I posted a week or so about this Gateway Solo 2500 that I am messing around with. I got it with Win95 but there were some driver/harware issues that I couldn't resolve with the PCMCIA slots. The laptop has a sticker on it that says "Designed for Windows 98". So I figured that it has hardware that is too new for Win95 and thus not supported. I've got my hands on a copy on Win98se and installed it. However, the problems are much worse ~sigh~. I was able to fairly easily get 95 to recognize most of the harware with the help of some downloaded drivers. However, 98se doesn't want to recognize the vid card, sound card, modem, PCMCIA, USB, and who knows what system devices. I was able to force 98 to use the same vid driver as the one I used with 95 and it seems to be working, but that doesn't hold true for the sound card or anything else it seems. 98 just isn't recognizing the hardware like it should. I don't see any PCI bridge stuff that 95 was able to find, etc. I can say this, the 98 install kept locking up. I read an earlier post on here that suggested running the setup with the /PI and /ND switches for these symptoms. I did that and was finally able to get Win 98 to install. However, through tendious experimentation I was able to identify what is locking up Windows. 98 wants to install Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) BIOS. When it does that, Win98 just freezes up. If I give it the 3 fingered salute and force it to safemode I can remove that system device. Rebooting again in normal mode will allow Windows to boot fine (that ACPI is not automatically recognized during boot). However, everytime I try to install any hardware it wants to put this ACPI back and I can't stop it. Nor can I disable it while in Safemode. Nor can I install it and immediately disable it because it locks the system up. Any ideas? I'm starting to lean towards hardware issues that probably cannot be resolved? It really irritates me that 95 was able to recognize 95% of everything and 98se can't hardly get 50%. When I installed 98 I selected the "Portable" option figuring that was most appropriate. Should I not have? Thanks in advance.

Hi Aaron, I can certainly understand the frustration. My only helpful question: Is ACPI enabled in BIOS? M2

Can you just cancel it, when it tries to install ACPI? It's possible that your hardware does not support it, but it's not normally really needed.

I am not even really sure what ACPI is. There is power management in the Bios for shutting off the screen and the hard drive and such. That is turned on. Disabling it does not seem to have any effect. The BIOS sucks for this laptop. The user has very little control over things. The LPT port has address or IRQ conflics with something, but won't tell me what. I can change it from LPT 1, 2, 3, or 4 which will alter the address/IRQ settings, but I have no way to check to see what else is using it. Windows will tell you, but it also says there is no conflict but the BIOS does....??? As far as canceling it, yes I can. However, anything else that is also getting installed will get canceled at the same time. So, it's either all or nothing. What you end up doing is let it install everything, lock up, 3 fingered salute, go to safe mode, remove the offending ACPI, reboot to normal mode. Then you're ok. That's everytime you add a new device too. Not to mention I still don't know why it won't recognize things correctly. I am also wondering if perhaps it has mis-recognized this ACPI. Maybe it's supposed to be the PCI bridge or something?? I have no way of knowing though. Drives me nuts when I run into one of these deals that seemingly has no solution.

Open device manager and expand system devices. Is a 'composite power source' listed there? Double click on the top 'computer' line in device manager. Do you see any: acpi irq holding for pci steering

Hi Aaron Try here for drivers... http://support.gateway.com/support/drivers/search.asp?st=pn¶m=3500419 Krystyna

Dave, No, I do not see either of those. Krystyna, Thanks for the tip. Have been there and they only have vid card, sound card, and a few other basic things.