A guide on installing Windows XP on F8SV-A1/B1

Hello, as in the topic, can anyone provide one please ?
Not big fan of Vista and would like to stick to old OS and have all components work properly.

 

I am posting from XP on a B1.

I installed it on the preset D Partition (Don't know how the setup is on the A1), you don't have to obviously, but I wanted Vista intact because some schools require it. To install on the extra partition you first have to go into the BIOS and change your SATA mode from Enhanced to Compatible, SAVE YOUR CHANGES.
Then just boot up with your XP boot disc (I used a "borrowed" corp edition) and follow the normal installation process. Once you've done that the computer should boot up into windows XP every time. To switch between the two download VistaBootPRO.
Once you're in XP you're going to need all of your drivers(especially the vid card, you get about 2 fps browsing the internet without it). This site will have all of the drivers you need:
http://benyouhui.it168.com/thread-643914-1-1.html

and also this one for the newer video card driver: http://croftophile.free.fr/index.php?rubrique=3&op=modele&num=&modele=16&os=1&x=6&y=12

although you can always get the newest at: http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/

I have been having trouble getting some of these things to work. Any help getting Power4 Gear up would be greatly apreciated. Every time I try to start it I get a message that says it can't read my hardware setup from my ini file.

Also, when I first installed VistaBootPro my NTLDR went missing for some reason and I had to download it using vista and copy it over to the XP disk. This made me very thankful that I had kept Vista.

If you are using 3 or 4 gigs of RAM you will have an issue:
Your video card will not be detected. Make sure that you have installed the drivers from the benyouhui page and follow irathi's guide for solving the issue:

"If u updated ur [F8SV] with 3-4gb ram u propably cant install GPU/VGA drivers cuz XP uses some weird VgaSave driver.
Solution: run everest, on chipset tab find northbridge and southbridge, on one of them at the bottom here are 5 ICH8 Root Ports.
Propably 2 of them are empty but in hardware manager they r using resources and they are causing conflict with GPU/VGA.
Just disable them in Hardware Manager and XP should detect new VGA hardware after restart, now u can easily install your fresh moded drivers for nvidia from laptopvideo2go.com ;]"

Just a note: if you haven't installed your ICH8 driver, the two devices you need to disable will be at "PCI bus 0, device 28, function 0" and "PCI bus 0, device 28, function 4".

Good luck and PM me with any questions!
Sal

 

You can find a detailed how-to on this in E.B.E.'s excellent guide here.

Search is your friend .

 

Any of you guys know if there a similar thread for a dual boot system in an ASUS laptop with a pain in the as$ ATI video? Specifically my F3SA with a HD2600?
With the amount of driver problems I am already having with default Vista, I am affraid to even try XP on it!!

 

If its just the video card you're worried about, look at laptopvideo2go.com, the may have something very helpful, they usually do.

 

Thanks for the tip

Back on the dual boot system
I ran into a problem during Xp installation:

XP does not have drivers for SATA interface, so even thogh my SATA HDD is recognized in my bios, after the booting sequence from the XP cd, the system just doesnt "see" the HDD, so i cant even install XP at all.

Looked it up on google, and seems like i need to streamline( dont know what that is yet) or install the driver via floppy drive (which i dont have).

So my question is:

1. Can anybody tell me which SATA driver do i use? where can i find it?
2. Is there a guide for doing this? preferably without the floppy? Can i use usb key?
3. Does service pack 3 has sata support embeded? ie: if i get a copy of xp with service pack 3 included, would that make my system recognize my sata HDD during xp cd booting sequence?


thanx

 

EDIT* I looked over the main part about everest.... im still working on it

I need some help guys. I just installed xp and everything was going good, but i cant locate the vga(video card) device in device manager, or at all. I cant install any drivers for it because i cant even find it. There are two unknown devices in my device manager but one is pci memory controller and the other is simply labeled unknown.

I thought the unknown one was the video card, but i cant install any moded inf's to it. Ive also installed every driver from the above post. This is driving me nuts, any help would help.

 

cebolao - any luck finding which Sata driver it was?

Thx

 

nope, i got around that by using "compatible" option in the bios. Dont know that that means but windows sees it under instalation

 

Ok, so I also used the compatible mode, installed Win XP SP2 in device manager i got now one "unknown device" (more likely infrared) and "pci memory controller" (id think TPM even though TPM wont install saying I dont have one or intel turbo memory). But now when im trying to change back to enhanced mode for SATA in BIOS i get blue screen of death while booting, how to fix that ?

EDIT: I already installed the chipset driver so its not the issue here.

 

Ok let me answer your question first then I got a question of my own.
You will never be able to run XP with a SATA HDD without first installing the SATA drivers. XP by default does not come with a driver. Not even with SP3. I looked into this and I am sure of what I am saying.
So the whole point of the you using the "enable" mode in the bios is because of that. Not just for installing the XP but for running it as well. Now just exactly what the difference between "enhenced" and "enable" is, I dont know. If someone would explain that, it would be great.

Now the my question:
I have exactly the same unIdentified devices under my device manager. IE 1 unknown device, and a PCI device. And everytime i start XP it says it found a BIOS PnP.

I know theres quite a few of the guys here who already did XP instalation of this laptop. And I have seen this problem being posted before, but with no conclustions. SO guys any results yet??

I want to do a VM with Ubuntu in XP as well. But i have never used a VM, ppl said Vmware is supose to be hte best. Any ideas?

Tips and suggestions would be apreciated!

 

Well where can I find SATA drivers for Windows XP then ? Mine does not find any new hardware anymore, except of those two unidentified devices, so I cannot help you with the other problem.

Also I never used VM to run Ubuntu, but I did have it in dual-boot on my desktop and there was no problems with it at all. Installation is pretty straight forward you should not have any problems just leave the options on default and you should not run into any troubles.

 

I tried to do a triple boot with Ubuntu.
But i got a fatal error towards the end of Ubuntu instalation complaining about the Grub. All I know is that this is related to the bootloader. Dont know the fix for this yet. Thats why I am trying to run in in a VM

About the sata drivers , I dont see the point of installing it since it works just fine with the correct bios settings

 

Wouldn't it work faster in enhanced mode ? What is the difference between enhanced and compatible except of hot swapping ?

 

It would probably work faster, I don't know the exact differences.

I think a good way to do it (if at all possible) would be to install in compatibility mode, then get and install the SATA drivers, and enable enhanced mode.

 

Can u suggest a driver? i looked arround but doesnt know which one to use.

Also, is it just me or doesnt the ASUS LIVE UPDATE work, like ever? Didnt work when i had F3sa, and its still not working with F8SV

also, how do i activate the intel turbo memory? Whenever i run the intel application, everything is always all blanked out.

 

I don't know drivers., never used SATA.

ASUS Live Update is garbage, please remove it ASAP.

Intel Turbo Mem -- again, no experience from my side. You'll have to wait for other answers.

 

cool thanks
1 less bloatawere to load
god knows how many more asus has hidden in this laptop

 

Not just God, for instance I have a pretty good idea
Check my Vista guide for a list of the bloatware that you might want to remove.

 

i am trying to install windows xp on my F8sa. i know i need sata drivers but hitatchi ( http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/hddfaqs.htm) says i will need to load sata drivers from a floppy disk. WTF. is there a way to load these drivers without having to buy a floppy drive?

 

Yes, search for "nlite SATA windows XP" or "slipstream SATA windows xp" or something along those lines. Should give plenty of guides.

 

Got my F8sa running XP quite well and have only 3 unknow devices and one of them is turbo memory and the rest two is:
Intel(R) ICH8M LPC Interface Controller - 2815

Any idea of what device that is and how to get it running?

I also think that my network is much slower and ping is a lot greater than before. Any idea of how to fix that?

BTW Power4Gear for XP really sucks! I want that juicy vista version back!

 

Anyone noticed that Asus have recently added all the Windows XP drivers for atleast F8Sa to the asus support download page?! I am about to test those drivers soon but if someone knows a good installing order and knows what drivers or apps shouldn't be installed please report soon!

 

Nice. I just saw a notice they added XP drivers for U6Sg, as well. Seems ASUS realize that many people don't like Vista and go back to XP, and they are doing something to support those people

For an install order, check e.g., my XP guide. Make sure you patch your XP (e.g., with SP3) for the UAA update, BEFORE you install the audio and modem drivers.

For utils that you should NOT install, check my Vista optimization guide (the utils are the same).

Both guides are linked from my sig.

Hope this helps.

 

Ok, I made my new Windows XP installation with new asus drivers. Everything worked fine but I can't see any noticeable difference compared to previous xp drivers and apps.

I think that harddisk isn't working at full speed and web browsing is also lagging. Can anyone test how fast F8Sa hard disk is at XP and Vista and name a test program that was used to measure that speed?

EDIT:
Forgot to mention that I couldn't install Intel Matrix Storage Manager for WIN XP -driver. That should be SATA driver? Any idea how that driver should be installed?