[vinny132]

Hi,

My name is Vinny..I have an old gateway essenial 500 PC running windows 98SE..I need to replace the motherBoard..I managed to find the same exact board on ebay..It is a
Jabil BX MB R3 w/Intel 550MHz Slot1 Pentium3 Processor..

I am running 256 of ram a 16 meg 3dfx voodoo card and a sound blaster 128pci sound card..

this is an old machine i'm trying to bring back to life so I can recover the music files and games on the hard drives.I know there are other ways to recover the files..i might even be able to put the drive in my new dell..The drive I need the files on is a slave drive i setup myself..But I would like to bring this old machine back if possable..

So I was just wondering what I would need to do as far as configuring goes..My thought is that since the 2 mother boards are the same..Same chips as well..So is it just a simple swap or is there more to it then that..

I have installed cd burners, hard drives, video and sound cards and memory..But I have never tried changing a mother board..

If this is to advanced for me..Would I be able to put it in my new dell running XP home edition..The slave drive doesn't have an operating system on it..I only used it for storage space..

I could really use some help

thanks vinny..

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Vinny:
First off, welcome to the board. It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on what can be done even if its all relatively foriegn territory to you.

Yes, you can put your slave drive in your new Dell and should be able to fully access all files. You may need to let the Bios detect the drive parameters but my guess is that your Dell will auto detect it as will Windows. Expect a help balloon pop up initializing the drive and calling for a reboot, but you don't have much to worry about as its almost totally automatic and requires little or no user intervention. You might want to check the system drive currently in the Dell and determine whether the jumper is set on Master or Cable Select and then set your slave as slave (leave the jumper as slave) or rejumper it to CS. Note, if its CS, the slave must be on the intermediate IDE cable header and the system drive must be on the terminating header. Painless operation - you'll have no problems.

As to the motherboard swap. This too should be pretty straight forward but ground yourself by touching the power supply or some other solid metal part before touching any components. Just remember, what comes out must go back in. As to just swapping and firing this up, there is one catch. You would need to pull the BIOS chip off the old motherboard and put it in your replacement to accomplish this as it will have all of your old hardware settings re: drive geometry, interrupts (yes, big deal in 98se), video, modem, power, memory,CPU and etc, etc ..... The alternative is to leave the BIOS chip intact and reset it, but this may be a bit of a challenge for you and can be a bit tricky if your old machine has all kinds of cards already in it (again, this is an interrupt issue). Regardless, give it a go and post back if you encounter any problems. There are lots of qualified people here that will be pleased to assist.

Edited by Rockster2U, 17 January 2006 - 08:20 AM.

[Rockster2U]

Vinny:
First off, welcome to the board. It sounds like you have a pretty good handle on what can be done even if its all relatively foriegn territory to you.

Yes, you can put your slave drive in your new Dell and should be able to fully access all files. You may need to let the Bios detect the drive parameters but my guess is that your Dell will auto detect it as will Windows. Expect a help balloon pop up initializing the drive and calling for a reboot, but you don't have much to worry about as its almost totally automatic and requires little or no user intervention. You might want to check the system drive currently in the Dell and determine whether the jumper is set on Master or Cable Select and then set your slave as slave (leave the jumper as slave) or rejumper it to CS. Note, if its CS, the slave must be on the intermediate IDE cable header and the system drive must be on the terminating header. Painless operation - you'll have no problems.

As to the motherboard swap. This too should be pretty straight forward but ground yourself by touching the power supply or some other solid metal part before touching any components. Just remember, what comes out must go back in. As to just swapping and firing this up, there is one catch. You would need to pull the BIOS chip off the old motherboard and put it in your replacement to accomplish this as it will have all of your old hardware settings re: drive geometry, interrupts (yes, big deal in 98se), video, modem, power, memory,CPU and etc, etc ..... The alternative is to leave the BIOS chip intact and reset it, but this may be a bit of a challenge for you and can be a bit tricky if your old machine has all kinds of cards already in it (again, this is an interrupt issue). Regardless, give it a go and post back if you encounter any problems. There are lots of qualified people here that will be pleased to assist.

Edited by Rockster2U, 17 January 2006 - 08:20 AM.

[vinny132]

Hi Rockster..

Thanks for the reply..See my problem is that I don't know what or where the bios chip is..I see two big sqaure chips on the board and about 4 smaller rectangular chips..

the two big chips are from intel..they are as follows
AGPset
FW82443bx
L9510475
SL2VH

the second which is a bit smaller is
PCIset
fw82371eb
f950yb60
SL37m

I'm not sure if I can use these chips as the computer was in a house fire..The computer got hit by water from a fire hose and chucked out the window by firemen..LOL..So I'm not sure of the extent of damage..
But I tell ya this..I hooked up and new monitor and mouse and fired the machine up after about 2 years of being down stairs in my basement..And it worked for about ten minutes and the the monitor went into sleep mode and was receiving no signal from the computer..

The boards are a bit dirty but seemed to be ok..I pulled all the adapters and the video card as well as the sound card and 2 memory sticks..I removed the mother board and found the Battery 2032 had rusted and saw what seemed to be a few hot spots on the board..The power supply seems ok..

It's a long shot that the video,sound and memory cards are ok..But I gotta try..It's not a money issue..It's just I want to challenge myself to get this thing running..

Also..I'm not to sure of what you explained about adding this drive to my dell..I have learned alot over the years..I am great at software problems and I have changed many pieces of hardware..but configuration is a bit unknown to me..

you stated that :
You might want to check the system drive currently in the Dell and determine whether the jumper is set on Master or Cable Select and then set your slave as slave (leave the jumper as slave) or rejumper it to CS. Note, if its CS, the slave must be on the intermediate IDE cable header and the system drive must be on the terminating header. Painless operation - you'll have no problems.

this is a bit out of my League..

but thanks for all your help..

vinny

[Rockster2U]

Just looked a picture of your board. Your Bios chip is the square one nestled between the IDE headers, floppy drive connector and ATX power header on your motherboard. Its in a surface mount socket with little pins (look like wires to you) on each of 4 sides. I'd suggest you take the replacement board down to a repair shop along with your existing board and have them switch it from the old to the new. This is about a 2 minute job at most and the fact that you were able to fire your machine up for a few minutes tells us that its fine. If you're nice about it, I'd say most shops will do this no charge. Don't go to a major retailer for this - find a small shop.