Extensa 5620 Downgrade to XP

Hotknees,
if you have not already solved your problem, i believe the cause may be vista security. when you want to run the program, right click and select "run as administrator" or something similar. that should fix your problem.

 

Hi All,

recently i bought an extensa 5620G-1A2G16Mi
i want to upgrade to XP, but i will keep vista for now....

is there anyone who has information about the biosversions available: a changelog?
do you guys advise to update the bios (1.16) and if so to what version? (i know 1.32 should be the best, but that isnt always the case...)

any information here about the possibility to add a bluetooth module en which one to buy? i read somewhere that BCM92045.....something (Broadcom) is the right one, but do i need an extra cable to connect and if so which one?

hope to hear some good news about these matters!

Madmick

 

I wish I found and followed this thread before I downgraded my 5620. Anyway, it is too late now. I downgraded to XP by simply installed XP straight from DVD drive; then installed following 3 drivers Audio_Realtek_v5.10.0.5423_XP, Chipset_Intel965_v8.2.0.1012_Vista_XP and Wireless_Atheros_XB63_v5.3.0.45_XP. Everything looks fine so far. The only problem I have now is audio. I can hear sound/voice clearly, however, the other party only hear my voice discontinuously and with high noise. After I found this thread and downloaded all patches/drivers from this thread, but none is help for this case. Any suggestions? I checked Device Manager and it has yellow question marks next to "Ethernet Controller", "Mass Storage Controller", "Video Controller" and "Video Controller (VGA Compatible)". Are those related audio problem? How to fix them?
Thanks.

 

Eshiau you are a missing a whole pile of stuff there, but its not related to the audio problem.
To fix the audio problem try going to your advanced audio options and turning of the mic boost.
As for the rest, you need to work out if you have the Intel or ATI video and get the drivers for it.
For intel video, go to the intel website.
For ati video, get catalyst 8.4 and "Mobility.NET Modder"
The network card is a broadcom version.
Mass storage controller is your card reader, both network and card reader drivers are available from acers website.

 

Thanks for Rainwulf's reply. I know I did miss a whole pile of stuff; I think it was too late to fix them, wasn't it. I'll follow your instruction to fix them.
Now the most priority is audio.
>> To fix the audio problem try going to your advanced audio options and turning of the mic boost.
Question: Where is advanced audio options? How to turn off the mic boost?
I checked control panel "Sounds and Audio Devices", on Audio tab I only saw "Realtek HD Audio Input" on "Sound Recording" "Default Device", no others; and "Advance..." button has been grayed out (unable to access).
Please let me know if you know anything that can help my audio problem.
Thanks.

 

Thanks to Rainwulf . I solved all yellow question marks next to "Ethernet Controller", "Mass Storage Controller", "Video Controller" and "Video Controller (VGA Compatible)" problems. Now only audio problem left as far as I know.

Thanks a bunch.

 

have you resolved the audio issue?

 

I turned off "1 Microphone Boost" and audio issue seems disappeared. It looks like audio is working fine.

Thank you all. Cheers.

 

Let me again chime in thanks to all for this help.
I have an Acer Extensa 5620-6419 from Office Depot.
I have installed XP, and gotten past most of the issues mentioned here.
My only problem (that I think I need to address before the AHCI business) is that it says that there are problems with my chipset drivers.
I have two lines of "Mobile Intel (R) 965 Express Chipset Family" and they each have ! in the icon. Under Properties it says that Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing (Code 39)
Other than that, everything seems to be working fine.
Windows didn't like it when I installed, saying they should have been Windows certified yada yada. But everything seems to work.
One thing I should mention, XP isn't activated yet, I am trying to get a code out of Microsoft. Maybe that has something to do with it?

Thanks for any help anyone can provide, and I apologize if the framing of the question reveals my utter ignorance. I think I probably have more confidence in the ol' do-it-yourselfness than my knowledge justifies But I was extremely motivated to get vista off.

 

download the CHIPSET DRIVERS for your CHIPSET and OS from intel.com

remove both devices from the device manager...
run the program you just downloaded...

that should cause XP to reinstall the device with the correct drivers...

good luck
bigO

 

I just got one of these laptops on sale at Circuit City this week and the first thing i did was start downgrading to XP. I have everything working except the audio. For some reason it says I have a bluetooth audio controller installed. I have tried to run the Realtek driver and it gets almost completely done and then says that it failed. I have tried multiple time uninstalling and reinstalling to no prevail. I thought it had something to do with the bluetooth controller so i uninstalled that and still get the failure to install error. Anyone have any advise?

 

CharredPc, You are great! I just got the Acer EX-5620-6419 from OD Sunday. I shrink the c:\ to 1/2 and follow your instruction to install the WinXp Pro in it. Everything runs ok but I still have some questions. In device manager I found a few things I don't understand and seems I can't fix it. It won't affect the computer running but I still want to fix it.
1. On displap adapters, It shown twice on 2 lines of Mobile Intel (R) 965 Express chipset family.
2. On Monitors, it shown 3 times on 3 lines of Generic PnP monitor.
I try to delete all of them then reboot. It shown twice on found new hardware and install 2 times for display adapter and shown 3 times found new hardwares and install 3 times for the monitor. Did I do something wrong or other people has the same problem? Please help!
Also on the webcam, It automatic install a generic driver from Microsoft and shown as Generic USB webcam. Is it OK? It's very old dated 7/1/2001 but I don't have the turn off problem. And on the Europe FTP show 4 items for the webcam. 2 are drivers and 2 are applications. Should I install the application and which one is the right one?
Thanks again!

 

I have the same thing on my aspire 5715, but it's no harm..You shouldn't worry about it, I have no problems at all with all this double/tripple stuff..

 

You guys have done a grear job, installing XP.

But most seem to have gone thru a great deal of trouble, why?

I think XP is a better and more mature OS, than Vista, but is it unusable as is.

Do you think a simple Memory upgrade might solve most issues with Vista.

This has been a great read, the work put into this is inspiring.

NewEgg now has th 5620 for $399.

 

I don't think the ram upgrade can solve the problem easy. I have 3 Ga ram on my 5620-6419($499 AR). How much I can I upgrade? I spend a weekend to make it dual boot and make XP as a default OS. I try both on the same machine and I found the difference is like day and night. I feel that weekend is worthed. Also don't forget you get all the help from this forum as needed.

 

Hi,
I'm in the process of changing my extensa 5620-4025 (purchased from new egg) to xp. I unfortunately didn't find this thread until after I initiated my own installation of xp.
What I did
1. Change the bios to boot from cd/dvd
2. Inserted my xp cd
3. Deleted all the partitions and installed xp.
4. Installed the drivers except

AHCI_Intel_v7.5.0.1017_Vista_XP.zip - complained "The computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software. Setup will exit"


Questions
1. What does AHCI_Intel_v7.5.0.1017_Vista_XP do?
2. What is the difference between IDE versus AHCI (currently mine is at IDE)?
3. Am I getting the error message above because my settings is IDE instead of AHCI?
4. How do I install AHCI_Intel_v7.5.0.1017_Vista_XP?
5. All these files located under ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/extensa_5620/bios/
what do they do? Do i install each file?
6. Also I noticed my laptop being warm, is this normal? I can hear the fan running, but am I missing anything to keep the laptop cool? I have acer epower management installed and cpu speed is set to max.
7. Is there anything else, I'm forgetting to do?

Thanks for your help, I'm new to this stuff, so I appreciate your patience.

 

http://soulpass.com/2007/11/10/inst...essional-sp2-on-acer-aspire-5315-2153-laptop/

that link has a good SATA (ACHI) section.... and should work on any INTEL based PC

1. SATA DRIVERS
2. IDE is slower
3. YES
4. switch the BIOS back to ACHI and see if the PC boots... if not you may have to reinstall using an NLITE slipstreamed CD that has SATA DRIVERS embedded (see the link at top of post for info)
5. those are updated BIOS files... only install the NEWEST... or HIGHEST VERSION #
6. run a program that monitors the temps such as RMCLOCK (see undervolting guide) BTW what is the reported temps
7. get rid of all that EMPOWERING TECH,, XP's control pannel has 95% of those features w/o the BLOAT

 

Thanks bigozone for the response,
From what I read online the benefits from ACHI over IDE is hot-swapping and native command queuing (NCQ). Correct?

I'm just going to leave my laptop as is since, I don't mind it being slower. This is my travel laptop.

Response
6. "run a program that monitors the temps such as RMCLOCK (see undervolting guide) BTW what is the reported temps" - about 55 C - is that normal?

8. Does anyone Else experience their laptop charger getting hot?

 

speed.. or speed of data transfer is the primary benifit of ACHI in a single HDD notebook

what CPU are you running??

6. fans on most ACERs turn on at temps above 50c,,, 55 is a good normal temp (when i had a celeron it ran 55 to 70c *fan always on*) ((now w/ T5450 it avgerages 44c **fan now on 10% of time**))

8. my laptop charger does get warm... i'd guess it's 130F right now

 

Pentium Dual Core T2370 1.73 GHz
Thanks again for the info.

 

I had the the same CPU and with undervolting I lowered the idle temps with 10ºC, from 55ºC to 45ºC. Check The Undervolting Guide.

 

I've sucessfully downgraded to XP...sorta. I cannot get BlueTooth to work, even with the drivers posted on the Euro site. The card reader will work only on cards under 1GB. I get an error "Please insert card" if I try a larger card. I tried uninstalling both the BT adapter and card reader through device manager and letting Windows redetect it as well as manually updating the drivers through Device Manager to no avail.
Any suggestions for me? I've already spent several hours working on thses two issues and can't figure out what I'm missing.
TIA
Michele

 

To answer the person above me, Bluetooth wont work because you dont have it. We have the switch and the light, but you need to add an actuall module, juts google it.

Now I have a question, I have a Extensa 5620-4025 that I got new from Circuit City for $399. I changed to XP and everything works just fine, BUT I cant get the ACHI stuff working, so Im stuck with my HD as a IDE. I got drivers from somewhere, and from Intel for the IHC8-M and they just wont install, it says I dont have the required hardware. Im thinking thats because I dont have my HD set as a SATA, but if I change it to that in the BIOS it wont boot. Any help is apprciated.

Thanks,
Sean

 

there is some info about changing BACK to ACHI in the bottom posts and comments on this page....

http://soulpass.com/2007/11/10/inst...essional-sp2-on-acer-aspire-5315-2153-laptop/

IMO,, it's much easier to just install XP properly using an XP CD which has been modified using NLITE to embed the ACHI drivers...

that link has alot of very good info....

my advice is to backup your data... and then reinstall AFTER CHANGING THE BIOS BACK TO ACHI...

but i think there are other options... but installing XP correctly is the BEST OPTION

 

Thanks for the help, I made a nice slipstreamed version of XP, and its all working great. But now I have a new question. As far as I know (in the BIOS) I only have 8mb of memory alotted for the on-board video. I want to crank that up, but I cant figure out how. I upgraded the BIOS hoping it would allow some tweaks, but that did nothing. Thanks for the help again

Sean

 

8 meg is the dedicated RAM for video... the GPU should also allocate SYSTEM RAM for APPS and games needing more.... but the X3100 is no gaming GPU

under the OPEN GL or 3D settings inside the intel graphics driver control pannel search for the MEMORY FOOTPRINT.. change it to HIGH or AGRESSIVE

that is the only setting i've found to change the RAM allocation for the X3100

 

Yeah it's possible to force the IGP to use more memory in the way BigO have explained, but I did some testing(in games) with it and it seems to have none or hardly noticable effect..

 

Yeah I know its not a gaming computer, but I would like more memory allocated for it. Oh well I guess, Ill change the settings and call it a day. Thanks for the help guys.

Sean

 

any way to use vlite with the acer backup CD's?
thinking of triple booting...

 

i'm not the person to answer that question... i'm an XP man myself.....

but i doubt that Vlite will work w/ the ACER recovery disks.... but i know you can use Nlite w/o any disks.... just point the source to the C:\I386 folder..

that same method might work w/ VLITE.... but i'm not sure... i guess you'll just have to try....

or you can download the VISTA INSTALL DISKS from the MICROSOFT LINK

 

No, you won't be able to use vLite with the Recovery Cds. nLite and vLite work with XP/Vista Installation Disk(or all the files and directories from the cds) only.

 

To Broke EF:
Can you please tell me the steps you took to create the lspstreamed version of xp for acer 5620-4025. I did follow the link above but it's for other model of acer. I am really new at this and would really appreciated you help! I have all the xp drivers downloaded for this laptop from acer's website.

 

as long as you have an INTEL CPU the XP DISK creation is the same...
use the same SATA DRIVER

as for other XP drivers i have no clue... but that link will work with any BRAND & MODEL of PC that contains an INTEL CPU and a i915 or higher CHIPSET... so if you wanna sweat details.... look for something else to worry about... because that link will work for you!

the NLITE method from that link is very generic.

BTW if you have an AMD CPU you don't need a custom XP install..
you just install the NFORCE drivers first thing after XP install (from what i've read)

 

Hello everyone, 1st post here. I ordered a Extensa EX5620-4428 today, and plan on installing Windows XP on it when it gets here. It'll be a mobile rig for audio/video editing. This is a great thread by the way. Which BIOS version are most of you running?

 

i always run the NEWEST BIOS i can get...

new versions contain all updates from previous bios versions (unless a feature was removed because of problems).... newer generally has better features and support for newer CPUs

 

Thanks for the reply. I generally don't update the BIOS unless the one I'm using is unstable, or the new BIOS has must have features. But we'll see what's on there when it gets here. I see they're up to v1.34. Anybody running this one?

 

BIOS FLASHES are not just fix problems you see or feel....

they update data for what CPUs are supported,, what other hardware is supported... and fixes problems users report...

i'll try to send you some detailed instructions from acer tomorrow

 

Well, sometimes this is true, but manufacturers have been known to take away
things like various overclocking abilities with later BIOS'. Just because it's latest doesn't always mean it's the best. JMHO, YMMV. I think if the BIOS you have does what you want it to do, is stable, and supports the hardware you want to run, then there is little point in changing to an unknown. Don't fix it if it ain't broken. Though if a lot of people are running a certain BIOS and say it's great it might be worth upgrading to; that's why I asked. Which version are you running, by the way?

 

i can see logic of NEW containing MORE and BETTER features and performance is totally over-ridden by your lack of familuarity with flashing BIOS FILES...

if you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself... your local PC shop should be willing to do it for you for $25 to $50....

where ACER is concerned.. they BLOCK ALL GOOD BIOS TWEAKS FROM DAY 1

so you are only updating FIRMWARE wich 99% of the time makes a PC perform better.... and you can always flash back to your old version if you encounter a problem

good luck and i'll quite trying to help since you seem so set against doing what 95% of ACER OWNERS here will tell you (the exact same thing i have tried to explain)

 

Relax. Gee whiz, too much caffeine? I've flashed a few BIOS' with bootable CD's. Not a big deal. Uhh, so which BIOS version are you running that's so bad a$$? Wasn't Vista supposed to be newer and better? Whatever dude. If you're saying the latest BIOS is the $h%t, maybe I'll flash it and see.

 

nothing new from MICROSOFT IS BETTER until it is 18 months old..

but BIOS versions are different

 

Peace out. I'll try out the latest BIOS at some point and let you know how it went.

 

Well I received my Extensa 5620-4428. It already had the latest BIOS 1.34.
I decided to go for a dualboot on it because I wanted to play around with Vista some more, but some of this info can help with a straight XP install as well. I have a 160 GB HD, it had 3 partitions on it. A hidden one E at the beginning for the Vista backup, C for the Vista drive, D for a Data drive. I wanted to install XP on D, and make it bigger. In Vista I went to Drive Managment and shrunk the Vista drive C down to 40 GB, and made D 100 GB and left E where it was.
I also had made the Vista backup disks and Application/Driver disk before hand.
I checked out Device Manager in Vista to figure out which drivers I would need for LAN, Wireless, Video, Modem, Webcam, and harddrive controller. I then downloaded the drivers. I downloaded nLite to make an XP install disk with the AHCI driver embedded, as well as SP2 and a few updates. I tried out the AHCI driver install pack I had downloaded on another PC to get the extract the driver I would need for the HD controller, but it wanted to install. So I got the Application/Driver DVD I had burned and got the AHCI driver from that extracted to a floppy. In nLite when I got to install the AHCI driver it asked which driver to choose. There are a bunch of different ones. I chose SATA AHCI Controller Mobile ICH8M, which I knew from checking Device Manager in Vista. Finished the XP install disk with nLite. Installed XP to drive D. Booted into XP installed Realtek audio driver first, because I had heard of some problems with it. Then chipset drivers. After that I went to Device Manager and looked for ? marks and installed the rest of the drivers in that order. Don't install the webcam drivers!!! I did the first go round and had the hang on shutdown bug and ended up having to reinstall. Long story. After this is done you'll be able to boot into XP but not Vista because XP has rewritten the boot files. You need to install Microsoft Net Framework 2.0 and install EasyBCD Once in EasyBCD go to "Manage Bootloader" page and select "Reinstall the Vista Bootloader" then "Write MBR" to get the Vista bootloader back. Once that's done, go to "Add/Remove Entries" page and select "Widows NT/2k/XP/2003 from the drop down list, give it a name, then press "Add Entry" to finish. Reboot. Here's some links: Recovering+the+Vista+Bootloader+with+EasyBCD
Installing+XP+After+Vista
Everything seems to be working so far. Next time I'm going to put the Acer drivers on the nLite disk. If I ever have to reinstall I'll probaly just go with XP to keep it simple. Hope this helps.
Edit: I also installed i8kfan controller. I had heard about problems with fan speed control after an XP upgrade, seems to work.

 

Found a webcam app that works with the Micro$oft driver for the webcam. Webcam App
Seems to work O.K. I can't seem to get the onboard mic to work under XP though. Anybody have any ideas on that? It doesn't show up in the Realtek control panel.

 

Hi to all and thanks for this post i think it is very useful...

I have bought an Acer Extensa 5620Z and wanted to put XP on it.

Im from Spain, and i have some doubts or points that i havent understood very well...refering to the step-by-step guide by CharredPC at the beginning of the post(thanks again to him and all of you).

1.- In the Device Manager i cant see any AHCI Disk Controller. I dont know it in my case would be the Intel(R) ICH8M 3 port Serial ATA Storage Controller -2828 ??? . Image added with my controllers.

2.- As i have read in some forums, if you install the XP without the drivers you need on it, the OS wont start as it cannot recognize the HD. So how can you just install the xp and start the XP as normal? and then install the drivers, and thats it? I cant see the logic sorry i need an explanation

all this doubts are just before doing the process, its just the panic to send my new notebook to trash
i guess they are basic questions but important for beginners.

Thanks alot to everybody.

 

In Vista, go to Device Manager. If you right click on Computer in the Start Menu you can get to it. Double click on IDE/ATAPI Controllers and you'll see which controller you have. I have the same model laptop. I found it easiest to use an app called nLite to make a an XP install disk with the AHCI drivers embedded. Take a look at the post 2 above yours. Edit: I just looked at your attachment. You might have to go in the BIOS and enable AHCI. When I got mine, it was set to IDE from the factory. My BIOS is 1.34.

 

yes in the Device Manager i double click on IDE/ATAPI and i just have two controllers:

1.- Intel(R) ICH8M 3 port Serial ATA Storage Controller -2828
2.- Intel(R) ICH8M Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 2850

and in dont have any AHCI controller.. :S

 

You'll probaly have to go in the BIOS and change the setting to AHCI. This won't be a problem because Vista has the drivers already.

 

ok thats right i changed to AHCI in BIOS and now ive got the Intel(R) 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller.

Thanks

If anyone could explain me the second point of my previous post would be great!

Thanks!

 

THIS LINK covers your second question perfectly

don't worry about it being for a different model of ACER.... just make the CD as instructed at that page...

you can then use that disk to load XP on any system be it SATA or IDE harddrive...

as for your model's drivers some on that page may work..

but use the NBR SEARCH below to search for ASPIRE 5620 XP DRIVERS
if you have trouble finding correct drivers..

but with HARD DISK MODE SET TO AHCI (which is where it should be) you must have a way to load SATA DRIVERS into XP and that page above does it perfectly..

others would have you include SP3 and all the drivers too.. but that can lead to trouble...

oh yeah, one last thing,,, after XP installation is completed besure to load the AUDIO DRIVER FIRST