HowToFixComputers.com

Vincent · Guest

I have five of these machines, and all or them are incomplete in some
way, shape, and form. That's why I'm calling them projects.

I bought them from someone who was given an ultimatum to get rid of
them someway, somehow. I decided to take them on. Since these PCs
don't have the tradtional form factors and sizes, I'm discovering
nuances I didn't have to face with traditional parts.

I discovered these Gateway rail guides/silders on all the drives
(floppy, optical, and hard disk). I have three exrta pairs of floppy
rails after closer inspection. I think I might be able to jury-rig
them to fit a hard drive with some piano wire. Any thoughts? Better
yet, if someone knows where I can get the rails for a hard drive and
CD-ROM drive, I'd be grateful if someone would point them out. I can't
find the place on the Gateway site. I may post in Agora really really
soon.

The power supply's another quirk. It's smaller than a traditional ATX
case power supply. It's the Newton 145W. I'm under the impression this
part is a critical factor, because I'm not sure if any of the power
supplies are working. Only one generated a lighted green LED, which
went off shortly after turning on. The others didn't even generate
enough power to generate a light (but I'll have to check and be sure
all the connections are good). I'm wondering if I can just use a
traditional ATX power supply on these Gateways purely for diagnostic
purposes. Will I risk damage/injury if I use an old 250W or even a
300W that's "dead" (because it didn't power up my Asus A7V)?

As I tweak and fiddle and fool around with these machines, I wonder if
I have the minimum needed to at least post the BIOS. I believe all I
need are a motherboard, CPU, power supply, and RAM. I'm not sure
whether the motherboard needs a good CMOS battery.

If I'm lucky to get a working machine, what should I do in order to
diagnose it for possible problems?

Thanks for reading. I'm just hoping I can get a working machine outta
all this.

Ben Myers · Guest

The power supply used with an NLX motherboard and riser card has a standard ATX
power connector. In addition, you need a CPU and memory to fire up the
motherboard. It would help to be able to hitch up a floppy diskette drive to be
used to run diagnostics like MEMTEST. A known working C2032 3v lithium battery
would be good, too. Sometimes motherboards act strangely when the battery is
dead or missing.

I can't help with drive rails, but the power supplies are readily available on
eBay. They are also used in some models of Gateway towers with a fairly narrow
chassis.

If you can get at least one board to boot up, you can identify the model of
board from the BIOS, then download the specs from the Intel web site. Intel
made most of the NLX boards ever used, by Gateway, IBM, Toshiba and others.

.... Ben Myers

On 3 Nov 2003 21:39:25 -0800, lkv@despammed.com (Vincent) wrote: