etower 633 ids upgrade problem

[tomahawk 1705]

I just recently aquired a free unwanted emachines etower 633 ids Windows 2000 which originally had a socket 370 Intel Celeron 633MHz/128/66/1.65V with an Intel 82810 Chipset on an TriGem Cognac MB. I changed that one out and upgraded to a Intel P3 700MHz/256/100/1.7V I found at Free Geek Vancouver for ($5.00CAD including tax) and two sticks of PC133 256MBs $5.00 ea.

It already had the Max amount of RAM 256Mb (128Mb'sX2) according to the official emachines/Gateway website. When I install 512Mb's it boots up and reconizes the full 512Mb's and begins to load the O.S. but then halfway I get a blue screen saying my system drive is not ACPI compliant upgrade to newer BIOS or a workaround is possible.

Something about pressing F7 during post to bypass the ACPI. I tried that but nothing happens. Then I went into BIOS and disabled ACPI but then it got stuck in a loop during post kept posting over and over.

However I installed 384Mb ( 256+128 sticks) and everything is fine no blue screen so unless I can find a BIOS upgrade or a workaround I'll have to settle for 384Mb's. Anyone have an idea about this workaround. I think the BIOS upgrade is out of the question, no support for that Motherboard anymore.

etower 633 ids
Phoenix Technologies LTD.
BIOS ver 1.01
07/05/2000

Thanks tomahawk

[tomahawk 1705]

Well I found some info on my e Machines 633 ids and where I can possibly get a newer BIOS upgrade they have links to a Cognac ver.1.40 Korean distrubution only,1.09 for HP,2.11 for HP but they also have ver. 3.03 HP and ver. 3.07 Hp in their downloads section but you can't download them anymore because the site admin can't pay for the bandwidth anymore but at least I know which versions I should be looking for.

http://www.e4allupgraders.info/

So anyone who's looking for unofficial upgrade information on their old e Machines this is the place to be. The eMachines web site support is about the worst I've ever seen they don't keep any downloads for their older computers.

The HP web site does keep all the old downloads though, HP Pavillion 7850 has the same Cognac Motherboard as eMachines but with a newer BIOS ver 2.11

However it's a very risky download perhaps they are not exactly the same motherboards but some of the bloggers there flashed the HP BIOS to their eMachines fixing the memory problem and were able to run 512Mb of ram no problem.

I've never flashed a BIOS the old way from a floppy, so lot's of unknown factors here. First I have to figure out which BIOS will work with my MB Mat. NO: 115661 Cognac 20000731 Rev. G 1

tomahawk out