The following is a step-by-step description of how to upgrade the flash CMOS BIOS on the Aladdin and Zappa motherboards. Please read the disclaimer and use agreement before proceeding!
Note: The 10th Anniversary system will be referred to as
the "P133A" in this document. All trademarks and registered trademarks are the
property of their respective owners.
The P133A shipped with the Aladdin 133 Mhz Pentium
motherboard. Because of the similarity of instructions, the following can be used to
upgrade the Zappa motherboards as well.
To determine which motherboard you have, refer to the
following:
When the computer is first started, the BIOS information
appears in the upper left corner of the screen. This information will tell you which
motherboard you have.
If the BIOS version ends in BR0T (B-R-ZERO-T), you have the Aladdin motherboard.
If it ends in BS0T (B-S-ZERO-T), you have the Zappa motherboard.
The latest supported BIOS for both motherboards is
available at the Gateway
2000 website or by clicking the links below.
The latest supported version of the Aladdin BIOS is
1.00.10.00 BR0T
Click here to download Aladdin BIOS version 1.00.10.00 BR0T
The latest supported version of the Zappa BIOS is
1.00.11.00 BS0T
Click here to download Zappa BIOS version 1.00.11.00 BS0T
There may be newer versions that have not undergone compatibility testing by Gateway 2000. If you use an unsupported BIOS, Gateway will not provide technical support for problems related to the system BIOS.
Note that Micro Firmware has released BIOS upgrades for Zappa and Aladdin motherboards that support hard drives that are larger than 8.4 gigabytes. For additional information, visit the Micro Firmware web site.
IMPORTANT SUGGESTIONS BEFORE YOU UPGRADE YOUR BIOS
Corrupting your BIOS can leave your machine totally useless, so it is wise to take
the precaution of taking the option of SAVING your current BIOS to a file before
attempting to upgrade it. You may want to consider creating BIOS recovery disks
before performing the BIOS upgrade. Instructions for doing so can be found on the Micro
Firmware web site at http://www.firmware.com/fbr.htm. Also,
you should set your current configuration to the defaults BEFORE attempting to
upgrade otherwise there are problems with the configuration afterwards - use the SET
DEFAULTS option in the BIOS, then press the appropriate 'F' key ('F6'). You can make
changes to the settings once the upgrade is complete.
To install the Aladdin or Zappa system BIOS, follow these
instructions:
1. First, make sure that your machine is currently running
an older version of the appropriate BIOS.
If your machine does not display BR0T or BS0T at the end of the BIOS information
when you start it up, you should not continue with any of these instructions.
2. Download the BIOS Upgrade from the Gateway 2000 website or from the links above.
3. Create a bootable DOS floppy disk.
4. Copy the BIOS file you downloaded (aladd10.exe or
zappb11.exe) to a clean directory, and run it. It will create a whole host of files in
that directory. You can now remove aladd10.exe or zappb11.exe from this directory (copying
it to a floppy for safe keeping is a good idea).
5. The files you have left should be just less than a
megabyte, and should fit on your newly formatted floppy without difficulty.
6. Reboot your machine with the floppy in Drive A: - the
machine should boot from the disk (if you have a different default boot option, e.g. C:
then A:, then you will need to go into the BIOS - press F1 at startup - and change it).
You should be presented with a blue splash screen welcoming you to the upgrade program,
and inviting you to press 'ENTER'.
7. Press Enter, and select the option to SAVE your BIOS to
a file - this is the backup to resort to if anything goes wrong. You will be prompted to
supply a filename and description. It's suggested you save the file to the A: drive, as
there is plenty of room.
8. Once you have succesfully saved your BIOS, reboot your
machine, and when prompted, press F1 to enter the BIOS Setup Utility. When you are in the
utility it is a good idea to go through all the pages making a note of all the settings,
since some will be lost in the next step.
9. Once you have taken a note of all the settings, press
the 'SET DEFAULTS' option - this is necessary to ensure a succesful upgrade. Save your
changes and reboot with the floppy still in drive A:.
10. Press Enter to get past the splash screen, and take the
option to load your BIOS from a file. Remember to load the new BIOS file, rather than the
backup that you have just saved to the disk.
11. Once everything has completed, you will be prompted to
either press a key to reboot, or press the reset button - remember to remove the floppy
disk from drive A:.
If everything has worked you should notice a couple of differences when the machine boots straight away - the new version number, the Gateway 2000 and processor speed banner, and your CD-ROM drive should appear in the list of devices under your hard disk(s). You can take the opportunity to go into the new BIOS and change some of the settings back to what they were before the upgrade - you will notice that some of the options have changed, or been removed. FYI, the four devices that it lists as C:, D:, E:, and F: appear to match the following order, Primary Master, Primary Slave, Secondary Master, and Secondary Slave. So if you have got the default GW2K config of two master devices, one on each channel, you can disable the two slave devices (D: and F:), as this seems to speed up the boot sequence a bit.
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Updated 6/13/98
Copyright ©1996 by The 10th Anniversary Club
