Help bringing a Gateway Solo 9550 Laptop back to life!

[Medboy1983]

Hey all, I've seen some really good posts/responses on this thread, so thought I'd give it a try. I have an old (read: REALLY OLD) Gateway Solo 9550 Laptop. It's not really doing too well, I get a BIOS system config error on Booting, but I can proceed through it by hitting F1. The battery is completely dead and the laptop needs to run off AC power. To top it all off, the bottom of the computer gets quite hot when running for any amount of time. I have a few questions:

1.) Is there any economical way to get a new battery? I've looked but its not worth spending over $100.00 for a new battery.

2.) Fan upgrades? I know very little about physically upgrading a PC, have replaced new RAM in desktops before and put in new video cards, but that's about it. I'm thinking the temp problem is being caused by a faulty fan. Its really toasty when on my lap.

3.) BIOS error? I'd like to not have to use the restore CD if I can, is the BIOS error somehow caused by the *maybe* faulty fan?

Thanks for your help guys!

 

[Medboy1983]

Okay so thought I'd give an update. Tried using an MS-DOS startup disk to get to cmd prompt so I could reinstall a BIOS upgrade, figuring it's corrupt. Keeps on telling me to take out non-system disk. I KNOW its a formatted IBM floppy, and for sanity I tried another formatted floppy did them myself) and it didnt work. Tried booting up from the Restore CD, altering the bootup order in BIOS setup, but still no dice. It goes straight to the Hard Drive no matter what the boot order is. I cant upgrade the BIOS from the Windows MS-DOS shell.

This is exactly what happens:

Bootup occurs, POST, mem check okay, then mouse initialized, then I get an ERROR: Invalid BIOS Configuration. Run configuration utility.

Well I cant!!! Help!