Krovlar

I bought an HP Pavilion m8200n for my wife. It turns out Windows Vista sucks, and we REALLY don't want it on the computer. So I installed Windows XP instead. Except I forgot to check for drivers. Now it seems the only drivers available are for Vista. I need the Ethernet driver for Windows XP if it's available anywhere.

Thank you.

BCCOMP

Hi Krovlar,
Welcome to the forum. Here is a link that may help you:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...548185&lang=en
Can you supply the service tag so that I may be able to get the specs of the motherboard etc. This will help in tracking down the correct drivers.
Thanks,
Bill

Jiml113

Hi Krovlar,

You said "you installed XP on your HP Pavilion M8200N". Please, could you share the secret on how you did it.

I've tried everything I can think of and haven't had any success. I've seen some proprietary systems that were hard to crack but this one is a tough nut.

Thanks in advance.

Jim L.

brow96

HP Pavilion Media Center m8200n Desktop PC

Motherboard = MCP61PM-HM (Nettle2)

Web page for motherboard:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...dlc=en&lang=en

Item is listed under the following part numbers:

GC671-69002
GX621-69001
KE620-69001

Last two parts number do not trace to anything. But they are listed in the parts catalog. Normally the only reson for three different part numbers are "Revision levels" for the motherboard. OR, the were three different vendors the motherboard was supplied from. OR, three different factories from the SAME Vendor. I suspect the latter! Hopefully there are no major part or chipset differences?

Some things we've learned the hard way in these conversions:

# 1 - MINIMUM Windows XP SP1 or things won't work properly!

# 2 - Windows XP SP2 is the PREFERRED MINIMUM w/all follow on updates!

# 3 - Windows DirectX Version 9.0C or greater, MANDATORY no Exceptions!

# 4 - Install the Main Chipset drivers FIRST, after the above is done!

# 5 - Microsoft Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) Driver, is Next!

# 6 - Install Modem, Sound, LAN, WLAN, SD/MMC Card Reader Drivers, etc!

We've found (here) that if it's done in this order there are fewer problems all around. There are some things that are not going to work as well in Windows XP as the do under Windows Vista. Those are the results of hardware features that can only be accessed via Windows Vista. There is nothing that can be done about that from a drivers stand point. ONLY the manufacturer of the device can change that.

There are several "tools' that can help in this matter, and they are:

PC Wizard 2008

PCI32

AltiPCI

All of these programs help us and you find the device drivers you are having problems with. All, can produce a report that can be attached to a message here.

HTH

Bill

Jiml113

Brow96,

Mucho thanks for the great advice. . . . will get to it as soon as I achieve victory over 10+ inches of snow that invaded us last night. (ha)

Will put up a post to let you know the outcome (of the conversion).

Jim L.

brow96

You are most welcome.

I can chuckle about it now. But, at the time we were all scratching our collective heads, i.e. it was the right driver, why didn't it work. Some advice, a closer reading of some the more obscure parts of the archives, brought to our attention a few things we had not thought of.

For example modern laptops and some desktops have integrated LAN and Modem devices. Microsoft, in their great wisdom, decided to "unify" the architecture of the two! Since they both deal with the sending and receiving of analog and digital signals. This made it MANDATORY for everyone to install the UAA Driver BEFORE you install the LAN or Modem drivers. Because if you didn't? The install simply failed! It was very nice of the vendors and Microsoft to do this very quietly.

Most people simply get updates via the automatic method. Nothing is said about the "why" part of the update. I'm guilty of it too. Most people are! Another one of those lessons learned the hard way. Can't say it was that much fun though!

Let us know when you get dug out. We'll be here!

Bill

Jiml113

Brow96,

Here's an update on converting my HP Pavilion Media Center m8200n Desktop PC from Vista to XP.

First, I cheated. . . . . After trying everything under the sun to load XP short of running something like "killdisk" to wipe the drive, I could not boot to the XP disc (and yes, the boot sequence in the BIOS was set to CD drive).

Not wanting to spend mucho hours formating the drive with Killdisk, I remembered I had a 320 gig SATA drive in an external enclosure. After moving the data off the 320 drive to another backup, I simply swapped drives and XP went in faster than I ever saw it.

From there, I did a little research (on another PC) to determine the proper ethernet driver to use and installed that with no problem to make contact with the web.

Now I really get lazy. . . . I ran Driver Magician which quickly identified the needed drivers and went about downloading the majority of them. The remainder were easy to find seeing I had the full name and version numbers provided by Driver Magician.

All is running great. . .

I have since backed up all the drivers awaiting my next format.

I do thank you for all your support. . .

Jim L.

tboy34

I'm getting ready to buy this same computer this summer. Is it a possibility that you could get HP to install XP, instead of Vista? Or is there no other option. Also, what you find bad about Vista. I'm so on the fence about this OS. Yet I love this computer. It's everything I've been looking for.

iskargu

hi, i hav a compaq presario sr5340an pc pre loaded with vista, but i think vista sucks so i reformatted it to xp, the problem is, the lan driver, i cant find an xp driver for the lan so if i install xp, i woudnt hav internet connection.. pls help... here's the specs:

Motherboard: MCP61PM-HM
Processor: AMD athlon 64 x2 dual core 4800+
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 6150SE

Jiml113

I had submitted this web site as a possible fix. . . however, I learned after reading it more carefully that it was for 64 bit PCs.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_....26_11.09.html

Sorry about that. . .

Jim

tboy34

I finally got this computer and I absolutly love it. I just love it and I really do like Vista I have had the computer a week now, and I haven't had any problems. Actually it's more secure and better for me. Sorry to say.....I love love it.

autlaw

Hello, as a followup to our discussion, here's the complete process that I used to move from Vista Home Premium (32-bit) to Windows XP Professional.

1) rebooted from the WinXPPro SP2 cdrom
2) deleted all partitions and started brand new (included reformatting of entire HDD)
3) installed SP3
4) hardward devices did not show network adapter or any of the chipset drivers
5) since I didn't have internet access (no network adapter detected)
6) installed my verizon cellular modem aircard, went to Microsoft update
7) microsoft update detected the missing chipset drivers and installed them
8) everything is working wonderfully now!

Thanks for all your help!

Alan

BCCOMP

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