Gateway 6400 FAQ-UUUUUUUU

[Braid11]

Does anyone ever get a checksum error when booting up after a shutdown overnight. I kind of think it might be the motherboard battery. Sometimes I just choose to load defalt vaules, other time I tinker with the system time settings and save. Either way it then continues to boot just fine. Is it easy to change?. Does Gateway sell them, or perhaps an Asus dealer is cheaper, since its a cur-dsl MB.

Tom

 

[ClearToLand]

Originally posted by: Braid11
I kind of think it might be the motherboard battery. Sometimes I just choose to load defalt vaules, other time I tinker with the system time settings and save. Either way it then continues to boot just fine. Is it easy to change?

CR2032 - looks like a thin quarter - drop a buck and a half @ Home Depot, KMart, local drugstore, etc...

Piece of cake!

 

[amgine]

Originally posted by: Braid11
Does anyone ever get a checksum error when booting up after a shutdown overnight. I kind of think it might be the motherboard battery. Sometimes I just choose to load defalt vaules, other time I tinker with the system time settings and save. Either way it then continues to boot just fine. Is it easy to change?. Does Gateway sell them, or perhaps an Asus dealer is cheaper, since its a cur-dsl MB.

Tom

Both my 6400's did this almost right away....
Happens every time I unplug the power cord.
Worse part is I have to go into the bios every time and change tthe boot priority settings for the HD's as it never botos. Guess I better get off my lazy toosh and get one to.

 

[Pinkpig]

Hello all, i have a question about ram for this machine.

i got a free stick of 512mb SDRAM. its from PNY and the chips in the back are made by Samsung

this is what it says on the chip

SAMSUNG 202
K4S560832D-TC75

can i use that stick of ram in my computer?

thanks

 

[Stealth]

I just spilled Dr. Pepper all over myself in an attempt to answer your question, Pinkpig, so you'd better appreciate my post

The board for the GW 6400 is an ASUS CUR-DLS, and the board is quite picky about RAM. You must use ECC Registered SDRAM in order for it to work with the ASUS CUR-DLS. If your PNY RAM is, then it should work fine.

 

[Pinkpig]

Sorry Stealth, hope you didnt stain anything.....

how do i know if its ECC registered Ram?

What if i just put it in, would it mess up anything?
or is it just not going to POST?

Thanks

 

[BooneRebel]

Originally posted by: Pinkpig
Sorry Stealth, hope you didnt stain anything.....

how do i know if its ECC registered Ram?

What if i just put it in, would it mess up anything?
or is it just not going to POST?

Thanks

IIRC, the 'slot' cut in the DIMM is offset by a hair, so if it's not ECC registered it won't go into the board. If it fits without using a hammer, try powering it on and see what happens.

 

[darren]

my gateway 6400 died.
first the scsi drive went out - just at the 1 year mark.
then the motherboard went out. it started with random freezes and restarts. then it just decided to show no video one day. so now it no work anymore and im back to using my bp6 dual 366@550.

just thot i'd post my 6400 progress and see if anyone had similar problems.

 

[nealr]

Originally posted by: darren
my gateway 6400 died.
first the scsi drive went out - just at the 1 year mark.
then the motherboard went out. it started with random freezes and restarts. then it just decided to show no video one day. so now it no work anymore and im back to using my bp6 dual 366@550.

just thot i'd post my 6400 progress and see if anyone had similar problems.

Mine came 8/1/01.
Something on mine died too about 6 mos ago, and I called the support, and he walked me through a bunch of stuff, and ended up saying it's the motherboard or cpu. They immediately shipped me a new one (no charge), and I put the old one in the box and sent it back (no charge). It's been running great since then. (I have it running as an email/web server up in my closet.)

You should call them. It has a 3yr warranty.

 

[Pinkpig]

BooneRebel
thanks for the tip, i tried the ram and it didnt fit... the cutting on the ram was off a little, u can see it a little.


Thanks!!

 

[sportos]

I added a Western Digital (WDE9150 Ultra 3) 9.1 gig to my 6400 recently and I have not been able to see it in Win2K Server Disk Management.
I see it in the Scsi config utitlity on scsi id 2. The IBM disk is on id 0, I am not able to format it there, it says "Format Failed, press any key to continue".
I see the disk in Device Manager and it says "device is working properly".

I am new to working with scsi but I thought after you gave the device a unique ID and it was terminated properly the OS would recognize it and you could then use it.
Any ideas?

 

[DonBlack]

So, I originally bought 2 6400s and want to take one of the 933 CPUs and add it to one of the machines to create a single machine with dual 933s. Then, I obviously need to buy a processor for the other 6400. My question is thus what's the fastest CPU I can buy for the 6400? Thanks!

 

[purpledemon]

from the ASUS site for the CUR DLS

Processor
Supports SMP (Symmetrical Multi-Processor) dual processors
Supports Intel® FC-PGA Pentium® III 500MHz~1GHz+ CPU
Suppors 133MHz F.S.B. Coppermine processor

I have a 1 gig p3 in my box ...

if you go to newegg, search for a coppermine proc and they have a 1 gig p3 for 107

 

[ClearToLand]

Originally posted by: sportos
I added a Western Digital (WDE9150 Ultra 3) 9.1 gig to my 6400 recently and I have not been able to see it in Win2K Server Disk Management.
I see it in the Scsi config utitlity on scsi id 2. The IBM disk is on id 0, I am not able to format it there, it says "Format Failed, press any key to continue".
I see the disk in Device Manager and it says "device is working properly".

I am new to working with scsi but I thought after you gave the device a unique ID and it was terminated properly the OS would recognize it and you could then use it.
Any ideas?

Random ideas off the top of my head (since nobody with a good idea has chimed in yet...):

Create a Win98 Recovery Boot Disk (so that it has all that Adaptec SCSI driver stuff setup), grab the LSI-1010 DOS "Stuff" from ASUS, stick the LSI driver into CONFIG.SYS, Boot and Look (I would even suggest pulling the IBM out and just having 1 device, the WDE9150, connected). See what you can see with FDISK and then troubleshoot from there.

BTW - the asus.com.tw site was SLOW AS HELL this morning when I tried to get the link for you - my old link didn't work (looks like they re-designed their whole site) and each click on a menu took a couple of minutes (with a cable modem!).

 

[ClearToLand]

Originally posted by: purpledemon
Suppors 133MHz F.S.B. Coppermine processor

I have a 1 gig p3 in my box ...

Yeah, but since Gateway stripped so much out of the Asus BIOS, I worried that the multiplier would just remain at 7 (933 / 133 = ~7) and you wouldn't get the higher speed (you'd be under-clocking). Does Sandra report it as 1GHz?

if you go to newegg, search for a coppermine proc and they have a 1 gig p3 for 107

After reading your post, I went to look at the AT Weekly CPU Prices - P3 isn't even listed anymore! So, I went to PriceWatch and then to NewEgg.

Isn't the:

Intel Pentium III 1.2GHz 256K 133MHz FSB FCPGA2, Flip Chip, TUALATIN - Processor - Retail Box
Specifications:
CPU: 1.2GHz
Type: Pentium 3
Cache: 256K
BUS: 133MHz
Socket: 370 (FCPGA2) Retail (Box with Heatsink and fan) Model#: BX80530C1200256

a much better deal @ $115 since you get the Heatsink/Fan and a 3-year Warranty instead of 30-day?

(I have a P3 933/133 with the same stepping in my Dell 4100, so, instead of going through the hassle of trying to get a vendor to match the stepping to what's in the Gateway, I figured just try the one from the Dell and then, if it works, upgrade the Dell.)

DonBlack: Did you check stepping? (Go to Intel's site to learn what to look for...)

 

[DonBlack]

These are my guesses so please correct me if I'm wrong...

1) I don't believe the standard motherboard that came with the 6400 support anything above 1 GHz.

2) I don't believe stepping is an issue with the 6400 (I remember this being a huge source of controversy with people before they placed their orders but it all worked out in the end).

Thanks.

 

[amgine]

Originally posted by: DonBlack
So, I originally bought 2 6400s and want to take one of the 933 CPUs and add it to one of the machines to create a single machine with dual 933s. Then, I obviously need to buy a processor for the other 6400. My question is thus what's the fastest CPU I can buy for the 6400? Thanks!

I also have 2 boxes, took the 933 out, put it in the first, and bought 2 coppermine 1ghz processors. Works great!

 

[ClearToLand]

Originally posted by: DonBlack
1) I don't believe the standard motherboard that came with the 6400 support anything above 1 GHz.

Ah! Gateway and Dell => Tualatin is OUT, so, I guess the 1GHz Coppermine:

Intel Pentium III 1GHz 256K 133MHz FSB FCPGA Processor
Specifications:
CPU: 1.0 GHz
Type: Pentium 3
Cache: 256K
BUS: 133MHz
Socket: 370 (FCPGA) OEM (Processor Only) Model#: RB80526PZ001256

is the limit...

IIRC, the price (~$107) was about the same six months ago - does anyone expect a drop in the near future?

 

[NucEm]

I've had a issue with the 6400 > its slower than a 8086. The unit has 2, 933's and 1.4 GB of ECC RAM with 3 SCSI 160 drives and I'm running XP Pro. It has an ATI AIW 32 PCI. The machine works its just real slow. Any help would be apppreciated.

BTW on the rails I called Gateway and they sent me some rails no charge.

 

[purpledemon]

NucEm ...
what do you mean by "really slow" ?

is it taking a long time to boot up ?
what software are you running that is slow ?
did it always run this slow ?

I've had this box for a while with absolutely no performance problems as far as normal workstation usage

give us some more info and hopefully someone here will have some insight

 

[NucEm]

It has always been slow. I have a couple of systems built using the ABIT VP-6 and they are quite responsive. The 6400 is slow to even open or close windows. If I do ctrl-alt-del and look at the performance the graph for both processors is max'ed out if any program is running. I know that you may need more info but I thought that if someone else had speed issues that there may be a common thread. It does take a while to boot. The unit does not have any IDE hard drives installed. The CPU's appear to run hotter than the ones in the VP-6. I assumed that the values reported for temp were wrong partly because the CPU's should have fried by now if the values were correct. It has been suggested that the problem with the speed may be the SCSI drives (all IBM SCSI 160 drives).

 

[purpledemon]

from the very first post in the thread ...
From "highly tech forum"--built-in SCSI default mode is NON-Sync, so included IBM U160 HD runs at 12 MB/sec. Press Ctrl-C during boot when prompted and change SCSI setting to Sync160 for the hard drive. The sustained data rate would increase to approx. 25 MB/sec (that IBM HD is really not "latest&greatest")

have you checked if thats set ? might alleviate the problem a little ...

also ... when you use the task manager .... which process is taking up all your CPU cycles ? (click on the CPU tab under the processes tab to sort the list and look at whats taking up all the cycles)

 

[ClearToLand]

Hey purpledemon!

As long as this old thread is so active right now [got 4 E-Mails in the last 2 hours] I've got a few comments/questions:

I'm pretty happy with my 6400 right now - multi-booting 5 OS's off the 9GB IBM, and playing around with video capture on 2 Maxtor 7200 RPM 45GB and 1 Maxtor 5400 RPM 80GB through a Promise/Maxtor ATA100. I had an ATI AIW 128 PCI in it, but it was dropping frames (yeah, I played with all the settings, tried MMC 7.5 7.6 7.7) but now the on-board ATI RAGE XL is just fine EXCEPT... when you click on a '+' in Explorer to expand a sub-directory, it pauses for a second or two (Wink2k, NT4, 98SE). Anyone else see this?

And, I don't remember now which OS and which video combo it was, but there's an acknowledged BUG in the ATI Knowledge Base with the video driver so that when you go to FULL SCREEN DOS, it locks the machine up solid. Windowed DOS is fine. But, do an ALT-ENTER from the window and it goes Bye-Bye that way too. Anyone else?

About the "SCSI Non-Sync" - twice now it's changed itself back to Non-Sync on the IBM drive (never on the controller) and I only catch it by paying attention to the boot messages.

NucEm was complaining about the CPU temperature(s) - I've been playing around with MBM and CoolMon. If I go into the BIOS, the CPU is 35 and the case is 28 - MEM says 70 and 35 [Agreed - the CPU should be self-destructing]. BUT, if you go in the BIOS, ESC out and don't SAVE, then load MBM, it matches the BIOS until the next boot/re-boot. Try it and let me know...

SCSI-HD: I have SCSI-2 running in a couple of machines here (CD-ROM changers, CDR/W, Scanner, JAZ 1GB and 2GB externals), but the 6400 is the only SCSI-3. I'm looking at SCSI HDs on eBay and reading up about SCSI-3 at Adaptec's site.

Is 68-pin SCSI-3 = 68-pin Ultra160 = 68-pin Ultra160 LVD = 68-pin Ultra160 LVD SE?

Is there such a thing as 80-pin SCSI-3? I know to avoid 50-pin, 80-pin, HVD and SCA, so, will any of the "others" work in the 6400?

Re: DUAL CPUs - is $107 the BEST price? The P3 Coppermine dropped off AnandTech's Weekly Review a while ago, so, shouldn't the price be dropping?

OK gang - let's hit Page #4 on the FAQ today!!!!!!!

 

[purpledemon]

Hey ClearToLand ...

i dont know much about scsi either ... but i did a search on google and came up with following link ....
looks like a lot of good info

scsi faq

as far as the dual cpu ... i just got tired of waiting ... and felt like 107 wasnt too much of an investment to realize the full potential (heh ... not sure what that is ) of this machine ..
i havent seen the price drop in ages .... and i bought it quite a while ago ...

 

[ClearToLand]

Originally posted by: purpledemon
Hey ClearToLand ...

i dont know much about scsi either ... but i did a search on google and came up with following link ....
looks like a lot of good info

scsi faq

GOOD SCSI FAQ! But now they're introducing NEW terms (SPI, SPI-2, SPI-3, EPI) and making my head spin!

So, SCSI-3 is the WHOLE category, of which Ultra160 is one flavor. But I still don't see the differences between 68-pin Ultra160 and 68-pin Ultra160 LVD and 68-pin Ultra160 LVD SE - more reading... :disgust:

So, what about all the other EASY questions regarding SLow Explorer, DOS lockups, CPU Temps, the LSI dropping back to No-Sync by itself?????????????

And NucEm - yo! you still there?

See if your 6400 has the same "quirks" as mine, especially with the CPU Temps.

TIA to all...