I can solder, just not those types of chips.

ok

I'll bet there is. What thread would be appropriate to un-brick this board and put the latest bios update on it?

snickersnack wrote:

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

Good news. The Intel Thor looks good. I loaded up FreeDOS and ran DOS Quake for a bit. Seems fine. I also tried that hack that another user posted about a year ago to update the Gateway firmware to Intel's latest 1.00.06.CN0 BIOS. That also seems fine.

If swapping boards sound appealing to you, just send me PM and we exchange shipping info. I have three of these boards, although one doesn't work (I hope to revive that one some day).

If you'd like to solicit help for externally reflashing that BIOS chip, I think a new thread would be appropriate. Someone will let you know if there is a better place.

That Intel 1.00.06.CN0 BIOS update would probably be useful for such a repair. I'll go upload that to my dropbox and post a link.

Think I'd rather trade places with you. I'd like to get that one with the latest Intel Bios on there. The one I got could be another one you could revive for yourself. How about that? 😀 Also, what case would you recommend I put this in? The original Gateway 2000 case that I have, the front bezel is hosed, all yellowed up, the buttons broke off and stuff.

Cool, we can swap boards then. I'll send you the v1.00.06.CN0 BIOS board. I'll send you a PM and we can exchange shipping info.

I put my Intel Thor in a Rosewill mid tower that accommodates a full ATX motherboard. Nothing special, it's just what I had on hand. If I were to buy a new tower, I might try one of those Fractal Design cases with a door that covers the drive bays. That way I might be able to limit dust sucked into a 5.25 floppy drive, should I install one. Another consideration is if you have any of those really long ISA cards like a Roland LAPC-I. You'll need to make sure your case is long enough to accommodate them without running into a drive bay. Nothing a saw couldn't fix though I suppose. 😉

One small thing about the Thor is that the IO shield seems to be used as the support for the corner of the motherboard near the CPU. I don't think the Gateway I/O shield will fit in a modern ATX case without modification. You can leave it floating unsupported and be careful with it, or perhaps jam something non-conductive in between the board and the case to give it a little support. A project I have on my list for the future is to buy a blank IO shield for a modern case and cut holes for the Thor, using the Gateway IO shield as a template.

pm sent

snickersnack wrote:

Cool, we can swap boards then. I'll send you the v1.00.06.CN0 BIOS board. I'll send you a PM and we can exchange shipping info.

I put my Intel Thor in a Rosewill mid tower that accommodates a full ATX motherboard. Nothing special, it's just what I had on hand. If I were to buy a new tower, I might try one of those Fractal Design cases with a door that covers the drive bays. That way I might be able to limit dust sucked into a 5.25 floppy drive, should I install one. Another consideration is if you have any of those really long ISA cards like a Roland LAPC-I. You'll need to make sure your case is long enough to accommodate them without running into a drive bay. Nothing a saw couldn't fix though I suppose. 😉

One small thing about the Thor is that the IO shield seems to be used as the support for the corner of the motherboard near the CPU. I don't think the Gateway I/O shield will fit in a modern ATX case without modification. You can leave it floating unsupported and be careful with it, or perhaps jam something non-conductive in between the board and the case to give it a little support. A project I have on my list for the future is to buy a blank IO shield for a modern case and cut holes for the Thor, using the Gateway IO shield as a template.

NJRoadfan wrote on 2017-09-23, 20:11:

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

I was about to flash this board and noticed the Gateway release is actually newer than Intel's. It confusing because the Intel version number is newer.

Gateway 1.00.03.CN0T (bios date is 10/10/96)
Intel 1.00.06.CN0 (bios date is 07/30/96)

Has anyone with a Thor board noticed any differences /fixes with these bios'. Any reason to use the Intel version as the Gateway release is a few months newer despite the version numbers.

Any assistance locating BIOS version 1.00.02.CN0T or 1.00.03.CN0T would be greatly appreciated. TIA!

Hi, looking for some help please. I have the Gateway 2000 version of this board and suffered a failed firmware update a few years ago so have been in storage for years. I recently desoldered the PLCC bios chip, replaced it with a socket and have flashed via a T48 programmer bios 1.00.03.CN0T to the chip but its still dead with no post beeps or any kind of life from a post analyzer. The new socket is 100% good with no shorts on any pins.

I've recently read that this MB do not contain a backup bootblock so a failed firmware update would result in a permanent dead board but now wondering if the posted bios files on the Retroweb also not contain the bootblock so there is no way for me to recover this MB? Is this accurate or am I reading this wrong? Unpacking the bios shows these two files:
1003CN0T.Bl1
1003CN0T.Bio
I flashed the 1003CN0t.bio file but not sure what to do with the *.Bl1 file. ChatGPT says the *.BL1 file should be ignored as that is usually used by the flash utility to stage and verify the update.

Any info appreciated.

Space Ace wrote on 2025-08-05, 13:45:

Hi, looking for some help please. I have the Gateway 2000 version of this board and suffered a failed firmware update a few y […]
Show full quote

Hi, looking for some help please. I have the Gateway 2000 version of this board and suffered a failed firmware update a few years ago so have been in storage for years. I recently desoldered the PLCC bios chip, replaced it with a socket and have flashed via a T48 programmer bios 1.00.03.CN0T to the chip but its still dead with no post beeps or any kind of life from a post analyzer. The new socket is 100% good with no shorts on any pins.

I've recently read that this MB do not contain a backup bootblock so a failed firmware update would result in a permanent dead board but now wondering if the posted bios files on the Retroweb also not contain the bootblock so there is no way for me to recover this MB? Is this accurate or am I reading this wrong? Unpacking the bios shows these two files:
1003CN0T.Bl1
1003CN0T.Bio
I flashed the 1003CN0t.bio file but not sure what to do with the *.Bl1 file. ChatGPT says the *.BL1 file should be ignored as that is usually used by the flash utility to stage and verify the update.

Any info appreciated.

Apologies I should have also added that I have now tried all the bios versions on the Retro web and nothing works. Understandably there can also be hardware fault elsewhere but since it literally failed at the bios update I'm focused on this area. The MR Bios only contains a MR_ATX.BIO file and no Bl1 file so assume ChatGPT is correct in the sense that the *.Bl1 can be ignored and only used by the flash utility? If that's the case is it safe to assume that the issue now lies elsewhere?

Thanks

Space Ace wrote on 2025-08-05, 13:45:

Hi, looking for some help please. I have the Gateway 2000 version of this board and suffered a failed firmware update a few y […]
Show full quote

Hi, looking for some help please. I have the Gateway 2000 version of this board and suffered a failed firmware update a few years ago so have been in storage for years. I recently desoldered the PLCC bios chip, replaced it with a socket and have flashed via a T48 programmer bios 1.00.03.CN0T to the chip but its still dead with no post beeps or any kind of life from a post analyzer. The new socket is 100% good with no shorts on any pins.

I've recently read that this MB do not contain a backup bootblock so a failed firmware update would result in a permanent dead board but now wondering if the posted bios files on the Retroweb also not contain the bootblock so there is no way for me to recover this MB? Is this accurate or am I reading this wrong? Unpacking the bios shows these two files:
1003CN0T.Bl1
1003CN0T.Bio
I flashed the 1003CN0t.bio file but not sure what to do with the *.Bl1 file. ChatGPT says the *.BL1 file should be ignored as that is usually used by the flash utility to stage and verify the update.

Any info appreciated.

according to @scorp in his latest video, you have to trim the first few bytes off of each BIx file (meta data) and then concatenate the rest of them together to form one binary of exactly 128kB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvoaJ2qwf9k

Thank you so much maxtherabbit its working haha!

Recently started watching retro PC vids on Youtube and recalled I had this MB so decided to give it a go and desolder the bios but couldn't get my head around the bios bootblock people were talking about. What a nice coincidence that Necroware posted that video, annoyingly I watched it last week but not to the end

Thanks again.

Space Ace wrote on 2025-08-05, 13:56:

Space Ace wrote on 2025-08-05, 13:45:

Hi, looking for some help please. I have the Gateway 2000 version of this board and suffered a failed firmware update a few y […]
Show full quote

Hi, looking for some help please. I have the Gateway 2000 version of this board and suffered a failed firmware update a few years ago so have been in storage for years. I recently desoldered the PLCC bios chip, replaced it with a socket and have flashed via a T48 programmer bios 1.00.03.CN0T to the chip but its still dead with no post beeps or any kind of life from a post analyzer. The new socket is 100% good with no shorts on any pins.

I've recently read that this MB do not contain a backup bootblock so a failed firmware update would result in a permanent dead board but now wondering if the posted bios files on the Retroweb also not contain the bootblock so there is no way for me to recover this MB? Is this accurate or am I reading this wrong? Unpacking the bios shows these two files:
1003CN0T.Bl1
1003CN0T.Bio
I flashed the 1003CN0t.bio file but not sure what to do with the *.Bl1 file. ChatGPT says the *.BL1 file should be ignored as that is usually used by the flash utility to stage and verify the update.

Any info appreciated.

Apologies I should have also added that I have now tried all the bios versions on the Retro web and nothing works. Understandably there can also be hardware fault elsewhere but since it literally failed at the bios update I'm focused on this area. The MR Bios only contains a MR_ATX.BIO file and no Bl1 file so assume ChatGPT is correct in the sense that the *.Bl1 can be ignored and only used by the flash utility? If that's the case is it safe to assume that the issue now lies elsewhere?

Thanks

The Mr-Bios is just one 128kb files, without padding etc, did you get it working just flashing it?

Space Ace wrote on 2025-08-05, 15:29:

Thank you so much maxtherabbit its working haha! […]
Show full quote

Thank you so much maxtherabbit its working haha!

Recently started watching retro PC vids on Youtube and recalled I had this MB so decided to give it a go and desolder the bios but couldn't get my head around the bios bootblock people were talking about. What a nice coincidence that Necroware posted that video, annoyingly I watched it last week but not to the end

Thanks again.

The attachment FX.jpg is no longer available

newer intel MB have a separate boot block region in flash which is not overwritten in the update process, this allows you to boot into a recovery mode and reflash from floppy to recover a failed flash
this is how you must flash generic intel binaries onto these OEM boards

however this board, being so old, does NOT have this function - you just write the entire 1Mb flash chip with either a third party utility like scorp did, or with an external programmer like you did

Riikcakirds wrote on 2025-08-05, 17:53:

Space Ace wrote on 2025-08-05, 13:56:

Space Ace wrote on 2025-08-05, 13:45:

Hi, looking for some help please. I have the Gateway 2000 version of this board and suffered a failed firmware update a few y […]
Show full quote

Hi, looking for some help please. I have the Gateway 2000 version of this board and suffered a failed firmware update a few years ago so have been in storage for years. I recently desoldered the PLCC bios chip, replaced it with a socket and have flashed via a T48 programmer bios 1.00.03.CN0T to the chip but its still dead with no post beeps or any kind of life from a post analyzer. The new socket is 100% good with no shorts on any pins.

I've recently read that this MB do not contain a backup bootblock so a failed firmware update would result in a permanent dead board but now wondering if the posted bios files on the Retroweb also not contain the bootblock so there is no way for me to recover this MB? Is this accurate or am I reading this wrong? Unpacking the bios shows these two files:
1003CN0T.Bl1
1003CN0T.Bio
I flashed the 1003CN0t.bio file but not sure what to do with the *.Bl1 file. ChatGPT says the *.BL1 file should be ignored as that is usually used by the flash utility to stage and verify the update.

Any info appreciated.

Apologies I should have also added that I have now tried all the bios versions on the Retro web and nothing works. Understandably there can also be hardware fault elsewhere but since it literally failed at the bios update I'm focused on this area. The MR Bios only contains a MR_ATX.BIO file and no Bl1 file so assume ChatGPT is correct in the sense that the *.Bl1 can be ignored and only used by the flash utility? If that's the case is it safe to assume that the issue now lies elsewhere?

Thanks

The Mr-Bios is just one 128kb files, without padding etc, did you get it working just flashing it?

I tried both MR Bios files on The Retro Web, both programmed successfully with the T48 but neither of them worked and just a 0000 on the boot analyser. When loading the MR Bios files into the software the address space 00000000 to 0000FF0 is blank whereas with the combined 1006CNo bios there is data there so not sure if its also missing the bootblock and the MR Bios flash utility ignores this address space and leaves the original boot code in that address space untouched. I'm as amateur as it gets so take this with a huge pile of salt - im just happy the MB is working again but will probably flash the MR Bios within DOS as it looks to be much better than the Intel ones.