drives. One thing I know for certain wasn't factory-original was the CD-ROM drive, which was a 24x slot-load IDE. The motherboard also had an unpopulated POD socket. Unfortunately, I don't remember at all what video card or sound card it had...heck, I don't even remember if they were onboard or separate expansion cards. We had this computer for literally only a few months before she got something better. 😜

Pretty much done with this build. does anyone know what the max RAM amount is that this MB can take and does anyone have a chart to what the DIP switch settings are?

Only thing I wasn't able to do is to get the turbo button working or the turbo LED. I know the led isn't dead because if I switch the wires on the jumper the LED comes on and stays on but I can't get it to light up when the turbo button is pressed. I also can't get the turbo function itself to work. I ran some CPU speed checking programs with the switch pressed and no change.

Anouther bummer is the L2 cache stick, it's only 64KB and AFAIK these came stock with 256KB so I don't know why someone would have downgraded the L2 cache or perhaps they sold cheaper configurations?

Did you ever figure out the turbo button issue? I have the tower version and I’m having a similar problem in which the turbo LED is always on and the button doesnt appear to do anything and it doesn’t turn off the LED. I should mention that the cmos battery is dead and I have a new one on order.