[yayomayn]

Hi,
I know you probably get this question asked a lot, but I've just purchased a new laptop as per below:
Brand :Acer Aspire 7520
Graphics :NVIDIA® GeForce® 7000M with up to 384Mb NVIDIA® GeForce® Turbocache™
Hard Drive Size: 80Gb
Memory Size :1Gb
Operating System: Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Processor AMD Athlon TM 64x2 Dual Core
Processor Cache 2 x 256Kb
Processor Model Number TK53
Processor Speed 1.7GHz

As you can see it's got Vista Home Premium pre-loaded onto it. It really runs slowly and I'd like to downgrade. I have an XP disc all ready to go and know how to do a clean wipe/install, but I know that I need drivers. Now here comes the tricky bit. When I go to the Acer website to look for drivers for this model it only has Vista ones. Does this mean that I am stuck? Or am I missing something? Are the drivers specific to this machine or are there generic XP drivers (I have a number of drivers on a disc from the numerous times I've clean-booted XP)? Or is there any way I can find compatible drivers?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
yayomayn

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Maybe these will work http://tinyurl.com/3b6bjf

[luk79]

Maybe these will work http://tinyurl.com/3b6bjf

[yayomayn]

Maybe these will work http://tinyurl.com/3b6bjf

Thanks for the quick reply!!! Not to undermine you Luk79, but does anyone else have any other general advice before me going ahead with this as I don't want to screw my laptop up right away!!!!

[Neil Jones]

According to ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com/notebook/asp...0/vista/Drivers some of them are available for XP and use the same drivers as Vista.

For the others, Nvidia chipset and graphics you can get generic ones from Nvidia's own site, the modem you don't need to worry about if you're on broadband, so you'd only be missing your camera, bluetooth (generic drivers are available anyway for XP), the TV tuner may be generic drivers available but no guaranteees, the wireless you should be able to get generic drivers from Atheos or Broadcom sites. Audio may have generic drivers from Realtek's site, as might the card reader from Richos site.

So basically you should be able to get the bulk of the hardware working. What do you need working on the laptop most of all is the first question to answer yourself (obviously you need chipset and display drivers and audio would be nice) but if you don't intend to use the rest of the stuff then consider whether its worth hunting for drivers for them.

[yayomayn]

According to ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com/notebook/asp...0/vista/Drivers some of them are available for XP and use the same drivers as Vista.

For the others, Nvidia chipset and graphics you can get generic ones from Nvidia's own site, the modem you don't need to worry about if you're on broadband, so you'd only be missing your camera, bluetooth (generic drivers are available anyway for XP), the TV tuner may be generic drivers available but no guaranteees, the wireless you should be able to get generic drivers from Atheos or Broadcom sites. Audio may have generic drivers from Realtek's site, as might the card reader from Richos site.

So basically you should be able to get the bulk of the hardware working. What do you need working on the laptop most of all is the first question to answer yourself (obviously you need chipset and display drivers and audio would be nice) but if you don't intend to use the rest of the stuff then consider whether its worth hunting for drivers for them.

Thanks Neil. I'm still undecided as to whether to try this, but if I do I'll come back and let you all know how it went for future reference.
yayomayn

[Murray S.]

Howdy:

One other thing you best be checking is the warranty. By removing Vista and putting on XP you may well be voiding it completely as it is no longer the system that you purchased.

Murray

[yayomayn]

Hi again people, thanks for all your help and comments.

I've managed to install XP on the machine now and it runs a lot quicker etc.

However, I am still missing a few drivers (namely: Ethernet Controller, Coprocessor, SM BUS Controller, Video Controller (VGA Compatible)).

I used the list that was linked to above and it has most of the drivers on there but these ones are not. I've tried looking everywhere and have tried everything I know to try and get to the correct drivers but to no avail. Obviously I can't get onto the internet with it so I can't tell windows to search online for the drivers or use any online tools to check.

Any advice/help would be appreciated!!!

Thanks
yayomayn

(Murray, I realise by taking Vista off of the system I have invalidated my warranty, thanks for reminding me! so sending it back isn't an option).

[Murray S.]

There is also a very good chance there are no XP drivers available for the hardware you can't install.

Many companies are installing Vista only comaptible hardware so you may be looking in vain for something that doesn't exist.

Murray

[yayomayn]

I found them all in the end. They were here ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com/notebook/asp..._5520_7220_7520

The link above pertains to a different model. Doh!

Thanks for all of your help people.
yayomayn

[SuperSam]

"Down" < haha. Downgrading from Vista back to XP was probably the biggest upgrade I've ever had. Vista was choppy, games run poorly, drivers weren't satisfactory. Installed XP, cannot believe the speed. I can officially say, Vista does infact suck for gamers and gives anyone a general slowdown. "Down"grade to XP today!

[yayomayn]

"Down" < haha. Downgrading from Vista back to XP was probably the biggest upgrade I've ever had. Vista was choppy, games run poorly, drivers weren't satisfactory. Installed XP, cannot believe the speed. I can officially say, Vista does infact suck for gamers and gives anyone a general slowdown. "Down"grade to XP today!

Could not agree more. Now everything is working my machine is flying with XP on it. Straight out of the box with Vista it would take at least 5 minutes before it would just load the basic software up. I personally think manufacturers are bending over and greasing up just to appease microsoft and selling machines that just don't have the spec to run Vista. Though having spent a week with Vista and investigating it as much as I could, I really couldn't see any massive improvements, other than the nice graphical stuff. I may just go back to Windows 3.1 (my first OS ) and be done with it