Does anyone know whether there's any site that hosts drivers for old GERICOM laptops? I can't even find any information about the model that I got.
The model that I have is a GERICOM Blockbuster Excellent 7000-1400
I've never heard of Gericom, either.
Just kidding! 😜 I had got a Gericom notebook, too. Must have been ca. between the years 2004 and 2006.
It had got an Athlon something and an ATI Mobility GPU, I believe.
There also was the Gericom Hummer series, I believe.
Oh my, is it really been that long ago, already? 😢
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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Is this it: http://web.archive.org/web/20050206094056/htt … 8&tt_products=6
drivers:
https://members.driverguide.com/driver_search … busterexcellent
Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun
Horun wrote on 2021-04-01, 23:41:
Cheers! This was exactly what I was looking for! Thank you
There are a few different VGA drivers depending on if it has the Intel Graphics or additional ATI graphics. Those sub model numbers may help...or not. Good luck !
Let us know how it goes.
Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun
Most people want to forget that Gericom ever existed. From what I've heard their support was infamously bad
Horun wrote on 2021-04-02, 00:49:There are a few different VGA drivers depending on if it has the Intel Graphics or additional ATI graphics. Those sub model numbers may help...or not. Good luck !
Let us know how it goes.
Ok, Windows XP installed without problems, only to reveal the amazing specs of this machine
Lowest end Intel Pentium M running at 1400 Mhz (Intel Pentium M 710)
The WORST variant of the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 (Intel 852GM running at 133 Mhz core, better variants running at 266 Mhz core)
A VIA audio chip with incredibly bad software which has no controls whatsoever, nothing can be adjusted, no sampling rate change, equalizer, pitch. There isn't even a control panel for it.
A meager 256 MB of DDR-333 RAM
The above machine is from late 2004.
The really sad part is that the build quality is actually very, very nice. Plastic is thick, the unit is heavy even without battery.
CPU, RAM, Cooler and WiFi module are accessible under a thick plastic hatch held by four screws. Decent ventilation on the case too. All of that for the worst possible "new" components at the time.
Now the best part? The display. It's the sharpest one I've seen from a laptop this old. Running at 1400x1050 natively - on a freaking Intel Extreme Graphics 2! Lol that poor bastard is struggling even while idling.
TLDR:
Extremely decent quality machine, better build quality than even IBMs of the era, very easy to maintain and upgrade. Bottom of the barrel spec-wise.
Schule04 wrote on 2021-04-03, 10:35:Most people want to forget that Gericom ever existed. From what I've heard their support was infamously bad
From what i remember, i once had a Gericom laptop, it stayed in our basement for a dozen years. That thing was so bad me and my dad had to turn it on like a million times just for it to give me a single beep. a single beep or more, i dont know that was a year ago.
That thing was hilariously bad, it had windows xp which was the only good thing.
I had a new gericom Win98 laptop back in 1999, with a celeron 266 and a not-so-bad ATI gpu iirc.
It came out of the box, brand new, with one broken USB port. So I brought it back for repair. Took 6 weeks and when I got it back the port still wasn‘t working - the case wasn‘t even opened!
That‘s gericom for you: crappy products and their service was even worse.
Gericom was one of the biggest bottom-of-the-barrel brands for cheap laptops in Germany around 2000. Those laptops usually weren't sold at computer stores (they knew that they were just crappy), but at department stores that used the cheap laptops to lure in extra customers to their stores or their online shops. It was the time when general stores started selling computer stuff and Gericom filled the need to deliver "something computer-like we can sell for an attention-generating cheap price".
mkarcher wrote on 2026-04-07, 19:05:Gericom was one of the biggest bottom-of-the-barrel brands for cheap laptops in Germany around 2000. Those laptops usually weren't sold at computer stores (they knew that they were just crappy), but at department stores that used the cheap laptops to lure in extra customers to their stores or their online shops. It was the time when general stores started selling computer stuff and Gericom filled the need to deliver "something computer-like we can sell for an attention-generating cheap price".
Ironically, the archive of their driver archive is one of the most complete driver archives for older Clevo laptops: https://web.archive.org/web/20041027053503/ht … m.com/NOTEBOOK/
and https://www.elhvb.com/mobokive/edwin/laptops/ … elle/index.html for even older ones
They were just a local retail or dropshipper company that shopped around Taiwan for ODM laptops - they used Clevo, FIC, Compal, Uniwill, ECS and probably some others so it would've always been a mixed bag for build quality and support. Especially if they didn't want to ship a device back to Taiwan for repair 😒 I used to work for a similar company that's the UK distributor of a Taiwanese company and since Gericom were just shopping around they would've had no strong relationships with the ODMs. So support that required a BIOS change or hardware repair would've been extra difficult with Gericom being the middle man pretending they're the company that made the thing for multiple separate companies.
Not good for building a brand when it's luck of the draw for whether a product from them would have proper cooling or electrical design, good BIOS or build quality with hinges that'll stay in one piece.
The UK had similar with MultiVision, RM, Centerprise and a bunch more that similarly evaporated, as the main brands like Toshiba and Fujitsu joined in with getting their laptops made by ODMs and the profit margins became too small. My MultiVision CL10 is practically identical to my Toshiba Satellite 3000, both made by Compal with the same not-Toshiba-like build quality and plastic resilience.
The Blockbuster series look like they were made by Uniwill, the main identifier is on the label underneath with the "Pick Up ......... -259IA2-Serie"A 259IA2 is made by Uniwill - it seems like the Gericom driver archive being a simpler website was much more reliably backed up by Internet Archive than the ODM websites were, I know that's the case for Clevo laptops.
GERICOM was located in Linz, Upper-Austria, a 200000 inhabitants city where I was born.
It was located in the harbour area of Linz.
In summer 1998 when I assembled hundreds of computers in another company my co-workers talked about GERICOM.
It was more likely to get better RMA when you had the opportunity to bring-in your defective product.
But working there was never an option to me because I still had to begin the last year in my school.
The company was glad to get spare parts (like HDDs or RAM) at GERICOM when they missed an incoming delivery. They just had to go to the GERICOM counter.
And I have heared they were so cheap because they even used desktop products in laptops.
Disruptor wrote on 2026-04-08, 15:41:GERICOM was located in Linz, Upper-Austria, a 200000 inhabitants city where I was born.
It was located in the harbour area of Linz
That‘s where I live, Linz. Their former building is still there. ☺️
