• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Gateway Solo 9150

hunterjwizzard

hunterjwizzard

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2020
Messages
2,212
I finally have a Pentium II for the Pentium II forum!

Found this Gateway Solo 9150 a an estate sale. No power supply, but it was $16. It had a recertified battery from 2009, so someone was still using this thing as late as then.

I attached my universal PSU. At first I couldn't get it to post, so I pulled out the battery. I can now get a post screen now and it turns out there's no installed HDD. I was probably going to replace that with CF anyway.

Anyone got any tips or idosychracies of these machines I should know about? How picky are they for power?
 
Well I found the hard drive. Yes there is one. Looks like its profoundly dead. Time to go find my CF adapter.
 
Well win98 is booting off a CF card! So we have progress. This is turning into a fun afternoon.
 
I heard somewhere a while ago that one of the Solo 9xxx machines had a varta cmos battery inside, so a teardown might be a good idea just to check for one.
 
The battery is definitely dead. There's also plenty of space in there for a varta, so probably wise.

I did get it booted up. Gotta find drivers next. Could only get it to stay in windows for about ten minutes at a stretch.
 
I have a few gateway Solos, they are nice machines. That model goes from 266 to 366 processor speeds, which ones do you have?

Generally, I just use a spinning HD in mine.
 
300mhz.

Seems to also have a port for RCA capture, which is cool.

You wouldn't happen to have an image file for the restore CD or at least just all the drivers in on convenient package?
 
Today I plugged the original HDD in using a USB adapter, to my surprise it came up without issue. I mentioned before that the battery on this machine had been replaced/recertified as late as 2009. The hard drive reflects a very minimal win98 install, with only 1 piece of software, something called "ProScan". My guess is it goes to(duh) a scanner. Probably an older one not compatible with later windows versions, and the previous owner kept the laptop running to use with the scanner.

Its always fun trying to piece together people's lives from estate sales. This guy was clearly a computer buff with a few decent(for their time) machines in his close and several shelves full of video games. The guy was a WWII buff, not only was his game library 80% WWII games but I saw 3 copies of Pearl Harbor in the DVD collection.
 
I have a sneaking suspicion my "inherited" windows install from a dell PIII is not jiving with this system particularly well. Right now it loads all the way into windows but when I try and open My Computer it freezes. The mouse still works but the clock stops advancing. I think since I have a driver disk now I am going to try doing a win98 install locally and then add the drivers.
 
Well after a fresh win98 install and some fiddling with the driver CD, the system is ready in all respects. I do still need to open it up and replace the CMOS battery, remove it if its a VARTA, and find a permanent power supply for it. There's a red line through the screen and a few cracks. All in all its definitely worth the $16 I paid for it, but probably not by much. I wasn't planning to resell it, just wanted a nice little project machine.

Specs are interesting:

Pentium II CPU @ 300mhz
32mb of RAM(3 slots, weirdly, 2x 128 sticks and a 64)
16gb CF card for HDD(came originally with 12gb spinning)
Crystal Sound Fusion sound chip
ATI RAGE LT Pro
C-Cube Cobra DVD decoder(and DVD ROM drive)

Its also got S-Video and RCA inputs for video capture. New this would have been a pretty expensive machine. Definitely makes for a nice little PII laptop today. Especially to a weirdo like me who's still obsessed with video capture 26 years later.
 
Well Asus is the gift that keeps on giving. While finding a bag for this gateway I found a PSU from an Asus EEEPC. I had about 6 of these PSUs and they've worked on everything from multiple laptops to LCD monitors. Plugged it in, gateway booted right up on it. I now have a bag and a power supply.
 
Still haven't opened it in search of the possible varta battery but its proven to be a fun little laptop. 12 year old me used to salivate over the prospect of owning a laptop like this. Funny thing is it was already obsolete by then, haha.

The keyboard has actually proven to be pretty responsive. On any modern laptop I can't type while reclining on the couch. This one its slow. But decent. Its being a great machine.
 
AnnNnnnnd I've bricked it.

Screwed something up loading the unofficial SP3. Going to reload windows. At least I have the driver disk now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top