Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
I have recently installed XP 64-bit on my m1330, and it required some long searching to find all of the correct drivers. Hopefully this topic will serve to consolidate all of the various bits of information into one topic. Lets not turn this into a Vista Vs. XP debate, this is for people who want to use XP, yet still benefit from 4GB+ RAM and the ability to use 64-bit applications.
Just to calm a few fears, compatibility on XP 64-bit it excellent, comparable to XP 32-bit as Vista 64 is to Vista 32. The problem is in the drivers, since XP 64-bit is based on Server 2003, many devices simply do not have drivers. Not a problem for us m1330 owners. The worst problem I've had yet is I had to grab a .msi installable of Windows Live Messenger here, because the Live Installer does not work. No biggie.
Anyway, for the most part, you can follow the excellent guide provided here. Credit to Stephan Preibisch for this. However, some of the drivers were not the correct ones for my machine. Maybe Dell made some discrete changes since then? This is not a critique of the excellent guide provided above, just some updates.
The first difference is the SATA/AHCI driver needed to install the disc in proper ACHI mode - without this, you are forced to install in ATA mode. The HP driver on the above link did not work for me. The correct SATA driver is this one. Plenty of other searches on Google point to a different driver - this one is the only one that works, intended for the 1420 which uses the same chipset. Credit to Doubleback and ANorecticUS for this.
Because of the lack of a floppy drive, and the fact that the XP disc does not look for USB drives, you must slipstream the driver into your XP64 disc using nLite. It's a rather self-explanatory application so I won't do a step-by-step, just select 'Drivers' on the main menu, choose the .inf from the driver and select the entire list to be safe.
Above link provides a driver for the Intel 3945ABG Wifi device. However, my machine came with an Intel 4965AGN. Correct driver can be found here.
The Creative Webcam driver is not necessary, as it will install over Windows Update.
The last issue is the Nvidia driver. For me, the only driver that does not downclock on battery is 167.58. No modded inf needed. Your mileage may vary.
This may be of no interest to anyone, but having spent hours trying to track down the correct SATA driver, and decent Nvidia driver, I'm hoping this may save some people a few hours.
Windows XP 64-bit on m1330 - Guide
Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by Shakey_Jake33, Aug 6, 2008.
