Need System cd 2.7 from Gateway2000. Model G5-233. Gateway insists re-installing THAT cd will fix computer issues. States cd came with computer. NO only 2 cds,win95 and Info Highway. Gateway no longer provides cd or its files. Parents are nearly 70,ill,no money,and depedant on computer for email with 14 also old brothers/sisters and ton of other relatives. Gateway conned them into buying (2) 128mb rams then said win95 was incomplete program, they had to buy 98 upgrade FROM GATEWAY to get correct ver.for this computer. A THEN local Gateway store charged to install RAM and 98upgrade. Crashes, freezes, finally came to grinding halt. Gateway told them FLASH THE BIOS.
I have spent 50 hours in live chat trying to UNDO damage. Gateway states for $184 + tax, shipping/handling they will re-install original AMIBIOS, but not OS or System Cd 2.7 software.
1st I pulled info from internet,drivers, updates,etc.
2nd used partition magic8.0 to format 4GB HD
several times and re-create partitions.
3rd installed FULL version 98se
4th attempted to install gateway website drivers specific to unit. Motherboard is a Lawman rev E.0 with onboard multimedia Ensoniq ES1370, ATI 3D RageII, pci bridge, and usb. Drivers from gateway allow setup, barely sound, no volume. Gateway states System Cd 2.7 has the missing software.
5th tried several pci audio cards.... cause conflicts/crashes/fatal error/hangs in shutdown.
6th paid $25 for old gateway2000 P6-166 mobo with original bios and reset jumpers for CPU and 233MHZ /same onboard items. Still no volume/fatal error/hangs at shut down.
7th allowed 98se to find onboard audio/multimedia and set as unknown device with yellow ? then DISABLED it in Device Manager. It allowed RLTK lan and the CMI audio pci to install/work. Still crashes/ fatal error/hangs in shut down.
Would like to TRY the System cd 2.7.
Would like to copy BIOS from P6-166 board back to G5-233 board or get unflashed original AMIBIOS ROMfile 0AAES045AV.
Till then parents are learning to use my IBM Aptiva with win98.Im using ancient laptop.
Thanks in advance for any constructive input. Throw it out and buy new is not an option. Thanks.

No guarantee, but try here for Bios firmware/chip

http://www.bioschip.com/replacement...

And here for the CD. Again no promises

http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/sweeney0

There is nothing to learn from someone who already agrees with you.

...throw it out and buy new is not an option... sounds more like 2 options, and that "you have decided" that's the way it's gonna be, no matter what.

Thinking "out-of-the-box" might be more helpful, and you would not keep wasting more 50-hr chunks of your time - oh, and your parents, incidentally, might also benefit.

Especially if it's a matter of finances, there are many alternatives to investigate.

I have several of their system/restore cds but not that particular one. Forget about the disk. You're spending way too much time and money by going that route.

OK, you've got the 98 SE full install disk. Format the hard drive and reinstall 98 with that disk. Once you've done that post back here with the items in device manager that show the yellow ? or ! Then we can find the necessary drivers. It's no big deal. Cards originally supplied by gateway have a gateway part number on them and the drivers are easy to find on their site. Other drivers can be found by diagnostic software or just an examination of the chips on the card.

(This assumes the problems are not hardware related. Nothing will fix that except replacing whatever's bad.)

Tell you what, to speed things up post back the gateway part numbers on any of the original cards in the computer. The number will be on a sticker on the back of the card and probably of the form 6000xxx.

Assuming you have the original motherboard in the case, post back the serial number. It'll be on the back of the case and probably on the side as well. If you've swapped motherboards, post back the motherboard part number. It'll be on a sticker as well but I can't say for sure what the form will be.

1st of all, I don't know why you'd need Partiton Magic to format & partition a 4GB HDD. All you need is the Win98 boot floppy. Are you actually creating more than one partition?

2. Apparently Win98 doesn't have generic drivers for your hardware (that's somewhat common), so all you need to do is hunt down the drivers you need. You don't have to use Gateway software or Gateway drivers, especially if you're using a FULL install CD. I'm guessing it's a retail copy & not Gateway's? Anyhow, you know you have an ATI 3D Rage, so go to ATI.com & get the driver.

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/...

Ditto for the sound driver. You know you have Ensoniq ES1370 onboard. Or you can try "forcing" a generic soundblaster compatible driver to install thru device manager.

3. As for the BIOS update...if the system had been working OK up until now, why would you think a BIOS update would suddenly be required? It's not like Gateway has been pumping out newer & better ones for this board...they probably stopped in the late 90's.

1st Thank you all for your responses.
Dumbob: will check both websites. Thanks.

justcuz: if I had financial resources I would buy them the best, simplest, cant accidentally mess it up computer. Mom cries when we try to teach her NEW stuff and Dad's chemo makes him forget NEW stuff. You should see them with Satellite, confuses the daylights out of 'em. Personally, I would LOVE to shove.... well anyways very angry at Gateway SALES for taking advantage of elderly parents. If Mom can ADAPT to my IBM Aptiva, without calling me daily to see if her computer is FIXED, I would probably just ditch the gateway and "shake their dust from my shoes" so to speak. I did manage to get most of their older EQUIPMENT working on my IBM. Magpie binocular pictures, Panosonic camcorder, scanner, printer.... cant remember what else. But most of the companies for their equipment long gone. Guess they relate this computer dying to how old and ill they have become. I feel guilty lying to them, but I am thinking about dropping it from the roof and just telling them, it is my fault, I dropped it and it just cant be fixed... you can keep my computer for my bad. Thanks for responding.

DAVEINCAPS: Sorry got brainwashed by Gateway techs insisting I need the System CD 2.7.... what got into me? Trusting their judgement after my parents experiences with them. What tech would tell a complete BEGINNER to FLASH the BIOS? Pardon my whinning....
Computer info: whole unit Gateway2000 G5-233
Motherboard: Gateway tag 4000285 EO ST and second tag MBDSAC109ACWW. It's a Lawman rev E.0 with embedded ES1370 AudioPci CHIP 1370-0001-01 and chip AK4531-VQ also embedded IntelPCI set FW82371AB and FW82439TX, there is a Flash Intel chip, an SMC American Megatrends chip, an ATI 3D RageII+DVD chip, onboard USB, and onboard pci bridge. THIS is the mobo my Dad was told to Flash bios. The current mobo is identical except it was in a Gateway P6-166 and I had to move the jumpers from 166MHz setting to 233MHz position when I put the processor on the new board. The second mobo has original BIOS never flashed.
Hardware: 4GB Western Digital Caviar 24300 that runs quiet and formats easily with either ms-dos or partition magic.
Toshiba CD-rom works fine.
Panisonic Floppy works fine.
The Gateway telepath X2 Modem pci CARD has been removed and replaced with a Fast Realtek Ethernet NIC pci card RTL 8139D works fine.
On 1st mobo BEFORE flash, repeatedly crashed, usb ports kept being found as new hardware, lost LAN pci and have to re-install drivers,freeze at shutdown, scandisk reporting large lost files, finally lost video driver. Could hear HD startup, see floppy and CD check light, but no signal to monitor. All cords and cables in perfect condition and in use now with second mobo.
Using Gateway website drivers computer accepted ATI_m64 and got video loaded fine. Their Ensoniq LOADED and you could barely hear any sound, but NO VOLUME. Would not let the LAN pci load.
I uninstalled their ensoniq stuff, let win98se find the device and set as unknown with yellow ? then tried a variety of pci sound cards. With embedded ensoniq a ? the computer let the LAN pci load and finally loaded a CMI audopci card with C-Media mixer. Nothing else has a ? or a !
Problem still is at shut down getting Fatal error and when loading any PROGRAMS like Norton Antivirus or SystemWorks, computer crawls and eventually says what ever is not responding. Thanks for your response.

jam:in reverse order of your reply:
3. Gateway tech TOLD Dad he had to flash the BIOS that since increasing memory, replacing the CMOS battery and adding the 98upgrade didnt fix the problem, the BIOS had to be corrupted and the latest update was available on their website. He did it, done deal, made things worse. I know very little of BIOS thus my paying $25 for a mobo nearly identical to his with original BIOS.
2. While the gateway driver for the ATI 3D rage worked fine.... NONE of the Ensoniq drivers 1370 I have found actually work providing volume. Several have loaded and you could just barely hear any sound. Tried variety of speakers and headphones on BOTH mobo. Found archived Ensoniq url page that stated the chip actually embedded in some mobo marked ES1370 would only work with original Ensoniq built drivers and not with Creative or soundblaster drivers where the pci CARDS could function on the later drivers. Found one AudioPCI claiming to be original ensoniq driver that loaded, still no volume, but also loaded ensoniq into DOS before returning a sndscape environment not found.
1. Used partition magic on 1st mobo for HD because the computer wanted to boot from CD and no luck booting from floppy. Not sure how? Anyways once the HD was formatted, F1 setup allowed me to change the boot order. Then I booted from 98se floppy made a windows\98SE directory in c:\ and copied win98 contents from cd onto HD, ran setup from C:\windows\98SE Thank you for your reply.

I am going to give myself a day or two break away from the unit and see if I can get a FRESH perspective on it before it makes a suicide leap off my roof. Thank you to everyone who replied. I sincerely appreciate your input and opinions. The intensity of my frustration most likely is the helplessness I feel trying to do something to HELP my parents. I cant HEAL or FIX them and now the one thing they have asked... Im not succeeding with. Bottom line I guess is no matter how hard you try, you cant fit a square peg into a round hole, if it is going to work it will, if not, I will have given it my best efforts. Thanks.

Yeah, (so called) tech support can be a real hassle. You've got to understand that those guys were probably pissing in their diapers when the computer was built. So I wouldn't expect much help from them.

To boot from a floppy make sure the floppy drive is the first boot option in cmos/bios setup.

This is the download page for that motherboard:

http://support.gateway.com/support/...

You might have already been there. You'd just need the sound and video downloads--assuming you're using those original cards/ports.

When you run the downloaded file it will create a C:\CABS folder (if it doesn't already exist) and then in that folder, a subfolder that's the same name as the downloaded file. So, for example, the audio file is 7502533.exe. When you run the file a folder named 7502533 will be created in the CABS folder. The extracted drivers will be in that subfolder. To install the drivers browse through that folder until you find the SETUP file. (Again, you may already be familiar with this.)

Assuming you're using the onboard audio then remove any sound cards you may have added and make sure any audio options are enabled in cmos/bios setup.

I guess you have the drivers for NIC since it works OK. If you have any problems with the NIC, try a different PCI slot. You may have to reinstall its drivers after doing so.

Here is the BIOS download. It's a simple procedure but once complete, you have to enter the BIOS & reconfigure the settings as necessary, otherwise things may not work properly:

http://support.gateway.com/support/...

Here's the drivers for the Ensoniq Audio PCI Wavetable Sound Card (1370 chipset):

http://support.gateway.com/support/...

I believe these are the same drivers as DAVEINCAPS posted above.

AFAIK, the BIOS update won't 'fix' anything regarding RAM. The Lawman (aka "Solectron 586") motherboard may accept a max of 256MB RAM (128MB per slot), but the Intel 430TX chipset only caches 64MB. Exceeding the 64MB cache limit generally hurts performance, but it depends on what the system is used for.

Programs like Norton Antivirus or SystemWorks should not be run on a system such as this...they're resource hogs. Keep the system as lean as possible. Better to get a freebie anti-virus program such as AVG Free Edition:

http://www.filehippo.com/download_a...

IMO, paying $25 for another board was a bad move, especially since you said money is an issue. If the Gateway case accepts standard boards, you would have been better off getting a different socket 7 board. For instance, this FIC PA-2013 was a kickass board in it's day & it comes with a 400MHz K6-2 CPU plus it's only $11 shipped. It would make full use of the 256MB RAM & should be reasonably easy to find drivers for...the performance would be substantially better than the "Lawman".

http://cgi.ebay.com/FIC-PA-2013-Soc...

Thank you DAVEINCAPS and jam.
I have downloaded and tried all of the files you mentioned as far as the BIOS and drivers on the FIRST mobo. Did not do the BIOS on the second mobo but neither mobo in setup gives me the option to ENABLE OR DISABLE the onboard audio even though Win98se finds it. Their Ensoniq driver loads, but barely any sound and NO VOLUME. That is why they insist I need that SYSTEM CD 2.7 which has the specially built program Voyetra as a mixer and cd player.

Good point about Norton system works being a resource hog and I did get the AVG free download zip, need to fully remove Norton before loading AVG. That should give back some speed.
As far as the memory.... That was GATEWAY SALES telling my parents that HAD TO GET THE EXTRA memory to resolve their problems. If I had KNOWN I would have stopped them or at least made them send it back.... Gateway charged them like $119 PER STICK! Granted the memory was bought possibly as far back as 2 years ago, but GATEWAY SALES told them no other brand of memory would work in this unit and my parents did not know any better.
For $240, I could have put together a decent unit for them and just used the Gateway case and told them to call me because it was no longer under Gateway warranty. Not to mention the $100 plus shipping and handling for the win98 UPGRADE that I NEVER would have recommended. So $340 would have gotten a really nice setup even pentium II board. As nicely as possible without making them feel stupid, I have explained to my parents that Gateway is not out to HELP them especially the SALES people, they are out to make money and while some of what they say may have a GRAIN of truth in it..... Gateway was not fully honest with my parents. Im not sure how much the actual store charged them to INSTALL them memory sticks and the win98 upgrade, but again..... they are out to make money. So far, Mom is down to calling ONCE a day to check on her computer. BUT in the meantime is getting better at using my IBM APTIVA to send her emails, and actually managed to get back online in some online BINGO with some older ladies she had been playing with. Maybe she will adapt better than any of us thought and wont need this gateway unit. Course I could take a look at that $11 board and use this case to getme back a desktop. Im not fond of the laptops.
Thanks for your help and info. I appreciate the time and effort each of you has put into this task. If removing Norton and putting AVG in returns some speed and I have any luck with the win98se update for a FATALOE patch and a SHUTDOWN patch I found, then who knows this old gateway just may take care of what I need. Thanks again!

"they insist I need that SYSTEM CD 2.7 which has the specially built program Voyetra as a mixer and cd player"

Those programs have absolutely nothing to do with the volume. All you need are the correct sound drivers, some amplified speakers, & an adjustment to Windows volume control.

Yeah, I've used those gateway 1370 drivers for at least a couple dozen different setups. Mostly it was add-on cards with that chip. I never had any problems with them. Is it possible there's a problem with the speakers? Are they plugged into the right port?

Also the second motherboard you mentioned may not be the same. A lot of those gateways used the 1371 as an on-board chip.

jam and DAVEINCAPS
Yes, I came to the conclusion already that trying to follow advice from Gateway was not helping... and have given up on the the false hope that the system cd 2.7 would fix anything even if I did manage to find it.
The speakers that came with/and worked with the Gateway, work fine on both the IBM and even the laptop and allow volume control from both the speaker and from the software volume control in the system tray. The front bezel on the Gateway2000 covers the sound jack on the cd player, but with bezel off using earphones, from a cd can get decent sound with the cd volume dial turned to MAX, but wav and midi of course do not come through the cd's jack and with the headphones or speakers in the rear sound jack even with cd, no volume.
As far as the mobo- both have exactly the same chips in the same locations and mfg date on the original is JAN98 whle the replacement mfg date is DEC97. The only difference I found was that the 1st mobo had the jumper pins set for JB1 and J21 set for CPU speed 200MHz clock 66MHZ and the replacement mobo had those pins set for CPU 166MHz and clock 60MHz. On the replacement mobo I set the pins to the correct setting for the processor from the original mobo.
In BOTH mobo the Ensoniq chip is embedded in the mobo at the rear of the mobo between and above the last ISA slot and the 1st pci slot. BOTH chips have exactly the same set up numbers on them. ENSONIQ ES1370 AudioPCI 1370-0001-01 H1160 N7D1647 TI U9746.
The second chip on the mobo that is supposed to be working in sinque with the ES chip is the AKM AK4531-VQ 9745JFA. These are NOT CHIPS on a pci CARD. These chips are actually constructed into the mobo (not in sockets, but into the green circuit board). QUOTE from websearch "The AudioPCI ES1370 sound chip was the next-generation in sound technology from the now defunct technology company Ensoniq. One of the more important innovations found within was the move from ISA to the PCI bus. It was one of the first to offer full MS-DOS legacy compatibility. When paired with a capable codec, such as the AK4531 (pre-AC'97), the ES1370 supported the then-latest in 3D audio positioning through 4-speaker surround sound. The chip was also a PCI bus master device that was designed to provide high-speed access to system RAM and resources, for wavetable data and effect processing." END QUOTE
IN my limited knowledge I thought that possibly the sound drivers that have been found (which provide sound, but no volume) address on the the actual ES chip as if it were on a pci card and maybe do not address the pci bus function of the ES chip NOT ON A CARD and fail to address the AMK codec chip.
Thanks for your input and resources!

Check again in cmos/bios setup and make sure all the audio stuff is enabled. Sometimes even when it's disabled windows will detect it and try to set it up. Check in device manager and make sure everything looks OK there too. Also, are you using amplified speakers? I don't think those motherboards had an on-board amplifier.

Otherwise it sounds like a hardware problem with the audio.

If you can't get it going and still want to mess with it, I've got some gateway P-II motherboards that would fit. Just postage as I'm getting rid of them anyway.

DAVEINCAPS
As far as CMOS, there is no place in setup F1 that will allow me to get to what the display during startup shows as ONBOARD MULTIMEDIA on either mobo. I dont know that it was ever available on the one that got flashed. In Device Manager, 98se FINDS a PCI MULTIMEDIA and will load the AUDIOPCI drivers I got from gateway and the one I found that claims to be the original Ensoniq built drivers. It even loads and sets up Ensoniq Mixer that replaces the 98se volume icon in the system tray. Device Manager does not show any ? or any ! at that point and claims device is working properly..... but there is no volume. The speakers are 2 speakers and a sub-woofer. The primary RIGHT speaker has the volume control and is the only piece that plugs directly into the sound jack. It has its own power supply and a green light indicates when the speaker system is on even if the volume is turned way down. The Left speaker and sub-woofer lines run from the Right speaker and do not detach.
When I UNINSTALLED the AUDIOPCI drivers, it automatically took the 3 Ensoniq items 1)Ensoniq AUDIOPCI 2)Joystick 3)Ensoniq MSDOS controller out of Device MANAGER [sorry titles here are not exact as I did not write them down and currently have device disabled]. Uninstaller said had to restart for removal to be complete. I did a full shut down, put in a CMI multimedia pci CARD and turned on the computer. 98se found BOTH items, so I let it find the onboard and set it as unknown device and let it set up the CMI card drivers which also provided a C-Media Mixer instead of the 98se volume control in sytem tray. In Device Manger on the unknown, I marked DISABLE THIS DEVICE IN THIS HARDWARE PROFILE. AT that point, I got sound from the speakers. During start up and through the Windows Startup.wav the sound seems to stutter, but once desktop is up, all sound from that point seems clear and adjustable. SHUTDOWN posses a new problem and hangs refusing to shutdown. It gets to the WINDOWS IS SHUTTING DOWN SCREEN and just sits there. No fan noise, no harddrive noise. I left it at one point just to see if I gave it more time (one hour)if it would ever shut down. Even at the one hour mark it was still at the WINDOWS IS SHUTTING DOWN screen and when I held in the power button and turned it off, on start up it still showed windows was not shut down properly and started running scandisk. I took the C-MEDIA out of the STARTUP menu through msconfig and still had proper sound once desktop was up, no mixer in system tray. It temporarily allowed shutdown without the hang, but once I added Norton, the hang at shutdown returned. Uninstalling Norton speeded things back up, but at shut down Im now getting a blue fatal error screen and having to force shut down. For the moment I am just walking around the thing and finding a million odd jobs to do EXCEPT tinker with it. LOL
As far as the offer on the gateway mobo, I would be interested. I dont think the gateway pentium II mobo had ONBOARD multimedia and should be happy with the multimedia pci CARD I have! Let me know the details and I will work out payment arrangements. I have paypal if that helps.
Thanks for all your input and research and generosity!

I think I've got both--some with and some without on-board sound. Do you have PC100 SDRAM? If not I can throw some in. In what state or country do you live?

DAVEINCAPS I tried to send you a private message clicking on the icon on your response, but said since I was author of this thread I could not do that. SO, using regular private message center, I tried to send you a pm to DAVEINCAPS. Let me know if you received the info you mentioned. Thanks again.

ps, it is currently 2:54pm central standard USA time here and I will be offline for a few hours. Will check back around 7pm central standard time. Thanks.

Yeah, I got it and responded. I'll check back later.

Hmm...

Is there any possibility that you are close enough to a Craigslist that you can purchase a decent used unit to work with for $10-20 or so? It sounds as if this Gateway is, in general, a PITA to work with, and has too many problems at this point to begin patching them up.

P.S.: Stay away from Norton - it is known for being a ram hog, and more often then not, the source of quite a few problems. Try AVG Anti-Virus and NetVedia's Safety.Net as A/V & firewall alternatives, respectively.

Sorry to all, being new to this forum I still dont know how to actually close out this post but the computer is up and running! Thanks for all the help and special thanks to DAVEINCAPS from the folks!