Vista to XP woes...

**Dr_Deathweed** · 11-19-2008, 08:57 PM

Well I think i have gone and screwed the pooch this time. My wife won a new laptop (an Acer Aspire 5315) a few weeks ago, which was perfect since our old laptop decided to bite the big one right before her midterms. After a couple weeks of Vista, I decided that was not going to cut it and I was going to go back to good ole XP.

That in itself was a mess. I ended up zeroing the HD and had to change the settings in BIOS from SATA to IDE (which i have no idea what that is, I just read it on the internet somewhere...

) After instilation, I updated windows with service pack 3 and all that jazz, got the Intel chipset drivers and downlaoded some of the acer drivers off of thier site. My
problem now is I cant 1)use anything but the standatd keyboard keys, so all the other buttons on here do not respond, and 2) it will not recognise my wireless card. I have tried that Arthos and Broadcom wireless drivers, but to no avail. I did get the ethernet card to work, so that is what I am connected with now. I have this site: ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com for some drivers, but they are all vista so I don't know if they will work or not.

I have also installed quite a few drivers on here trying to get some that would work, so will that cause problems in and of itself? If so, I don't know everything I have put on here so i may have to start over and just install what works.

Well, it is obvious that I am just rambling now because I have no idea what I am doing at this point

If anyone has any sugestions, i would be MORE that happy to follow any advice you have.

farmbrewernw · 11-19-2008, 09:00 PM

one word Linux

**Dr_Deathweed** · 11-19-2008, 09:52 PM

well seeing as this computer is for SWMBO, and she is less tech savy than I am, and I have no idea what I am doing, I doubt Linux is a good idea.

**HBHoss** · 11-19-2008, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deathweed

Well I think i have gone and screwed the pooch this time. My wife won a new laptop (an Acer Aspire 5315) a few weeks ago, which was perfect since our old laptop decided to bite the big one right before her midterms. After a couple weeks of Vista, I decided that was not going to cut it and I was going to go back to good ole XP.

That in itself was a mess. I ended up zeroing the HD and had to change the settings in BIOS from SATA to IDE (which i have no idea what that is, I just read it on the internet somewhere...

) After instilation, I updated windows with service pack 3 and all that jazz, got the Intel chipset drivers and downlaoded some of the acer drivers off of thier site. My
problem now is I cant 1)use anything but the standatd keyboard keys, so all the other buttons on here do not respond, and 2) it will not recognise my wireless card. I have tried that Arthos and Broadcom wireless drivers, but to no avail. I did get the ethernet card to work, so that is what I am connected with now. I have this site: ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com for some drivers, but they are all vista so I don't know if they will work or not.

I have also installed quite a few drivers on here trying to get some that would work, so will that cause problems in and of itself? If so, I don't know everything I have put on here so i may have to start over and just install what works.

Well, it is obvious that I am just rambling now because I have no idea what I am doing at this point

If anyone has any sugestions, i would be MORE that happy to follow any advice you have.

Did you go to the Acer homepage? Go to their support and Download page and see if it has the drivers. Go to the wireless cards web site and get their drivers also.

**Dr_Deathweed** · 11-19-2008, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HBHoss

Did you go to the Acer homepage? Go to their support and Download page and see if it has the drivers. Go to the wireless cards web site and get their drivers also.

Yes, I went to acers homepage and I downloaded the Arthos, Broadcom, and Intel drivers. Tried all 3 to no avail. I have the feeling the intel drivers are the right one, but i dont think they are installing correctly because it will not pop up under my list of drivers even though I got the "installed correctly" message....

The other problem is I have no idea what card is in it, and under device manager it pops up as an unknown network controller that it can't find a driver for.

**HBHoss** · 11-19-2008, 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deathweed

Yes, I went to acers homepage and I downloaded the Arthos, Broadcom, and Intel drivers. Tried all 3 to no avail. I have the feeling the intel drivers are the right one, but i dont think they are installing correctly because it will not pop up under my list of drivers even though I got the "installed correctly" message....

The other problem is I have no idea what card is in it, and under device manager it pops up as an unknown network controller that it can't find a driver for.

Go to Lavalys - Comprehensive IT Security and Management and download Everest. It's free and once you load it and launch it it will tell you everything about your system and may even give links to the drivers.

**EdWort** · 11-19-2008, 10:06 PM

I ran into the same issues with SWMBOS new 299 buck eMachine notebook.

Google is your friend.

Installing Windows XP Professional SP2 on Acer Aspire 5315-2153 Laptop « Blog Archive « The Soulpass Project

Installing XP on Aspire 5315 which came with Vista - Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion

TwoHeadsBrewing · 11-19-2008, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deathweed

well seeing as this computer is for SWMBO, and she is less tech savy than I am, and I have no idea what I am doing, I doubt Linux is a good idea.

Linux can be quite an adjustment, especially for the tech challenged. However, it offers 99% of what a normal computer user requires and does it in a very intuitive way. Ubuntu is a great example of a user-friendly linux distribution. It may take some getting used to, but Linux is FREE and offers almost everything that windows offers and charges hundreds for.

Ask a geek you know about it, and I'm sure they'd be happy to show it to you. Hell, maybe even help you install it so you can run both windows and linux on the same computer.

farmbrewernw · 11-19-2008, 11:49 PM

The other thing great about Ubuntu is that most of the drivers are already there, I bet if you installed it on that laptop most of everything would work from the get go. I'm not advocating for Linux though I was just kind of being a smart ass. Really Ubuntu is great I have been using it for a few years now but yeah it takes some getting used to and it wont run windows programs so that can be a problem for some.

**Dr_Deathweed** · 11-20-2008, 01:35 AM

After some reading (thanks Ed, I did a quick google, but the sites you turned up were MUCH more informative than what I was reading) It looks like I was doing things in the wrong order and that was somehow screwing things up... go figgure... I have since started over at square 1 (re-zeroed and re-formated the HD) have re-installed XP with the SATA settings selected in BIOS (figgured that one out on one of those websites) and am now trying to instal sp1a and sp2 so I can start installing the drivers in the correct order (which include my network controllers)....

If anyone knows if there are any other updates that I must do before or with sp1a and sp2 let me know, because I am having to downlaod them on this computer, burn them to CD and install them on the laptop. Thanks already for all of your help.