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Archive-name: pc-hardware-faq/gateway2000 Last-modified: September 1, 1996 Last-Posted: August 1, 1996 Next-Posting: October 1, 1996 Posting-Frequency: the first of every month alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000 FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) ========================================================================= This is the FAQ (frequently asked questions) posting for the group alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000. This message is designed to be posted at regular intervals to the group in order to answer questions that come up frequently, and to provide a resource for new users. I'd like suggestions and comments about this FAQ, and input from people about what should/shouldn't be included. This is a continuously evolving document. To make it as good a tool as it can be, I need *your* help! ===> I particularly welcome corrections of any inaccuracies! <=== This FAQ is available via anonymous FTP to the machine "ftp.crl.com" in the file "/users/ds/dseitel/gateway/gw2000-FAQ". It is also now available via HTTP at: http://www.crl.com/~dseitel/gwfaq.html. Questions about this FAQ can be sent to me, dseitel@crl.com (David S. Eitelbach). Thanks to the people on alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000 who have contributed to this FAQ, and to Gateway 2000 for having provided on-line support for this group and to Tod Pike <tgp@sei.cmu.edu> for maintaining this FAQ up till now and for maintaining the Gateway list. Questions marked with a "+" are new to this issue. Questions marked with a "|" are changed significantly with this issue. Disclaimer: The content of this article is the sole responsibility of the author. No responsibility is taken for the accuracy of the information given in this article. Great care is taken to be accurate and complete, but you use the information herein AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! If you find something that is wrong in here, tell me! **NOTE** I'm soliciting Windows 95 information for the FAQ. Please mail suggestions to dseitel@crl.com. ========================================================================= Table of Contents: 1) General Information 1.1) Where can I get a copy of this FAQ? 1.1.5) Does Gateway 2000 have a world wide web site? 1.1.6) Does Gateway 2000 have an FTP site? |1.2) How can I get in touch with Gateway 2000? 1.3) Does Gateway 2000 provide support on the Internet? 1.4) Where can I get current prices/specs? 1.4.1) Does Gateway charge sales tax in my state? 1.5) Where can I ask for help? 1.6) Why should I buy a Gateway 2000 system? 1.7) What other FAQ's should I read? 1.7.1) How can I get what's on a WWW page if I have no browser? 1.8) Where can I get cow spotted (and other) goodies? 1.9) Contact information for related companies |1.9.1) How to contact the 10th Anniversary Club ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) Hardware Questions 2.1) General Hardware Questions 2.1.1) Why can't I use a modem at COM4:? |2.1.2) How do I get into the CMOS setup? 2.1.3) Why does my P5-60/P5-66/PCI486 machine lock up? (UART fix) 2.1.4) How can I get my WD 540 hard drive to work correctly? 2.1.5) Why do I have a long delay when exiting Windows? 2.1.6) How do I get my Bernoulli to work on the parallel port (P90 Tower)? 2.1.7) My system doesn't recognize more than 16M of RAM 2.1.8) Why is there a 20-second delay during booting? 2.2) CD-ROM Questions 2.2.1) Why does my system "pause" when playing CDs? 2.2.2) How do I get Windows 95 to access all drives on the Sanyo 3-CD CD-ROM? 2.2.3) My CD-ROM light blinks every few seconds under Windows 95 - Why? 2.2.4) Why does the Mitsumi FX-400 CD-ROM make grinding noises? 2.2.4.1) Where can I get Mitsumi CD-ROM drivers? 2.2.5) What can I do about the Wearnes CD-ROM pauses? 2.2.6) Will my NEC 260 CD-ROM run with Windows NT? 2.2.6.1) Is there support for the Sanyo 3-CD CD-ROM in Windows NT? 2.3) Keyboard Questions 2.3.1) How can I disable the programmibility of the Anykey keyboard? 2.3.2) My Anykey keyboard produces incorrect characters. How can I fix it? 2.4) Modem Questions 2.4.1) Why can't I connect with my (older) Telepath modem? 2.4.2) Why won't the 28.8 Telepath work with Delrina's Commsuite 95? 2.4.3) Why does my 28.8 Telepath insist on always answering? 2.4.9) Where can I learn more about modems and their problems? 2.5) Monitor and Video Questions 2.5.1) What about the missing 3 pixels on the left of my screen? 2.5.2) What is the bright line on the left of my monitor? What are other common monitor problems? 2.5.3) Who makes the CrystalScan monitors? 2.5.4) What are the custom settings for the CS1572FS monitor? 2.5.5) Where can I get the latest drivers for the ATI Video cards? 2.5.6) Who makes the Vivitron monitors? 2.5.6.1) What are the specs for the SONY Vivitron monitor made by SONY? 2.5.6.2) What's the right way to set up a Vivitron 21 under Windows 95? 2.5.7) Where can I get drivers for the Diamond Viper cards? 2.5.7.1) Can I use the regular Matrox drivers with Gateway's Matrox? 2.5.7.2) Where can I get Matrox BIOS and driver updates? 2.5.8) Why do I have video problems with my tower system and not my desktop? 2.5.9) What are those horizontal black lines on my monitor? 2.5.9.9) Are there any monitor repair FAQs? 2.6) Soundcard and Speaker Questions 2.6.1) Why won't my SoundBlaster card work? 2.6.2) Why won't my Ensoniq card work with DOS games? 2.6.8) Why do my Altec Lansing 450 speakers hiss so much? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Software Questions 3.1) Why doesn't Borland's Turbo Debugger work right? 3.2) What is the hidden file "quality.com" for? 3.3) How do I install the CD-ROM version of OS/2? 3.3.1) Where can I get help installing OS/2 on a Gateway Handbook? 3.4) Do Gateway systems work with Windows NT? 3.4.1) Do Gateway systems work with Linux? How about other UNIX systems? 3.5) Why does the Windows 95 installation abort on the second diskette? 3.5.5) Any Windows 95 tips? 3.6) Why can't I install Windows for Workgroups with ATI drivers? 3.7) How can I enable the 32 bit features of hard drives? 3.8) Why do I get a GPF at MACX.DRV? 3.9) Why doesn't MYST work? ========================================================================= Section 1: General Information 1.1) Where can I get a copy of this FAQ? ftp://ftp.crl.com/users/ds/dseitel/gateway/gw2000-FAQ ftp://ftp.sei.cmu.edu/pub/gateway2000/gw2000-FAQ via ftp from rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000/ filename: alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000_FAQ. This FAQ is posted once each month (around the first) to the newsgroups alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000, alt.answers and news.answers. For those without direct Internet access, you can receive files from the Gateway 2000 area on ftp.sei.cmu.edu by using the "ftpmail" server. Send a mail message to "ftpmail@sei.cmu.edu" with a Subject of "help" and it will send you directions on how to use it. For example, you can use the command "file-request gateway2000/README" to get the README file from the Gateway 2000 area. 1.1.5) Does Gateway 2000 have a world wide web site? Yes, at either of these URLs: http://www.gw2k.com/ http://www.gateway2000.com/ If you're having problems displaying the pages, the site may show up better in Netscape version 2.0. 1.16) Does Gateway 2000 have an FTP site? Yes, at ftp://ftp.gw2k.com. FTP to ftp.gw2k.com log in as "anonymous" or "ftp" [omit the quotes, though] send your e-mail address as password, for example, "billg@aol.com" [again, without the quotes]. If you are unfamiliar with FTP, you can type "help" at the FTP prompt [without the quotes] to get a list of available commands. You can then type the word "help" followed by the command you need help with. |1.2) How can I get in touch with Gateway 2000? Here are the telephone numbers for the various departments (from the manuals): U.S.A. numbers: Customer Service: 1-800-846-2000 Fax: 605-232-2023 Technical Support: 1-800-846-2301 Fax: 605-232-2182 Gold Premium Support: 1-800-555-3002 Add-on Components: 1-800-846-2080 Fax: 605-232-2121 Portable Tech Support: 1-800-846-2302 Automated Tech Support: 1-800-846-2118 FaxBack service: 1-800-846-4526 Gateway 2000 BBS: 605-232-2224 (V.32 BIS/HST 300-38400 bps) 1-800-846-7562 (fixes and drivers only) Technical Telecommunications Device for the Deaf: 1-800-846-2302 Overseas offices: International calls: +1-605-232-2000 International Tech Support:+1-605-232-2191 Dublin office: +353-1-797-2000 Customer Service Fax: +353-1-848-2022 European Faxback +353-1-867-0400 European BBS: +353-1-867-0433 European BBS: 0800-97-3140 (free-phone, from U.K. only) U.K. Sales office: 0800-20-2000 Ireland office: 1800-44-2000 Ireland Tech Support: 1800-46-2000 France Sales: 353-1-797-3040 France Sales Fax: 353-1-797-3700 France Showroom Fax: 331-1-45-63-4569 Germany Sales: 353-1-797-4040 Germany Sales Fax: 353-1-797-4700 Japan Customer Service: 0120-54-2000 or 045-338-2000 Japan Cust. Svc. Fax: 045-338-2046 Australia Sales: 1800-648-096 Australia Customer Service and Support: 1800-802-776 Australia Fax: 844-8588 Canada Sales: 800-846-3609 or 605-232-2191 Canada Sales Fax: 605-232-2613 Internet: Gateway's official World Wide Web (WWW) site: http://www.gw2k.com/ http://www.gateway2000.com/ Gateway's official FTP site: ftp://ftp.gw2k.com Gateway support personnel: Gateway 2000 BBS Support People: KEVIN EHLERS - System administrator GWVINCE - System administrator GT_LANDRA - Technican GWSCOTT - Technican GATEWAY CS - Customer Service Here are Gateway accounts on various system: |Compuserve (to access the forum, type "GO GATEWAY"): 75300,1300 - Forum Administrator (Brian Kelly) |103505,222 - Technician (Shawn Watson) 72262,3510 - Technician (Tom Batcheler) 74774,3023 - Technician (Mark Rochester) 74774,3022 - Technician (Jerod Enstrom) |71154,1067 - Customer Service (Shawna Ploen) America Online (type keyword "Gateway"): G2KBrian - Forum Administrator (Brian Kelly) G2KLori - Technician (Lori Seibold) G2KShellie - Technician (Shellie Thelen) G2KTech1 - Technician (Phill Ellis) G2KCS - Customer Service (Suzi Taylor) Spaceworks: Forum Administrator (Brian Kelly) LORIS - Technican (Lori Seibold) TERI-H - Customer Service (Teri Huygens) Prodigy (Jump Computer Support): GATE99A - Forum Administrator (Brian Kelly) GATE99C - Technician (Chris Whalstrom) GATE99E - Customer Service (Suzi Taylor) Fido [1:288/17] Crash Mail (Mail Only) D Liston - Node SYSOP (Dan Liston) These are addresses of contacts at Gateway, but the address to use for tech support is tech@gw2kbbs.com and for customer service it is custserv@gw2kbbs.com. It's understandably tempting to e-mail or CC a favorite technician at Gateway. A lot of people are doing this, which results in good technicians getting swamped. Please resist the temptation and instead just e-mail tech@gw2kbbs.com, allowing Gateway to fairly distribute the workload. supervisor@gw2kbbs.com - to get to the boss kehlers@gw2kbbs.com - System administrator (Kevin Ehlers) gwvince@gw2kbbs.com - System administrator (Vince Kub) ==> tech@gw2kbbs.com - Tech Support [this is the one to use] NOTE: Please don't e-mail or CC individual technicians unless you are carrying on an already established e-mail dialog with them! custserv@gw2kbbs.com - Customer Service (James Goodier) Also, there is an "unofficial" WWW page devoted to Gateway 2000 at: http://www.mcs.com/~brooklyn/home.html 1.3) Does Gateway 2000 provide support on the Internet? By e-mail, yes; in the newsgroup alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000, not any more. Gateway did provide newsgroup support until late January of 1996, at which time it was withdrawn. Gateway does provide e-mail tech support at tech@gw2kbbs.com. The turnaround time is usually a day or two. For a while Gateway had had serious mail problems. This had resulted in customers not getting answers that Gateway had sent to them from tech@gw2kbbs.com. That problem has now been fixed by Gateway having changed to another Internet service provider (ISP). 1.4) Where can I get current prices/specs? Well, prices change rapidly, as do the specs on the systems that Gateway 2000 offers. I've been trying to get online copies of these, but I suspect that they would be out of date too fast to do any good. If you call Gateway Customer Service at 1-800-846-2000, they will quote you information (or fax it to you). The FaxBack service is a good source of the same information,and you don't have to wait on hold! Also, you can send e-mail to the address "gwfiles@gw2kbbs.com" with the text "get allconf.txt" (without the quotes) in the body of the message. The server will send you the current price and configuration files. Also, check the GUI WWW page for current prices: http://www.mcs.com/~brooklyn/home.html 1.4.1) Does Gateway charge sales tax in my state? Gateway charges sales tax in the following states: AR, AZ, CA, CO, FL, HI, ID, IA, KS, KY, ME, MD, MN, MO, NE, NV, ND, NJ, NY, SC, SD, TX, UT, VA, and DC. 1.5) Where can I ask for help? There are two different groups that are set up to answer questions from Gateway 2000 system owners. The first is the Netnews group alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000. This was created in the middle of 1993 and is enjoying increased propagation and participation from the Netnews community. If your site gets Netnews, but does not receive this group, you should ask your news administrator to add it. The second group is a mailing list for Gateway 2000 owners. You can subscribe to the list by sending a mail message to "gateway2000-request@sei.cmu.edu" [without the quotes]. This is an automatic subscription system - a mail message with a subject of "help" will get you a list of recognized commands. Sending a message with a subject of "subscribe" will subscribe you to the list. Note that the address for the list itself and the address you need to use to subscribe and unsubscribe are not the same. The mailing list is not just a copy of the newsgroup, but is a forum for getting quick responses to problems and questions. There are many helpful people on the list, and Dave Grabowski deserves special mention as being especially helpful. The list has a higher ratio of technical information to commentary than does the newsgroup alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000. 1.6) Why should I buy a Gateway 2000 system? There are many different companies that make IBM PC clones; most of these are viable machines that will do the job for you. The real question that you need to ask yourself when thinking about purchasing a machine is "What do I want from this system, and what am I willing to put up with?" If you do not understand systems at all, and don't want to learn, you will probably be better off with a system from a large ("first tier") company such as IBM or Compaq. These companies put out computers that are more expensive, but they provide first rate support and documentation and are willing to hold your hand when you don't understand what is going on. On the other hand, if you are willing to do some work yourself, you can save considerable money by purchasing from a mail order house. At this point, you should be looking for a company that is stable, will be around for a while to provide support, and gives good value for the money. While there are quite a few companies that meet these criteria, many of the people in this group have chosen (suprise!) Gateway 2000. We feel that although there are some problems with Gateway as a company, the systems they produce are the best for the money around. Frequent problems reported with Gateway are difficulties contacting the Technical Support staff, late delivery on systems, problems with the CD-ROMs, and some problems with the monitors. The first two are prevalent with companies that are growing too fast; Gateway is now shipping more than 4000 systems *per day*. Trying to contact Gateway's toll-free telephone tech support is difficult now, according to most reports. It had improved for a while but has slipped again. Gateway has introduced a premium support alternative. Gateway is now getting their modems from US Robotics, which has a good reputation in the field. Also, the quality of the monitors (made by MAG) have also improved. Some of the larger monitors have Sony tubes, which are considered one of the best in the market. On the plus side of Gateway, they do produce very nicely configured systems at close to the best cost around. They put some first-rate parts into their systems (the ATI GUP board was very good, and their hard disks and motherboards are made by top notch companies) and often upgrade their systems with newer and better components. In short, if you are willing to put up with a few problems and are willing to spend some time diagnosing any system problems, Gateway will give you a good system for the money. 1.7) What other FAQs should I read? This FAQ posting covers things that are specific to Gateway 2000 computers. Since many of the parts of the Gateway systems are common to other PC systems, you can also get information from the FAQ's of other computer groups. For example, you can get the following FAQ's from the machine rtfm.mit.edu in the directory /pub/usenet/news.answers: os2-faq msdos-programmer-faq Below, in the directory pc-hardware-faq, you can get the PC hardware FAQ in five parts: /pub/usenet/news.answers/pc-hardware-faq/ part1, part2, part3, part4 and part5. and in /pub/usenet/comp.os.ms-windows.misc: Windows_FAQ:_How_to_get_it Windows 95 FAQs: http://www.primenet.com/~markd/win95faq.html http://www.kingsoft.com/qaid/ http://www.microsoft.com/windows/qa/qa.htm Windows NT FAQs: http://www.iea.com/~daler/nt/faq/toc.html http://www.ahoynet.com/~scanman http://www.iftech.com/classes/admin/admin.htm http://www.mcs.com/~sculptor/NTFAX-FAQ.HTML http://www.mcs.com/~thomas/www/ntfaq An excellent modem FAQ is found at: http://web.aimnet.com/~jnavas/modem/faq.html For setting up and tuning a winsock (great fun!), try these: http://www.webcom.com/~llarrow/welcome.html http://www.cerberus-sys.com/~belleisl/mtu_mss_rwin.html While not a FAQ per se, information about Micronics motherboards can be found at: http://www.randomc.com/~dperr/micronics/. (Thanks to Richard Iverson!) 1.7.1) How can I get what's on a WWW page if I have no browswer? You can get the text part via e-mail. To find out how, send an e-mail message with only the word "HELP" (without the quotes) to one of these e-mail addresses: web-mail@ebay.com webmail@www.ucc.ie agora@kamakura.mss.co.jp Remember to turn off any automatic adding of a signature file! Don't abuse these services. For more about such things, see this URL: gopher://nisp.ncl.ac.uk/00/lists-k-o/lis-iis/files/e-access-inet.txt 1.8) Where can I get cow spotted (and other) goodies? Since the spotted cow is the official mascot of Gateway 2000, it be-hooves us to keep a few cow spotted items around to keep our systems happy. Here are a couple of items spotted (heh) by Nelia Lyda: Mouse pad with the required spots (712) 255-3667 $5 plus $3.75 s/h Other goodies such as tee shirts, coffee mugs, etc. (708) 676-5263 Gateway itself also offers a Microsoft mouse with Gateway's own cow-spotted mouse pad for $79; you can get this through their add-on service. I haven't ordered any of these items, but probably will someday. I *do* have a spotted cow from one of my three year old's farm sets sitting on my system, just to be on the safe side, however. [Tod Pike speaking here] There is also a company that sells dust covers for your Gateway 2000 system (among other things, of course): PC SOFTWARE & SUPPLY (VISA or MasterCard accepted) 2404 Dakota Ave. South Sioux City, NE 68776-0278 Phone: 1-800-728-5031 8am-5pm CST Fax: 1-402-494-8711 1.9) Contact information for related companies Here are some telephone numbers and e-mail addresses for companies that provide parts for Gateway 2000 systems. I haven't personally verified all of these numbers, so feel free to send corrections and additions! Creative WWW site: http://creaf.com/ Creative Labs FTP: ftp.creaf.com or creative.creaf.com Delrina WWW site: http://www.delrina.com/ Diamond WWW site: http://www.diamondmm.com/ Diamond FTP site: ftp.diamondmm.com Ensoniq (voice): 610-647-3930 Ensoniq Faxback: 800-257-1439 Ensoniq WWW site: http://www.ensoniq.com/ Matrox WWW site: http://www.matrox.com/ Matrox FTP site: ftp://ftp://ftp.matrox.com/pub/video/ Micro Firmware BIOS: 800-767-5465 http://www.firmware.com/ http://www.firmware.com/gwfaq.htm Mitsumi BBS: 408-970-0761 Mitsumi WWW site: http://www.eciusa.com/support.html NEC BBS: 508-635-4706 Philips BBS: 719-593-4081 Philips WWW site: http://www.philips.com/ Promise Technology: 408-452-1534 (fax) Promise Technology: 800-888-0245 (voice) Promise Technology: 408-452-1180 (tech support) Promise Technology: 408-452-1267 (BBS) Promise WWW site: http://www.promise.com/ SONY CD-ROM BBS: 408-955-5107 STB Systems (Rocket): 800-234-4334 (voice) STB Systems: 214-437-9615 (BBS) STB WWW site: http://www.stb.com/ Ultrastor BBS: 714-453-8174 US Robotics: support@usr.com 800-762-6163 (faxback) 708-982-5092 (BBS) 708-676-7323 (fax) 708-982-5151 (tech support) sales@usr.com (Sales support) 800-DIAL-USR (Sales information) USR WWW site: http://www.usr.com/ Western Digital: 714-753-1234 WD WWW site: http://www.wdc.com/support/ |1.9.1) How to contact the 10th Anniversary Club Owners of 10th Anniversary systems should check out the problem- and solution-oriented WWW site of the 10th Anniversary Club. This site, which deals with issues specific to 10th Anniversary systems, also has much valuable and clearly presented Gateway-specific information: | http:/www.penn.com/tenthclub (Thanks to Tom Yurick and the 10th Anniversary Club!) ========================================================================= Section 2: Hardware Questions 2.1) General Hardware Questions 2.1.1) Why can't I use a modem at COM4:? The ATI video boards use the address space for COM4:. You can't get around it, sorry. |2.1.2) How do I get into the CMOS Setup? After the system is booted to DOS, typing CTRL-ALT-ESC will bring up the CMOS screens. On Anigma motherboards (some mini-desktops) try CTRL-ALT-S. What you see on the screens varies with the motherboard you have but most of the general settings are on the first page. You can use the "page up" and "page down" keys to move between CMOS pages. (Thanks to Albert Crosby!) One common problem with the CMOS setup is that if you are using the "highscan" option to emm386, you will not be able to enter the CMOS setup (you will lock up the system). If this happens, you should boot clean (i.e. hit F5 after you see the "starting MS-DOS" prompt). Then you can enter the CMOS setup normally. 2.1.3) Why does my P5-60/P5-66/PCI486 machine lock up? (UART fix) Several people have reported this condition when using communications programs on their P5-60 or P5-66 machines (I have also received reports that this has happened on PCI bus 486 machines). This problem is caused by a defective chip provided by Intel on their motherboards. There is a software "fix" that works with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (available from MicroSoft and Gateway 2000 on their BBS), but this works only with WfWG. Bob Nick (bnick@HiWAAY.NET) has written a program (uart.com) which will prevent the machine from locking up under DOS, Windows, and OS/2, but it must be run between each communications session to be effective. This program is available from the Gateway BBS as uartfix.exe or by FTP on ftp.sei.cmu.edu in /pub/gateway2000/uartfix.zip. Intel and SMC have admitted the problem exists and that it is generic to many P5 machines. Recent machines (after August, 1994) probably will not exhibit the problem. 2.1.4) How can I get my WD 540 hard drive to work correctly? (This section mainly refers to people who have older (i.e., 486) systems with a BIOS that does not allow for disks with more than 1023 cylinders. If you have a later system (i.e. Pentium) you probably want to look into the section on setting up 32-bit disk access.) Many people with the new WD 540 Meg hard drives are experiencing problems when configuring their drives. The basic problem is that almost all pre-1994 BIOSs do not allow drives with a number of cylinders >= 1024. If you use the auto configure BIOS settings for a WD 540 drive, it will autoconfigure to a value > 1023 cylinders, which will cause format and other DOS programs to fail. The "solution" is to manually configure your drive as follows: Cyl = 1023 Hd = 16 Sec = 63 You will not be able to use the entire 540 meg capacity of your drive, but it will be usable under DOS and Windows. Note that OS/2 is probably not affected by this problem. Also, you probably won't run into this problem if your drive is preformatted and pre-configured (i.e., you don't need to run fdisk or format on the drive). You will, however, not be able to have 32bit disk and file access enabled in Windows if your drive is > 1023 Cylinders. Thanks to Richard Leonetti of Micro Firmware for pointing out that the problematic limitation is in the older BIOSs, not DOS itself! 2.1.5) Why do I have a long delay when exiting Windows? This problem has been experienced by people with newer Gateway systems that have the PS/2 style mouse connectors (i.e. the round, plug in type rather than the type that looks like a small RS-232 connector). If you experience this problem, you can put this line into your SYSTEM.INI file in the [386enh] section: InitPS2MouseAtExit=False and you will see significantly faster exit time. 2.1.6) How do I get my Bernoulli to work on the parallel port (P90 Tower)? This applies to the Gateway P90 Tower and the Bernoulli 90 -- it may give clues to other systems. Go into CMOS at bootup and change the parallel address to 378 under peripherals -- then go into System and change STARTUP CPU SPEED to Low. After you are finished return both settings to the original. (This hint is from Marilyn Shea - Thanks!) 2.1.7) My system doesn't recognize more than 16M of RAM. In order to use more than 16M of RAM, you need to disable shadowing in the BIOS. Go into your CMOS setup and disable the BIOS shadowing option. When you reboot, your system should see all the RAM. Note that disabling the shadow RAM may slow down your system somewhat. You may also notice that the initial "beep" at startup sounds funny. This is normal when shadowing is disabled. 2.1.8) Why is there a 20-second delay during booting? This is caused by a conflict between your hard drive and CD-ROM drive. Check the jumpers on your CD-ROM drive - your CD-ROM drive should be configured in CS (cable select) mode, rather than Master. Changing the jumper to CS should get rid of the delay. A couple other things to try as well: Reboot the computer and press F1 to enter setup. 1. Highlight Hard Disk C (the model number should be in the box). Choose it and see if the delay options for bootup are there. It may be under "Boot Options", then "Hard Disk Pre-delay". If so, set to <STRONG>5</STRONG> seconds. 2. Go to boot options. Hit enter and you can now set parameters for bootup of the machine. Make sure that boot options are set to Turbo. (Thanks to Ted Northrop and Bob Mitchell!) 2.2) CD-ROM Questions 2.2.1) Why does my system "pause" when playing CDs? Some people have noticed that when they are playing CD's there system will pause every time the HD lite blinks. This is usually found on P5-90 systems with the NEC IDE CD-ROM drives. The answer is: The NEC is connected to the IDE interface and this will cause the drive light to blink. If you are doing any hard drive accesses or reads at the same time as the NEC is being accessed, this can cause the "jumps." What you can do to check this is to make sure the CD drive and the hard drive are on separate interfaces. With your system, the hard drives should be connected to the PCI IDE interface which is the farthest toward the back of the system. The CD drive should be on the ISA IDE interface which is just behind the floppy drive interface on the motherboard. Also, some people have noted that the AudioStation CD audio player that comes with the Ensoniq sound card can cause these kinds of system problems -- you can try the CD audio player from the Corel CD-ROM sampler or get one of the shareware players from one of the many anonymous FTP sites and try it. (Thanks to Seth Tisue for this additional note!) 2.2.2) How do I get Windows 95 to access all drives on the Sanyo 3-CD CD-ROM? From Lori Nagel, Gateway 2000 tech support: Here's the steps you need to get access to all three drives with the 3-disk changer under Windows 95: 1. Right click on the MY COMPUTER icon. Then on PROPERTIES. 2. Click on the DEVICE MANAGER tab. 3. Double-click on HARD DISK CONTROLLERS. 4. Then double-click on the SECOND listing for "Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller." 5. Uncheck Original Configuration (current). 6. Click OK until it closes and then restart Win 95. You should now be able to use all three of the drives. 2.2.3) My CD-ROM light blinks every few seconds under Windows 95 - Why? This is due to the Windows 95 automatic CD-ROM detection. This allows you to put in a CD and Windows 95 will automatically mount it (if it is a data CD) or start the music player (if it is an audio CD). If the blinking annoys you (or causes your system to pause or stutter) you can turn it off by opening the System control panel. Open the Device Manager tab and select your CD-ROM device. Click "Properties" and under the Settings tab turn off "Auto insert notification". That will take care of it! 2.2.4) Why does the Mitsumi FX-400 CD-ROM make grinding noises? There have been reports of this drive making grinding noises while accessing CDs. Some users have also reported that serveral key presses were needed to eject the disks and that they sometimes came out spinning. The fix is to contact Gateway and ask for a replacement model FX-400D. There have been several postings that this replacement drive does not have these problems. (Thanks to Alan Briggs!) 2.2.4.1) Where can I get Mitsumi CD-ROM drivers? http://www.eciusa.com/support.html has drivers for Mitsumi CD-ROMs, a FAQ, jumper settings, tech support (via a form) and guidance on determining what driver you need. (Thanks to Ken Salerno!) 2.2.5) What can I do about the Wearnes CD-ROM pauses? Many have reported irritating pauses with this CD-ROM. There have been three models vended by Gateway, AAWW, ABWW, and ACWW. The last one will show a great deal of improvement but will not eliminate the problem for everybody. Call tech support at Gateway and get a replacement and be sure to specify the ACWW. There is no ADWW -- that's just a rumor at this time, per Lori Nagel of Gateway. The whole part number for the ACWW is CDRIDE011ACWW. 2.2.6) Will my NEC 260 CD-ROM run with Windows NT? The 260 is not compatible; the 260R is. The 260, which was sold by Gateway for a while, ended up not compliant with the emerging ATAPI 1.2 standard. For a while, Gateway replaced the 260s with 260Rs for those customers using Windows NT. You can install NT from an unsupported CD (use winnt.exe from the install disk, type winnt /? for the list of options). Or you can install NT from your hard drive (see the NT installation documentation for details). (Thanks to Walter Arnold and Edmond Underwood!) 2.2.6.1) Is there support for the Sanyo 3-CD CD-ROM in Windows NT? Using atapi.sys, you can use it as a single drive. Possibly NT 4.0 will support the drive, but it's not known for certain now. 2.3) Keyboard Questions 2.3.1) How can I disable the programmability of the Anykey keyboard? Sometimes (especially if you have young children who like to play with your computer) you can get the Anykey keyboard programmed into a strange state. While you can reset the keyboard to the default configuration by pressing the Control and Alt keys and the pressing Suspend Macro, a better way to "fix" the problem is by disabling the program feature. You can do this by using the command "ANYKEY T ANYKEY" in your autoexec.bat, adding the path if needed. (Thanks to Dave Grabowski for this information!) 2.3.2) My Anykey keyboard produces incorrect characters. How can I fix it? It may have been accidentally remapped. First try the key combination <Ctrl-Alt-Suspnd Macro>. If that doesn't work, try this, which will destroy all macros you have stored: <Remap> <Ctrl> <Ctrl> <Alt> <Alt> <Remap> then, as before, <Ctrl-Alt-SuspndMacro>. Note: on newer models, it may be <Ctrl-Remap> in the above sequence instead of just <Remap>. 2.4) Modem Questions 2.4.1) Why can't I connect with my (older) Telepath modem? There have been many reported problems with the older Telepath modems shipped with Gateway 2000 systems. So many, in fact, that Gateway is now shipping modems made by US Robotics which are much better than the old ones. These modems are still called Telepath (the new ones are model 550), so you have to check the exact model numbers to see if your model is a problem one. In general, the older Telepath modems have problems in connecting. Some people have few problems, while other people have lots. The problem doesn't have an easy fix, but you can often connect by fiddling with the modem init strings. One set of strings that has been successfull in connecting to many systems is this: "AT&FW1&C1&D2S7=60S11=55S95=3". (This string was provided by Tom Grelinger.) If this doesn't work, turn off compression using "AT%C0" and if the connection still fails, turn off both error correction and compression using "AT&Q6". If the modems still fail to connect, try reducing the speed of the connection by setting the N code to 0 ("ATN0") and setting S37 to one of the following values: Speed S37 Value 12000 10 9600 9 7200 12 4800 8 2400 6 1200 5 300 3 Obviously, you want to start at the higest speed and work down until you find a value that allows you to connect. If you are forced to connect at slower speeds, this indicates that you may have a noisy phone line. You may want to contact your local telephone company to have them check your line. One good hint to try when using Crosstalk for Windows (the software shipped with the modems from Gateway 2000) is to set the box to show modem commands, and also set the S95 value to 44 on the modem (ATS95=44). This will display the DCE speed (the actual speed the modem connected at), the protocol (either LAPM or alt), compression (v.42bis or MNP5) and the DTE speed (speed between the modem and computer). Gateway also recommends that you check the voltage between your neutral and ground wires on the outlet you plug the system into. Apparently the older Telepath modems need a *very* good ground to work correctly. (If anyone has more ideas, I'll include them in the FAQ - dse) 2.4.2) Why won't the 28.8 Telepath work with Delrina's Commsuite? The 28.8 Telepath is an OEM version of the US Robotics Sportster and as such uses the TI chipset. Delrina's Commsuite supports only with the Rockwell chipset. Also, the 28.8 Telepath uses fax class 2.0 (different from just "2") and this is also not supported by WinFax 7.0. Talkworks will not work reliably with the Telepath, although there is now a patch at http://www.delrina.com/index.htm for modems manufactured by US Robotics (USR). 2.4.3) Why does my 28.8 Telepath insist on picking up the phone? Some of the earlier ones wouldn't accept an S0=0 command (two zeroes there). The workaround is to type these two lines to the modem: ATS0=255 then [Enter] (that's a zero after the "s") AT&W then [Enter] The first line tells the modem to answer on the 255th ring, the second to write the new setting to non-volatile RAM (NVRAM). 2.4.9) Where can I learn more about modems and their problems? Modem information about Gateway modems in Mike Lewis' most helpful Telepath-IIv and Windows 95 FAQ: ftp://ftp.crl.com/users/ds/dseitel/gateway/telepath.faq General modem information in John Navas' excellent 28800 Modem FAQ: http://web.aimnet.com/~jnavas/modem/faq.html 2.5) Monitor and Video Questions 2.5.1) What about the missing 3 pixels on the left of my screen? (This is the Georgh Mah memorial question) Several people have reported that with certain versions of the ATI Graphics Ultra Pro video board they are experiencing a condition where 3 pixels are missing from the left side of their screen. The conditions appear to be: ATI GUP boards with 1MB of video memory and a certain BIOS Windows 640x480 video mode with 65K colors Any applications run at full screen will be missing the three pixels from the left side of the screen. If you have this configuration and experience this problem, you can request a fix for your ATI board at no cost (regardless of the age of your system) through Gateway. The best bet is to send an e-mail message to "gwjohn@gw2kbbs.com" with the request - he is handling most of these reports on the Internet. ATI has admitted this condition exists on versions of their GUP board, and is providing support through Gateway 2000. 2.5.2) What is the bright line on the left of my monitor? What are other common monitor problems? This is a common problem reported with ATI boards and many different monitors. It usually shows up as a bright line or band running along the left side of the monitor -- if you have a light or white background it is most visible. This problem is often caused by the monitor overscanning on the left side of the screen. The fix is to remove the overscanning. First you should use your normal monitor controls to try to center the image on the screen as best as you can. This will often help some, but not completely remove the problem. Next, you should use the ATI setup programs to center the board's idea of the screen. To do this, exit to DOS and cd to your ATI driver directory. Now run "install" and select "Set Power-up configuration". Select your monitor type and the resolution you normally run at. Now you should be in the monitor adjustment mode, and should notice that the screen is (apparently) shifted way to the left. Use the controls to center the screen, and save the settings. This should fix the problem. Other people have stated that the video extension cable provided with the Gateway tower systems have caused this problem. You can test this by running the monitor with just the short cable provided with the monitor. If the bright line goes away, you've found the problem. You can either get a new cable from Gateway, or just run the system on the shorter one if it reaches. There are also reports that problems with wavy displays can be caused by the power supply of the computer. In this case, the user had replaced *everything* in the system without correcting the problem, and replacing the power supply fixed it. One way to isolate this would be to move the monitor away from the system as far as the video cable will allow and see if the problem goes away or changes. You can also try to put some shielding between the system and monitor to see if the problem is reduced. 2.5.3) Who makes the CrystalScan monitors? Gateway gets the CrystalScan monitors from Samsung. Gateway did get them from Mag Innovison. Look on the back for the letters "SAM" in the part number. The CrystalScan 1572 DG model, however, is made by GoldStar and has digital controls. Some of the larger (i.e., 17") CrystalScan monitors now have tubes made by Sony. Thanks to Rich Rauch! 2.54) What are the custom settings for the CS1572FS monitor? If you want to adjust the screen position and size, you can use the following settings in the ATI setup program: 640x480 72 Hz 800x600 72 Hz 1024x768 60 Hz 1280x1024 87 Hz 2.5.5) Where can I get the latest drivers for the ATI video cards? http://www.atitech.ca/drivers/drivers.html ftp://ftp.atitech.ca/pub/support/ The very best (and most official) location for ATI drivers is ATI itself. ATI will send you floppies, but you can call their bulletin board system for drivers also. Numbers for ATI are as follows: BBS ................... 905-764-9404 Fax ................... 905-882-2620 Sales ................. 905-882-2600 Tech Support .......... 905-882-2626 Compuserve............. 74740.667@compuserve.com 2.5.6 Who makes Vivitron monitors? MAG Innovision and Sony. MAGs are made in Taiwan by MAG Innovision (of CrystalScan fame) using Sony Trinitron tubes Sonys are assembled by Sony and tested by Sony and the back panel says "Made by Sony" . You should also find a back-panel plate with something like "Model CPD - xxxxxx", in Sony tradition. Both the MAG and Sony products use a Trinitron tube, which has horizontal curvature -- but no vertical curvature. And the damper wires are visible with some backgrounds (see 2.5.9, below). (Thanks to John Lewis and Martin Basil for making this clear!) 2.5.6.1 ) What are the specs for the SONY Vivitron monitor made by SONY? From the SONY Vivitron 1776 CPD-17F13 user's guide: CRT - 17-inch diagonal (16 inches visual), 0.25mm aperture grille pitch, 90 deg deflection Resolution - 1280 dots max horizontal; 1024 lines max vertical Display colors - Unlimited Scanning frequency - Horizontal 31.5 to 64 KHz; Vertical 50 to 120 Hz. Display area - 328 x 242 mm (w/h) typical Standard picture size - Approx 300 x 225 mm (w/h) Power input - 100 to 120 VAC, 50/60 Hz 1.8 A 220 to 240 VAC, 50-60 Hz 1 A Dimensions - Approx 406 x 426.5 x 453 mm (w/h/d) Weight - Approx 19 Kg [about 42 pounds] Certifications - UL, CSA, DHHS, TUV, FCC Class B, BZT, MPR-II, VCCI Power Management - Meets Energy Star requirements. (Thanks to Bev =^.^= Parks!) 2.5.6.2) What's the right way to set up a Vivitron 21 under Windows 95? The Vivitron 21, under Windows 95, should be set up as a "Mitsubishi DiamondScan Pro 21." So, under your Display, and Settings, click on Change Display Type, and then on "Change" under the monitor settings. Click on "Show all devices" and then choose Mitsubishi on the left, and "DiamondScan Pro 21" on the right. (Thanks to Lori Nagel of Gateway 2000.) 2.5.7) Where can I get drivers for the Diamond Viper card? ftp://ftp.diamondmm.com/pub/display/viper/ Generally, the best place to get the Diamond drivers is directly from Diamond itself. Numbers for them are: Diamond ................... BBS 2400/14400 baud ... 408-325-7080 Diamond ................... BBS 9600/28800 baud ... 408-325-7175 Diamond ................... Main number ........... 408-325-7000 Diamond ................... Tech Support .......... 408-325-7100 E-mail: diamondts@aol.com or 75300.3673@compuserve.com Also, if you have Internet access, the larger FTP sites such as ftp.winsite.com (formerly CICA) and wuarchive.wustl.edu generally have current drivers for many of the popular boards. For example, on ftp.winsite.com, you can look in /pub/pc/win3/drivers/video. 2.5.7.1) Can I use the regular Matrox drivers with Gateway's Matrox? According to Eanna Lennon, GW2k Sysop, Europe: "The Drivers are Exactly the same, there is no difference whatsoever." 2.5.7.2) Where can I get Matrox BIOS and driver updates? From the Matrox WWW site: http://www.matrox.com/mgaweb/ftp_mill.htm. 2.5.8) Why do I have video problems with my tower system and not my desktop? Users have reported that the extension video cable provided by Gateway with their tower systems can sometimes cause video problems such as a wavy display. If your system is close enough to your monitor, just take out the extension cable and use the regular one provided with the monitor. If this fixes the problem, call Gateway for a new cable. 2.5.9) What are those horizontal black lines on my monitor? This is becoming a frequent question now that Gateway is using monitors with Sony tubes in them. Sony monitors (and OEM monitors that use Sony tubes) have a different way of setting up their phosphor masks. While most monitors use a metal sheet with holes in it, Sony uses a sheet with thin vertical slots. This allows Sony tubes to have a brighter and sharper picture, but this design forces them to put one (or two, depending on the size of the tube) reinforcing wires that run horizontally across the mask. The shadow from these wires are what you see as black lines across the screen. This behavior is most noticable when you have a light background, and is totally normal for Sony monitors and tubes. 2.5.9.9) Are there any monitor repair FAQs? First, a warning: There are potentially lethal voltages inside a monitor, even after it's been turned off for sometime. So, I am certainly <EM>not</EM> recommending anyone open up their monitor. There is a monitor repair FAQ written by Chris Biow that is posted to the newsgroup from time to time and a permanent copy of which is available at ftp://ftp.crl.com/users/ds/dseitel/gateway/monitor.faq. <Thanks to Chris Biow!) A more general but very thorough one is found at http://www.paranoia.com/~filipg/HTML/REPAIR/F_mon_repair.html. (Thanks to Clint Winstead!) 2.6) Soundcard Questions 2.6.1) Why won't my SoundBlaster card work? The Gateway CD-ROM uses IRQ5 (interrupt 5) by default, and so does the SoundBlaster card. Thus, you need to configure your SoundBlaster card to use a different interrupt. Most people have had success using IRQ7 for their SoundBlaster card even though that is supposedly reserved for the printer. Set the jumpers on the card as shown in the SB manual, then use the sequence <ctrl-alt-esc> to go into the CMOS setup and disable the LPT1 IRQ. Make sure you use interrupt 7 in your AUTOEXEC.BAT driver setup line for the SoundBlaster also. (Thanks to Mike Doel for this information!) Also note that if you are using a program such as LapLink, using IRQ7 for the SoundBlaster will force LapLink into polling mode. You can get around this problem by turning the IRQ on just before using LapLink and then turning it back off when you are done. Since you probably won't be using LapLink and the SoundBlaster at the same time, this shouldn't cause problems, but it is inconvenient. (Thanks to Chaim Frenkel for the information on disabling IRQ7 and LapLink!) Creative Labs also has an FTP site on the Internet which has information about SoundBlaster Cards and other Creative Labs products. The address is ftp://ftp.creaf.com or ftp://creative.creaf.com There is also a WWW site: http://creaf.com/ 2.6.2) Why won't my Ensoniq card work with DOS games? Win95 set up will REM the lines for the sound card in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Open the file with a text editor or Notepad and delete REM to activate them again. Thanks to Ed Pawlowski! 2.6.8) Why do my Altec Lansing 450 speakers hiss so much? There is a known defect with some of the 450s. You can call Altec Lansing at 1-800-258-3288 and make arrangements for them to add more shielding which will help some or you can call Gateway and get a downgrade to other speakers plus a small rebate or get an RMA to return the speakers. ============================================================================== Section 3: Software Questions 3.1) Why doesn't Borland's Turbo Debugger work right? People have reported problems in running Borland's Turbo Debugger (from C or C++ or any of the language packages). They get stack failures or GPF (general protection fault) failures when running. A fix for this is available. You can get the fix from Borland directly, either by calling and having them send you a disk, or by calling their BBS: Borland ............... BBS ............... 408-439-9096 Borland ............... Sales ............. 800-331-0877 Borland ............... T/S ............... 408-438-5300 Borland ............... T/S ............... 800-252-5547 If you have access to the Internet, you can get the fixes at: ftp://ftp.sei.cmu.edu/pub/gateway2000/Borland/tdsvga.zip Unpack this file into a new directory. You should now go to the Borland bin directory and look for a file called "tdw.ini". You should rename this to "tdw.xxx". Now copy "svga.dll" from the directory you unpacked the patch into to the Borland bin directory. Now go to your windows directory and edit tdw.ini. You should now set the VideoDLL variable to point to the DLL file you should use. A line like this should work: VideoDLL=C:\BORLANDC\BIN\SVGA.DLL Save the file and exit the editor. TDW should now work correctly. More instructions are included in the patch file. If you are having problems with the debugger causing your monitor to change video modes all the time, a second patch is available which will cause the Borland debugger to pop up a window instead of changing modes. This second patch is available from ftp://ftp.sei.cmu.edu/pub/gateway2000/Borland/tdwgui.zip Unzip this file, and check the README. You basically want to copy the files "tdwgui.dll" and "cnfg.exe" into your Borland BIN directory (C:\BORLANDC\BIN for example) and then edit your TDW.INI file to use: VideoDLL=C:\BORLANDC\BIN\TDWGUI.DLL Now, when you start up TDW, you should get a window on the screen with the debug information in it. You can run "cnfg.exe" under windows to set any options you need. (Thanks to Roland King!) If this doesn't help, try removing your mouse driver out of AUTOEXEC.BAT. There is apparently a conflict the Microsoft Mouse driver version 9.01 and some version of Borland's DOSS debugger. (Thanks to Seth Tisue for this hint!) 3.2) What is the hidden file "quality.com" for? According to Gateway 2000, this is a program used by their quality assurance (testing) team during the system set up and burn in. If you don't need the space, you should leave it there, although it can be safely removed (and you should edit your autoexec.bat to remove the call to it). Quality.com updates the file "uptime.dat" (also a hidden file) at frequent intervals. If you remove quality.com, you can remove uptime.dat also! 3.3) How can I install the CD-ROM version of OS/2? First of all, Gateway 2000 does *not* officially support OS/2. This is stated explicitly in several manuals. Don't bother calling Gateway with a problem if you are running OS/2! That said, here is how to install it: From a post made by Charlie Collins on comp.os.os2.setup: "I have a Gateway 486-66 with a Sony CDU-31A CD-ROM drive, so I collected the CD-ROM edition of OS/2 and went to install it. Unfortunately that drive is not supported intrinsically. In order to install OS/2, then, I had to: "1. collect a device driver from an ftp archive (I have forgotten which one; the one called hobbes is supposed to have the sonyb31a.zip file as well) 2. make a copy of installation diskette #1 (using the DOS command for copying disks; transferring files does not work, the whole disk must be copied) 3. copy the driver onto the disk (unzip the *.zip file, then put the *.add file onto the disk) 4. and add the line "BASEDEV=SONYB31A.ADD" to the config.sys file on the new diskette #1. "Once this was done OS/2 installed itself just fine, but since the CD-ROM drive was not recognized by the operating system the support files were not copied into the C:\OS2 directory automatically. In order to have the operating system recognize the fact that a CD-ROM did exist, then, I had to copy the support files from installation diskette #1 by hand. The three files that are necessary are: the driver: sonyb31a.add (this was copied, but check anyway; I had to move it into the C:\OS2 directory) cdfs.ifs (support for the cd file system) os2cdrom.dmd (instructs OS2 to look for a CD-ROM drive?) "Once these are in the C:\OS2 directory, config.sys must be told to make use of them. Make sure that the lines IFS=C:\OS2\CDFS.IFS /Q DEVICE=C:\OS2\OS2CDROM.DMD /Q BASEDEV=SONYB31A.ADD are in config.sys. The /Q stops the OS from writing all kinds of stuff on the screen. "If you install OS/2 onto some drive other than C you should substitute the appropriate drive letter, of course, and if you have a CD-ROM drive other than the Sony CDU-31A then you should substitute the appropriate device driver. Otherwise this process should be the same." Also, OS/2 drivers for the Mitsumi CD-ROM drive are available on the Gateway 2000 BBS system as mitfix.exe. They can also be found at: ftp://ftp.sei.cmu.edu/pub/gateway2000/Mitsumi/mitfix.exe 3.3.1) Where can I get help installing OS/2 on a Gateway Handbook? http://pccm46.anes.upmc.edu/handbook.html will help you get PCMCIA support enabled for a Gateway Handbook. (Thanks to Joseph J. Quinlan!) 3.4) Do Gateway systems work with Windows NT? I can definitely state that Gateway systems work with Windows NT -- I have one running NT here at work. [Tod Pike speaking.] The only problem is that the Windows NT installer wants to have a SCSI-based CD-ROM drive to install from, and the internal (Sony or LMSI) drives are not supported. If you have a drive run from the SoundBlaster board, you can get a driver from the machine: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/MKECR.EXE or http://www.microsoft.com/kb/softlib/mslfiles/mkecr.exe I have received reports that the current version of the SoundBlaster drivers for Windows NT do not work correctly. According to information posted on the NT news groups, a new version is expected soon. I will update the FAQ information when I hear more news. Drivers for the Mitsumi CD-ROM drive are available on the Gateway BBS system in the file MITSU.EXE. These drivers are *not* supported by Gateway, but they do work and should allow you to use the Mitsumi CD-ROM under NT. I have also put the mitsu.exe file at: ftp://ftp.sei.cmu.edu/pub/gateway2000/Mitsumi/mitsu.exe I would like to solicit more information about available drivers for NT on Gateway hardware. 3.4.1) Do Gateway systems work with Linux? How about other UNIX systems? I have received several reports that Linux works very well on Gateway 2000 systems, as long as the video board is properly supported. The ATI Graphics Ultra Pro (and most other ATI boards) are supported and work under Linux. The Diamond boards are now fully supported by XFree86. However, the Matrox cards are not supported by XFree86 although there are 3rd party X servers (about $100-$200) with Matrox support. For more information about running Linux on a Gateway system, you can read the comp.os.linux.help news group. A FAQ is also available for this group. And there is a Linux hardware compatibility FAQ at: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO. Other people have had success running NetBSD 0.9 on DX2-66V systems. More information about all of the *BSD systema is available from the news groups comp.os.386bsd.{announce,bugs,development,help,misc}. (Thanks to Mike Long for the NetBSD information!) (Thanks to Jesse Bennett for the Linux update!) (Thanks belatedly to Frits Daalmans!) 3.5) Why does the Windows 95 installation abort on the second diskette? Because you have a virus on your machine and it is trying to install itself on the second diskette which is written to by the Windows 95 setup program in order to store your registration information. The diskette has a unique high-density format. You need to replace the diskette which will no longer work and to get rid of the virus. If you want to keep the virus, when you get your new diskettes, flip the write-protect tab on the diskettes. There will be a warning, but the Windows 95 setup program should finish with no problem. For more see: http://www.microsoft.com/kb/faq/win95/setup/faq1982.htm 3.5.5) Any Windows 95 tips? * Just as with Windows for Workgroups, you need to switch over to the plain VGA driver from the ATI when upgrading from Windows. * Sometimes when installing Windows 95 it may not recognize the CMS tape backup unit. Either select "Redetect Tape Drive" in the options of Microsoft Backup OR download the Colorado patch from HP, at ftp://col.hp.com. * Programs that had been in autoexec.bat that are needed only for DOS (such as mouse drivers and real mode CD-ROM drivers) can be moved to the DOSSTART.BAT file in the C:\WINDOWS directory. If it is not there, create one. Windows 95 may still need some real mode drivers, depending on the situations. * MS Office 95 comes with new proofing tools. However, it does not delete the old ones in the C:\windows\msapps directory, nor does it remove the embedding features from the system.ini file. You can do so manually if you need the space. Thanks to Timothy Brannan! Don't like Windows 95, but not sure why? Go here to find out: http://www.creativelement.com/win95ann/ 3.6) Why can't I install Windows for Workgroups with ATI drivers? Several people have reported that when you install Windows for Workgroups over Windows 3.1, you need to be running a plain VGA driver prior to upgrading. If you are running one of the ATI drivers, you will need to switch to regular VGA (using the Windows setup program) before doing the WfWG installation. 3.7) How can I enable the 32 bit features of hard drives? The following is a repost of a message sent by Pat Thornburg of Gateway: "There have been many questions about the 32-bit features in Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and enabling them with systems having 540MB or larger drives. The features can be enabled in different ways in most systems, though some setups do require a loss of drive space to use them. With all of the features, make sure you have the following line in the Config.sys file: device=c:\windows\ifshlp.sys "The systems which can use the full drive size and the features have Logical Block Addressing (LBA) settings in their BIOS'. Currently, only those systems with the PCI buses, Pentium and P486 systems, have these LBA settings. All other systems have to lose some hard drive space to use the features. BIOS IDE LIMITATION ------------------------------------------------------- Max Sectors/Track 63 255 63 Max Number of Heads 255 16 16 Max Number of Cylinders 1024 65536 1024 --------------------------------- Maximum Capacity 8.4G 136.9G 528M "Does this mean that you won't have problems with the features if you have LBA settings? Not quite true. Drivers for the 32-bit features were originally developed for the smaller drives. When you try to enable the 32-bit Disk Access feature, you will get a WDCTRL error. What can be done then? "Western Digital has written an updated Fast Disk driver which allows 32-bit Disk Access with the larger drives and LBA translations. Gateway does have a BETA version of this file available on its BBS. Western Digital does have two released versions of the file. You can also upload the drivers from Western Digitals WWW site at http://www.wdc.com. "If you have the P486 systems, you may have problems as well with the 32-bit Disk Access feature. This is because the driver for the PCI interface uses the same software interrupt the Windows Fast Disk driver uses as well. You can remark out the PCI driver in the Config.sys file or not use 32-bit Disk Access. At this time, there is no other option. "If you have the NEC IDE CD drive in your system and it is installed on the same controller, you cannot enable 32-bit Disk Access. This is because the file structures for the CD and hard drives are different and the Fast Disk driver won't recognize the CD file structure. "If you have a Pentium system with two controllers, make sure you have the most updated CD drivers and connect the CD to the ISA controller and leave the hard drive connected to the PCI controller. You do have to change the CD driver line to show its movement from the primary to the secondary controller. With this setup, you can enable 32-bit Disk Access. "What do you do if you don't have a system which has the LBA settings in the BIOS? You have to lose some of the hard drive space to set the drive to the parameters the operating system can work with. Here are the steps to follow: 1) Backup all of the information on your hard drive. 2) You have to delete the original partition by typing FDISK and using STEP 3 from the main menu to delete all partitions. 3) Get into the BIOS on booting and go to the hard drive setup. 4) Change the hard drive from Auto Config to User Defined and use the following parameters: Cylinders - 1023 Heads - 16 Sectors -63 5) Save these settings and boot onto the first DOS disk. Press F3 twice to exit the setup program. 6) Type FDISK to repartition the drive to the new parameters. Create it with the new settings. 7) When this is done, press Escape to reboot the system and load DOS on it. Have the software format the drive for you automatically. 8) When the format is complete, reload your backup software, then restore your system. 9) Before going into Windows, make sure this line is in the Config.sys file: device=c:\windows\ifshlp.sys "You should now be able to enable both the 32-bit file and disk accesses. "The 32-bit File Access feature has some incompatibilities as well. It won't work with some disk compression programs like Stacker 4.0 and DOS 6.0 DoubleSpace. It will work with DOS 6.2 DoubleSpace. Just remember you may have problems with it on compressed drives. "Other problems can be found with trying to use the Windows MS Undelete program. Since the 32-bit File Access changes the file reads, you cannot use this program to recover files. If you delete a file, you cannot get it back. "What benefits does 32-bit disk access provide? There are a couple of benefits. If you are running DOS based applications through Windows you will notice a slight performance increase. This may not be as much of an increase as actually running your DOS based application in DOS. "The largest benefit will be for those people running multiple Windows applications concurrently. 32-bit disk speeds up the paging to and from your swapfile, as well as to any file accessed on the hard drive while in enhanced mode. If you only run 2 or 3 applications at a time you may not notice any difference in switching since your background applications will be in memory and will not have been swapped to your swapfile. "But, if you do have a lot of applications running at the same time you will be able to switch from your current application to a background application faster if you have 32-bit disk access. The program will not run any faster, but you can switch to it faster. Performance is improved only for those who must do a lot of switching between multiple applications. "What benefit does 32-bit file access provide? Basically, this feature tries to keep all of the calls for files from the hard drive in 32-bit protected mode which allows faster processing. This is the VFAT driver. The VCACHE driver replaces the SmartDrive disk caching scheme in Windows and allows faster caching routines for files." Those with the JX30G motherboards (not the JX30), can get an updated BIOS from Gateway that will support the larger drives: ftp://ftp.gw2k.com/pub/hardware_support/bios/486/desktop/jx3012.exe (Thanks to Jarrod Smith!) 3.8) Why do I get a GPF at MACX.DRV? This problem occurs when you run Quattro Pro for Windows v. 5 the *second* time -- and start the interactive tutor. It also occurs when you use the Gateway CDROM Media browser (which comes with the Gateway Sampler) to access files on any other drive. The problem is the ATI-MACH64 drivers v.1.01 AND v.1.3. The problem goes away if you switch to plain vanilla VGA drivers in Windows Setup. ATI is aware of the problem and actually said they were sorry and hoped that it would be fixed in the next version of the drivers. It was probably missed in testing because you have to open QPW twice. (This hint is from Marily Shea - Thanks!) 3.9) Why doesn't MYST work? Troubleshooting for MYST: * Make sure that you are using the most current drivers available for your video card, sound card, and DOS utility MSCDEX.SYS. At this time there is a 95% success rate on running the program successfully after ensuring all drivers have been updated. * Make sure that you do not have any TSR's running. Open up your task list by pressing the <ctrl> and <esc> keys and close everything except for Program Manager before running MYST. * You may want to give this a try although you may not have a Video 7 video card.... Go to the QuickTime init file and change the "Optimize" selection from "hardware" to "driver", this will resolve screen split problems. To do this go into the QTW.INI file and you will see a line that says OPTIMIZE=HARDWARE. Please change the hardware to say OPTIMIZE=DRIVER. This may slow down your system. * Sound Blaster 16 drivers: The presence of SB16 drivers on disk was intended for the convenience of the MYST customer, and presently they are the most current version provided by Creative Labs. Please note: Do not install these drivers unless you have a SoundBlaster 16CSP (not the ASP) card. * Error 10200 Initializing Timer Manager: This error message happens during installation. This error will result from a problem with Windows. This is a known issue by Microsoft and requires Windows to be reinstalled in order to run successfully. Unfortunately, there is no alternate solution. * Error 10315 Initializing File Manager: Please make sure that all of your hard disk drives have unique DOS volume labels. There are two methods for checking and changing the volume label of hard disk. From DOS at the C: drive, type CD\ [hit enter]. To now check the volume label of a disk & type VOL [hit enter]. The volume label will appear on the screen. To change the volume label, type LABEL [hit enter]. You may use any name you would like as long as the name does not exceed 11 characters in length. * Shadow of KRNL386.EXE error: Another error during installation. The error seems to have various different wordings. Please review the MYST README file on the MYST disk which states that the problem is in the drivers for the CORELSCSI driver. An update to these drivers from Corel corrects the problem. Note: If you are sure you have the updated version, you may want to try the solution for the following GPF in module KRNL.EXE below. * Application has caused a General Protection Fault in module KRNL.EXE: To correct this problem, you will need to edit your CONFIG.SYS file and add the /U parameter to the end of the line that has SMARTDRV.EXE & restart your system. We recommend using the DOS utility EDIT to make these changes. * Fatal Error at Script Line 0: This was also related to the CorelSCSI driver being out of date. Please refer to the above solution and contact Corel for an updated driver which corrects the problem. * Maximum Color Depth: MYST currently works with thousands of colors and 256 color drivers. It will not work with a video driver that supports millions of colors. * Swap File Information: For maximum performance in the MYST MPC program, please make sure that your Windows swap file is no larger than 2 times that of your RAM. For example: If you have 4MEGs of RAM, your Swap File should be no larger than 8,000K. Also, you should use a Permanent Swap File rather than a Temporary Swap File. You can make changes to your current swap file in Windows, by going to the Main Group and then to the Control Panel. Select Enhanced, and then Change. With an ATI video card, make sure you have the DeviceBitmap=Off in the section of the System.ini which the card uses. For the Mach64 video card, this section is [Macx]. For the Mach32 video card, this section is [MACH]. Other video cards may or may not have this selection. You will have to check and see. (This is from Pat Thornburg at Gateway - Thanks!) ============================================================================== END ==============================================================================