Im going back to XP, screw vista, now i know why its got a bad reputation

Ive used vista x64 on my desktop for a while, it was ok... i was a bit miffed theyve spent 5 years developing a circular start button and enhancing security but hey! No problems with it.

Now on my laptop (listed below) with an 8600 card, it just isnt working out. I get Direct3d crashes in c&c 3, TDR errors with most games, its bullcrap. This isnt a faulty card either, its not hardware, this TDR issue is widespread on the nvidia forums, its also driver dependant, the 150.xx drivers cause multiple TDRs and some of which take ages to recover from and im usually kicked from the multiplayer game im playing whereas the newer 165.xx only cause a few and theyre quick to recover. But im fed up with it, also i want the most performance out of my lappy and im not gonna get that with vista. Not to mention its completely frozen on me windows 95 style twice in two months. Yeah i know it could be worse but i dont recall XP ever freezing, i remember bluescreens due to hardware fault but it would never ever freeze up completely, with no mouse or keyboard at all.

So in short what i want to know is: Will my laptop work fine with XP? Is there drivers for everything? Any problems anyone can see? I had a hell of a time getting it to run with vista x64 since it only came with x32 drivers, so i hope XP drivers will be easier to hunt down.

 

You should have no problems installing XP as the Vostros are offered with that option.
Is this problem only while gaming?

 

Yes. It happens a lot with c&c 3, which usually crashes with a direct3d 15 addresses error after about 15-20 minutes (sometimes a lot longer), and it happens once in company of heros, but once its happened it dosent do it again. Starcraft dosent do it, half life 2 dosent do it either, i dont think. I could be mistaken.

I have no idea what caused the two total lockups, i was just surfing the web at the time but im inclined to blame vista. If it happens again with XP ill know its something else.

 

Personally I'd blame Nvidia's drivers before I blamed Vista.

 

Yeah well im inclined to agree, but they wont or cant fix whatever the problem is, so ive got no choice. Ive not been impressed with the support of the 8xxx cards at all, most who seem to have a problem own an 8xxx card. Never see many people with a 7 series card moan about TDR errors or dodgy textures or crap like that.

 

Why are you using vista64 with only 2gig of ram... just go with xp lol!

 

have you tried the 169.04/169.01 drivers?

 

Because i like to be on the edge I dont know to be honest, it worked on on my desktop with its 7900GTO so i figured it would be fine on the lappy too...

No, the little list only goes up to 165.01 on laptopvideo2go, where are these new 169 drivers?

EDIT: Aha! I found it in the forum. Gonna give it a bash, how come theres a ton of 163.xx and 169.xx there but theres absolutely no mention of the 165 driver on the forum? Thats the one i have right now

EDIT2: Woah... these 165.01 drivers i have are actually OLDER than the 163's?? What the hell... why!

EDIT3: c&c3 direct3d crash seems to have been solved, it hasent appeared after three games anyways. No more TDR's with c&c 3 either. Dont know about CoH.