Load XP on Aspire 5050-3785?

I'm a newbie so please be easy on me . . .

I just purchased the subject laptop at Best Buy today. Of course it ships with Vista. I'd like to load XP instead.

Anyone done this yet? Were the drivers difficult to find?

Thanks,

Keith

 

I'd advise you to

1) Burn the back up DVDs first before you go messing with anything *(very important)

2) Did you even try vista to see if it is worthy before you go to all the trouble of trying to go back to XP? Remember since your notebook came with vista you won't have any driver issues etc as acer would have made sure everything was working from the factory. Try it and see if it works for you. I went from XP MCE 2005 to vista ultimate and I have no issues right now. (However vista likes lots of ram also keep this in mind)

3) If you still want to go to XP and need the XP drivers for the aspire 5050 you can find all of them at the acer euro site located here .

 

Thanks, Evolution.

I'm actually thinking of picking up an extra laptop SATA drive to slip in and try XP on that first.

Do you know if I'll need to flash the bios to a non-Vista? Or will the Vista bios work with XP?

Thanks,

Keith

 

On the newer acers a XP bios and a vista bios are really 1 and the same there is no difference. A vista compatible bios flash will add what is called "SLIC: Software Licensing Description Table" this is used in the factory OEM pre-registration process of vista computers to microsoft. XP cannot use and doesn't care about this, so even on my 5102 when I had the latest vista compatible bios and was still using XP there was no problem. You can keep your current bios if you want or you could get the latest one it is up to you.

For the latest BIOS and all the other drivers for XP or vista for the aspire 5050 you need to look at acer euro's FTP. There you will find a greater driver and Bios cache than you would on the link I gave in my previous post.

Hope this info helps you...

 

hi!
i bought the Acer Aspire as well and i want to know if you were able to load xp on the computer?

 

I finally opened the box this afternoon. Vista was dreadfully slow and I don't want to bother with the learning curve.

I'm now loading XP Pro.

Issues so far:

Modem drivers won't load.

Can't get wireless lan to start.

SM Bus Controller (?) shows the dreaded yellow "?" in device manager.

Audio drivers won't load.

I have a feeling the bus controller is the center of these headaches. Can anyone help me with this?

I found a "SM Bus Controller" utility on an Intel site but I know that's not the right one.

I *think* I recall seeing that this laptop has an ATI chipset - can someone confirm?

Thanks,

Keith

 

do you think the drivers for the European acer wont work on the US acer?
does the computer come with any back up discs?

 

Things are getting better. I found the "southbridge" drivers at ATI and I tried every wireless driver I could find . . . one finally worked.

When I get some sleep I'll post the drivers that have worked so far. I'm still fighting the audio and modem drivers. The system keeps saying they aren't there . . . but the sound did work when I had Vista installed . . . I think. I didn't play with it very long.

You'll have to use one of the little utilities to burn your own back-up disks. It's very slow but it does work. Well, I hope it works because I reformatted the drive and got rid of the hidden partition.

 

Just go to the europe site, i have a 5050 similar to yours and ran into the same problems when installing windows xp pro "downgrading from Vista", the europe site is much easier to use and all the drivers are newer than those on the US site.

I had to reinstall windows xp after installing the drivers on the US site b/c they didnt work, but when i installed the ones on the europe site it worked perfect.

 

here is the link to the end of your nightmares
Hope it helps!!!

http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_5050.html

 

cant wait to try. worried but anxious. thanks. gonna try later this week.

 

My laptop came with windows vista basic, after messing with it for about an hour I came to the conclusion that vista looks quite nice but performs like s**t,

I then proceeded to “downgrade” to windows xp, I did not even bother to save partitions or make recovery dvds I whipped out everything including partitions, I made a new partition and installed win xp pro sp2, it installed really really fast, while it installed I downloaded all the drivers on to my desktop from the US site, once windows was done I moved all the drivers to the laptop and started installing all the drivers and realized that the wireless wasn’t working and the screen looked crappy after trying just about everything that came to mind I started to do a bit of research on Google, I knew it had to do with software as the laptop had been working perfectly with Vista, after visiting at least 20 web pages I was lucky enough to come across this forum and found a link for the drivers on the euro site from a previous thread that another member had started for a similar reason.

I didn’t feel like deleting all the drivers I had installed from the US site so I reinstalled windows xp, this time installing the new drivers from the euro site and it worked beautiful, its been a couple of days and has been a joy to see it perform as it should, I have been working on computers for quite some time and I’m not afraid of a challenge, not even on a brand new laptop. But I do think however that the layout on the US Acer site is lame; they have all the drivers mixed whether they are for vista or xp come on Acer yall can do better than that!!!

 

i dont download those two camera drivers
do i download the BIOS?
because i cant seem to download the bios at the moment

 

I got it working and it's great! A pretty good laptop for $400!

 

when you are installing the drivers, do you just run the ".exe" files only. i dont know what to do. please help

 

Often there will be more than one "exe" file. You need to find the "Setup.exe" file. That's the one you double-click to launch.

 

I've recently gotten an Acer Aspire 5050 and like most others in this thread, I've been trying to reinstall XP pro after wiping Vista. Thanks to all the info and such on this thread, I've been able to find all the needed drivers on the European Acer site except for one.

To that end, Does anyone know what driver I would need to download to fix the yellow question/error mark in the Device Manager window placed next to 'PCI Device' in the other devices submenu? This is the last such error message remaining in the Device manager list and I'd dearly like to get rid of it as it seems to be blocking my connection online with the Acer 5050 via ethernet cable. Furthermore, should I need to use an external PCI card in the future, I'd like to be able to do so.

If anyone has any advice on this, I would really appreciate it.

 

I struggled with this for days before finally getting it right. I found a post where it was claimed that the drivers should be loaded in a particular order. Apparently it was right because that's what finally did the trick for me.

I got most of my drivers from the Acer European site. The driver package I'm using seems to be working fine; I'll try to describe it.

The whole package is 123 MB. If you know of a place where I can upload it for you I'll be happy to.

Note: I loaded the drivers after loading SP2 from disk. Don't know if it makes any difference.

1. CPU Driver

The file is "amdcpusetup.exe", file version 1.3.2.16, and it's not the same as the Acer Euro site. I think I got the latest from AMD's site.

2. Graphics and Chipset Driver

"7-7-igp_xp32_dd_ccc_wdm_sb_gart_enu_49709.exe", file version 8.391.0.0. I'm pretty sure I got this directly from ATI's website.

Note: When I loaded this I UNCHECKED the "Catalyst Control Center". If you want that you'll first have to load some Microsoft Net software (or something like that). The control center gives one lots of control for monitor temperature/color/etc., so if you're heavily into digital image processing I suppose that would be handy. But you do need to load everything else so leave the rest of the checkmarks.

3. "Before Audio MS Software"

"kb888111xpsp2.exe", version 6.1.22.0

I don't know what this does but I recall needing to run this prior to adding the audio driver. I think it has something to do with the HD audio capability of the chipset.

4. Audio

Realtek Audio Driver

Can't remember where I got mine but it's not the same as the Euro site.

5. Touchpad

Apparently there are two versions of the touchpad - mine uses the Synaptics type, so the file I needed was:

"Touchpad Driver Synaptics Ver. 8.3.0.0.zip" from Acer's European site.

6. Modem

"Modem Driver Foxconn Ver.7.48.0.0.zip" from the Acer Euro site.

7. Lan

"LAN Driver Realtek Ver.5.639.118.2006.zip" from the Euro site.

8. Wireless Lan

The one I loaded is not the same as the one on the European site. I can't recall why I didn't use the official Acer driver . . .

9. Card Reader

I used "Card Reader Driver 5.1.2600.2011.zip" from the Acer Europe site.

10. Launch Manager

I used "Acer Launch Manager Ver.1.01.1e.zip" from the Acer Europe site.

---------------------------------------

At various points during the driver load I got the "Windows has found new hardware" prompt but I closed them and continued to the next driver load.

I seem to recall having the same problem as you but it was solved when I loaded all these drivers in this order.

PM me if you have any other questions.

Keith

 

Just a warning, if you delete the hidden part and try to merge it using Partion Magic, it will not boot after the operation is done. I ended up formatting the whole drive. However, the merge is successful it just wont boot

 

Hi, I'm from Argentina and I want to share my experience installing Windows XP in my Acer 5050-4697, since Vista was really slow after some weeks of using it, specially for games.
This thread encouraged me to do it, and as I'm in debt now, I just wanted to tell you that I installed all the drivers in the euro site you name here and everything worked perfectly except for the bluetooth, as someone already said.
So, everyone who's doubting if doing it or not, as I was, JUST DO IT!

XP so smoothly I'm even playing Sword of the new World & Sniper Elite in my laptop now without any problem.

Good luck

 

hi,
i haven't actually bought this laptop yet but i am about to as it sounds really great, and the processor sounds fast. i am going to downgrade to xp, but having never done this before, can anyone please tell me how to do this in a quick point? your advice would be most appreciated.
many thanks!

 

I cannot load the Modem Driver Foxconn .. i get an error message after the initializing application is trying to start the driver.....the message says " ERROR Driver Installation failed: Could not find the MODEM device for this driver"
Can anybody explain how to get the modem activated?

SPECS.
ACER 5050-3785
(trying to do clean install of XP Pro bootleg, w/out SP1.)
(downloaded all the drivers in order, except this modem one)
AMD Turion
1gb RAM


Thank you.,

 

i need help. i visited the euro support site but so many drivers!!!! 2 video drivers, 2 wlan drivers!!! can anyone help me be letting me know which drivers im suppose to be downloading???? I have a acer aspire 5050-3785

 

Can anyone help??!! I visited the euro site and there are so many drivers!!!! 2 video drivers, 2 wlan drivers!!! i dont know which one im suppose to be downloading, can someone please tell me which ones im suppose to download. thanks I have a acer aspire 5050-3785

 

I used the drivers off the us site and worked alot better than the euro site!!! the euro site was way to complicated, you couldnt even tell which was for xp and which was for vista and so many drivers for one component. acerpanam.com is where everything is at, execpt for the wireless lan, you have to get that from the 5100 model... idont know why.

 

I removed the vista and installed xp sp2. Everything went very well except the wireless adapter. I tried all the drivers I could find for atheros ar5007eg. It worked once, but after reboot it did not work. The driver installation was always successful, but none of the existing network was detected. I also tried the drivers downloaded from euro website, with no luck.

Could anyone help me out this problem? Thanks!

 

Try the wireless drivers for the Asus EEEpc. They work perfectly.

 

Hello, sorry to bumping old topic.

I just purchased this laptop this week and received it today.
I run good on vista. The fan is bit loud isnt it?

Everything was fine. THen I plan to installing XP instead of vista.
I restarted,
And in the begining, when I enter BIOS, the fan start spinning so hard,
and getting louder, until its peak, and then just turned off the whole PC

I turn on, and it's spinning wild then off again.
I thought it just overheat, so i leave it for like 15 minutes.

I tried again, enter bios, same, fan goes nut, then off.

I turn it on again, leave it until entering windows, all just fine.

So, basically it only happens when I'm in DOS/BIOS mode..
Any idea what is that?

I couldn't start up from CD Rom because the PC will turn off by itself less than a minute..

I hope someone has the answer =/

 

loaded XP on my 5050, got everything working with the drivers from the euro site but still no modem!!

 

Grizz56 try this

the following was copied from this website:
http://soulpass.com/2007/11/10/insta...5-2153-laptop/

Modem Driver Installation
Extract the Agere modem drivers zip archive somewhere on the Acer notebook.

http://files.soulpass.com/acer/agere_modem_driver.zip
http://soulpass.com/blog/gallery/scr...ts/acer/modem/

Click on your “START” menu
Right click on “My Computer”
Click on “Properties”
Click on the “Hardware” tab at the top
Click on “Device Manager”
Right click on “Modem Device on High Definition Audio Bus”
Click on “Update Driver…”
Click on “No, not this time.” Click Next.
Click on “Install from a list or specific location (Advanced).” Click Next
Click on “Don’t Search. I will choose the driver to install.” Click Next.
In the list on the “Hardware Type” page, highlight “Modems”. You may have to scroll down. Click Next.
Click on “Have Disk…”
Click on “Browse” and navigate to where you extracted the Agere Modem drivers. Highlight the “agrmdv32″ file and click Open. Click OK.
Highlight Agere Systems HDA Modem. Click Next.
Click Yes on the “Update Driver Warning” dialog.
You should now have a working modem.

YMMV, if these drivers don’t work, try using the Foxconn drivers.

This tutorial was written by IT enthusiast and expert Alex Wells, published exclusively on soulpass.com.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 10th, 2007 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Software, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

hope it helps,
bigozone

 

Thanks, i'll try that see what happens.

 

man, it's good to see someone who doesn't just take take ACER's word at face value... and to find someone who actually did a little research and is trying to spread knowledge.... definately worth a rep point.

keepup the good work...

 

Were did you find that kb888111xpsp2.exe file??

Thanks

 

Where could I find the wireless driver, please?

 

I have been using this Acer for half a year without wireless, just using the ethernet port to go internet. I can't withstand the days without wireless anymore and want to solve the problem. I tried many drivers, but each time when I installed a driver, the laptop still could not find any network. Could someone help me out of this? Thanks

 

try the atheros drivers on this page... i ahve the same wireless AR5007EGand the driver there worked for me...

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

i think i have upgraded the driver since first using this one..my current driver is version 5.3.0.67 and is dated 7/26/2007..

if that driver doesn't work for you just PM me and i'll email you the one i'm using as soon as i can track it down... (it will be atleast 24 hrs)

good luck,
bigozone

 

grizz56 - the kb888111xpsp2.exe patch is included with the audio driver zipfile aspire_5100/driver/Audio_5_10_0_5273.zip on the Acer Euro driver FTP page at ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_5100/driver/. If you extract the audio driver file and drill down into the foldes you will find it included.

 

I had trouble loading the wireless for xp also.

This is what I had to do to get it to work.

1. Disable the eNet Manager if already loaded.

- Click on the eNet Manager icon in the system tray (lower right corner, where the clock is.) Or in the Widget bar for the eRecovery click on the icon that looks like a globe.

- In the window that comes up choose Settings on the lower edge of that window.

- Uncheck all boxes and click the X to close this window. Make sure “Launch Acer eNet Management automatically when starting Windows” DOES NOT have a check mark next to it.

- Now, click on start, then Control Panel.

- In the Control Panel, click on Administrative tools.

- In that window, choose Services. In the services window is a list of all the services running on your computer, they are in alphabetical order. You are looking for eNet Service . Right click on it and choose stop.

- Restart your computer.

These steps should disable the eNet management. You can undo this by repeating the steps or you can use the System Restore to roll back the system to a point before this change was made. I am including a link to Microsoft's site that explains how to use this tool, how it works, and how to undo a system restore. Please note that this will work only if a starting point was created. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;306084

2. Winsock Reset:

- Click the Start button and then click on Run.

- In the Run window command line type in CMD and press enter, or click OK.

- A black command prompt window will come up.

- At the command prompt type NETSH and press Enter.

- A NETSH command prompt will appear

- Type WINSOCK RESET then press Enter. It will display the following message: Successfully reset the Winsock Catalog. You must restart the machine in order to complete the reset.

3. Remove and reinstall the wireless adapter:

- Click on Start, the right click on My Computer and choose Manage.

- In the computer management window that opens, on the left side, choose Device Manager.

- Look for the network adapter heading in the list on the right. Click on the + next to network adapters.

- Right click on the wireless adapter listed under network adapters, choose uninstall. It may ask if you are sure you want to remove it, say yes.

- Close that window and restart the computer. As it reboots, it will reinstall the driver we just deleted. When it is completely start up, try your wireless connection.

 

This worked for me perfectly! THNANKS!!!
I didn't have to do anything extra, just uninstall the previous driver from the control panel, reboot, then it asks for where the driver is and point to location I just extract the new drivers to. Easy as pie.
btw, my model is ACER ASPIRE 5050-3785

 

Congratulations on your getting it work. I have the same model as yours, ACER ASPIRE 5050-3785. However, I tried the way you mentioned above but it still does not work. I have been annoyed by this wireless problem for months, could you help me out here by answering a couple of questions? Thanks a lot!

1) what is the version of your driver for atheros AR5007EG wireless network adapter? is it 5.3.0.67?
2) when you installed the driver, which one do you chose, XP_32 or XP_64?
3) when you removed the vista and install windows xp, were all the devices installed okay? Right now I have three devices, all called 'PCI Flash Memory', not installed properly.

Thanks again!

 

forget what i posted above your last post.
I spoke too soon. i only took care of the error 10 code error but wifi still had issues. would act like it was going to connect then changes its mind.
finally found the site I used to go for other laptops I loaded XP for people from. acerpanam.com that has the driver you need for this model, but the wifi requires the driver for the 5100 for some reason.

good luck. I finally got it working. guess I can delete the VITA backup I did, was starting to fear I needed to go back to that.