Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!cica!gatech!psuvax1!news From: goldstin@omega (Jonathan Goldstine) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Gateway 2000 Keywords: Gateway Micronics CDC Miniscribe Gene Message-ID: <1989Jul25.001053.28583@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu> Date: 25 Jul 89 00:10:53 GMT Reply-To: goldstin@shire (Jonathan Goldstine) Distribution: usa Organization: Penn State University Lines: 60 A few days ago, I posted a summary of responses to my request for information about Gateway 2000, and I mentioned a compatibility problem with the Micronics 25MHz 386 board. (Due to my inexperience with posting, I neglected to give a complete set of return addresses: goldstin@psuvaxs.bitnet goldstin@shire.uucp goldstin@shire.cs.psu.edu I can be reached at these addresses for any followup.) Since then, I received the following additional message. But first, one follow-on question. Gateway 2000 offers a choice of 150 Meg ESDI disks: CDC and Miniscribe. Any recommendations between the two? Date: Sun, 23 Jul 89 17:24:27 EDT From: Floyd Miller To: goldstin@shire.cs.psu.edu Subject: My Gateway Experience [ I would post this myself but I have no software to post news. Please post for me if you feel it would enhance the publics info ] Our company bought a Gateway 2000 20Mhz in June. It came with a Gene II motherboard, Phoenix BIOS 3.10 03 (I'm not sure if it's 3.10 or 1.10), 80MB SCSI hard drive, Orchid ProDesigner VGA board, etc. We had problems running some CAD software which uses an imbedded extended memory manager called DOS16M from Rational Systems. The problem seemed to be related to getting in and/or out of protected mode. We were able to get around this by telling DOS16M to use the old 286 method - slower, but it worked. I also tried Windows386 which ran alright except for the HIMEM.SYS driver which complained about A20 being already enabled (???). The CAD software company sent a copy of their diagnostic program to Gateway to eveluate the problem. In not too much time (a few days) Gateway's tech department called me with their results. They said they had some 20Mhz machines it would run on and some it would not. Their 25Mhz machines had no problems. Later, they ran the test on the Micronics (Weitek) mother board which they said they just beginning to evaluate. It ran fine on the Micronics board. I believe there is some timing tolerance problem with the Gene II motherboard but I'm not about to try and track it down, myself. Gateway sent us a new motherboard and memory card (The 32-bit slots are not standard) and we're on the air for real. The Micronics board outperforms the Gene II board, I'm not sure of the exact statistics. The new board has Phoenix BIOS 3.10 10. I don't know if the last number indicates a revision or simply a customization for a particular mother board. All in all, we are now another happy Gateway customer. I found their service and technical people rather helpful and certainly willing to help solve our problem. -- ******* ************************************* ***** ********************** Floyd Miller *** *************** * ********* floyd%starsend@PRC.Unisys.com *** starsend!floyd@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.com