hoangnguyen86vn

Hi,
I have a Gateway t1620 laptop, purchased yesterday at Best Buy, which came with Vista preloaded. I played around with it a lot yesterday, but I came to the conclusion that Vista just isn't solid enough for my needs yet (though the eye candy is definitely cool!).


So I want to go back to XP Pro, but I can't find the right XP drivers for many of the devices, as Gateway seems to only support Vista for their new models. Argh.
I need drivers for video driver, my modem, sound card, ethernet, and wifi controllers. There's an integrated media card reader that would be nice to get working, too...

Does anybody have ideas on how I could track these down, given the lack of drivers on the Gateway website?
Detail Description:
• AMD Turion™ 64 X2 mobile technology TL-56* for AMD dual-core technology in a thin-and-light design; HyperTransport™ and AMD PowerNow!™ technologies and improved security with Enhanced Virus Protection**
• 2GB DDR2 memory for multitasking power
• Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive with double-layer support records up to 8.5GB of data or 4 hours of video using compatible DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media; supports Labelflash direct-disc labels using compatible Labelflash media; also supports DVD-RAM
• AMD dual-core technology enables you to work or play with multiple programs without impacting performance; AMD64 technology provides simultaneous support for 32-bit and 64-bit computing
• 14.1" WXGA TFT-LCD widescreen display with Ultrabright technology and 1280 x 800 resolution
• 250GB SATA hard drive (5400 rpm)
• ATI RADEON X1270 graphics with up to 256MB HyperMemory (total of local and shared memory used by GPU); high-definition audio (2-speaker support); HDMI connection
• Metal Razr-style multimedia control panel provides easy access to and control of multimedia and other applications
• Built-in 1.3-megapixel Web cam lets you chat with friends and family
• 5-in-1 media reader supports Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO and xD-Picture Card
• 3 high-speed USB 2.0 ports for fast digital video, audio and data transfer
• Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11b/g); 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN with RJ-45 connector; V.92 high-speed modem
• Weighs 5.6 lbs. and measures just 1.3" thin for easy portability; lithium-ion battery and AC adapte

shadowbt

I think on the site of the parts you need drivers for ( ATI technology, AMD, etc.. ) you should eb abel to get the drivers

__________________
Future Build:
Case : NZXT Apollo ATX Tower Case - Burnt Orange
CPU : Intel Core 2 Duo E6550
RAM : OCZ Platinum XTC 2GB DDR2-800
Hard Drive : Seagate Barracuda 320GB (7200RPM)
DVD Drive : SAMSUNG 20X DVD Burner
Graphic Card : NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT 512 MB
Motherboard : Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
PS : StealthXStream 600W Power Supply - OCZ600SXS

Diabase

I also bought a Gateway t1620 from Best Buy and also have dumped Windows Vista.

I first installed XP Pro slipstreamed with service pack 2 on one half of the drive, then installed Ubuntu 7.10 on the other half, so that the system would dual boot with grub (thanks to Ubuntu.)

Even with service pack 2, XP failed to install any quality drivers, so no sound, no network, and bad graphics. Ubuntu was able to install Ethernet drivers and an ATI graphics driver, but no sound yet.

The Gateway site only had a modem driver. It had the wrong Ethernet driver for XP. The correct Ethernet driver is at http://www.softwarepatch.com/utiliti...k-rtl8100.html .

With the correct Ethernet driver, I was able to run Windows Update and get updated Realtek RTL8139/810x Ethernet, Realtek RTL8187B wireless, the Agere modem driver, and some other systems.

Today I spent a long time looking for a ATI Radeon x1270 XP driver. I didn't have any luck on the AMD/ATI support site. The ATI site is almost as bad as the Gateway website for XP support. I finally found a solution at the Dell website. The Dell Latitude D531 uses the ATI Radeon x1270 so I downloaded the drivers from their support site and installed them on my machine at C:\dell

I had to run the Windows Hardware installation applet and point it to the inf file in the dell directory, while assuring the application that the driver was correct for the hardware. The result was wonderful! It now seems to look better than the Vista did!

Next thing I'm looking for is the SigmaTel STAC9205 sound driver, see if I can find any motherboard drivers, and also any other drivers I can find. I have I feeling I may find some of them on the Dell Latitude D531 site too.

Please let me know if you've found anything else. I'll post whatever else that I find.

diroga

wow way to go Diabase!!

I had a similar battle with a toshiba and i found this utility helpful for telling me what hardware was inside the laptop
http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php

Diabase

Thanks diroga. The application was helpful.

I have found the ATI SMBus / Chipset Driver at http://support.dell.com/support/down...&fileid=179629

That still leaves the sound card driver and three other unknown devices listed in the device manager.

Ataxe

Hey, I have been working on it for a while and, I just wanted to know if you Diabase could explain how to do the video thing. how you put it at frst didnt make since.

you could post or email me at pfftanewb@yahoo.com

THX SO MUCH IF U GET THIS

diroga

It is better to post answers here so other with the same problem can fix it.

Also it is not good practice to publicly post your email address. The appropreate way is to enter your contact info in the user control pannel.

topher

any luck finding the rest diabase? im not too computer savvy so i think ill wait till all the drivers are found to begin downgrading to xp.

thanks

Diabase

I don't want to lead anyone to believe that it is easy to switch a gateway t1620 from Vista to XP. The very first thing that I did before attempting the conversion was to figure out a way to dump an image of the drive to a safe place on another computer. I experimented with a few free programs and was finally able to do a fairly reasonable job using boot disk of Clonezilla and it's capability to dump to a SAMBA server. For a SAMBA server I just shared a directory on another XP computer hooked to the same Ethernet network. The compressed image files for both partitions from the gateway t1620 took about 9.34 GB of space. I tried remounting the partitions, and after the system ran an error repair routine, Vista seemed to run fine again. It wasn't a perfect job but it worked.

I really wish ReactOS was at its stable distribution stage so that I could just get away from Microsoft products all together. Ubuntu works great, but its still Linux, and so it takes work to get games to and other things made for windows to run correctly. I hope ReactOS solves that problem.

But back to installing XP drivers.
One of the driver sets that I found for AMD Radeon Xpress 1270 is at:

http://support.dell.com/support/down...&fileid=223212 (thank you dell!)

Download and run the exe file to expand and begin the installation. For me, the installation stopped saying that I didn't have the correct hardware. Then I ran the Add Hardware applet in the Windows Control Panel, didn't let it look for the hardware, just pointed it to the driver file directory.
In other words (show all Devices)(Have Disk) "C:\dell\drivers\R163694\Driver\2KXP_INF"
CX_52348.inf

The system then complained that it couldn't be certain that I had the hardware that I was trying to install, so I just told it to go ahead anyway. As I said before, the result was wonderful.


Again, this is not a simple task. I think that topher is smart in hesitating and waiting for more information to get posted. On the other hand, I have learned much of what I know about computers and operating systems from taking risks. It all depends on how much time and resources you have to play with. This gateway laptop is one of four fairly new systems I currently have, so the risk in negligible to me. Even with the negligible risk, I still attempted to back up the partition before proceeding.

At any rate, I welcome anyone new to this business of taking control of their computers, and encourage you to keep learning about your machines.

I'm still trying to install drivers for the SigmaTel STAC9205 sound card. I had better luck searching for "STAC 9205" than for STAC9205. I found drivers for "SIGMATEL STAC 92XX C-Major HD Audio Driver" in a few places but they didn't work. I hoping some gallant individual who has solved this piece of the puzzle takes the time to post the answer.

diroga

yay good job Diabase! have a cookie