Pranay Sharma

So I finally received HPE-550F today. The case looks pretty compact for the amount of power this system has in it. The original specification of the system was

• Intel Quad Core i7-2600 Processor
• 8GB DDR3 system memory
• ATI Radeon HD 6770 1GB DDR5 PCI Express 2.1
• 1.5TB Western Digital 5400rpm
• Blu-ray drive
• Wi-Fi 802.11n
• 10/100/1000 Gigabit LAN
• Windows 7 Home Premium x64

Some tweaks were made to boost up the performance:

• +8GB DDR3 system memory
• +1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm
• +60GB Solid State Drive
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Final specifications are:

• Intel Quad Core i7-2600 Processor
• 16GB DDR3 system memory
• ATI Radeon HD 6770 1GB DDR5 PCI Express 2.1
• 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm
• 60GB Solid State Drive
• 1.5TB Western Digital 5400rpm
• Blu-ray drive
• Wi-Fi 802.11n
• 10/100/1000 Gigabit LAN
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows 7 Ultimate x64

The system has a startup boot time of 6 seconds and shut down of 3 seconds. These awesome times were achieved by making 60GB Solid State Drive boot drive and store Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows 7 Ultimate x64 files. The “Users”, “ProgramData”, ”Program Files “ and “Program Files (x86)” were moved to 1TB 7200rpm Seagate. The 1.5TB Western Digital is used to store data.

The biggest hurdle was adding the 2 hard drives. The 3.5” internal bay has ample place to fit another drive however there is no way to open the bay and insert the drive, everything seems to be welded together. The 1TB Seagate had to go into 5.25” bay below the Blu-ray Drive.  The SSD is 2.5”, fitting even that drive was a pain. The graphics card was put in place using some hinges which leave no room for anything else to be added or moved in the box. Overall the challenge was worth the effort since, it has become a much faster machine than before (5400rpm drive kills it).
Windows  System Performance Rating was 7.6 (Graphics Card) and once again the system has a startup boot time of 6 seconds and shut down of 3 seconds.

Tags: hpe-550f
Categories: Computers | Hardware | Technology

Windows Xp drivers for Gateway DX4710-05 with Intel G33 chipset motherboard

 

Here is a rar file for all the drivers:

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/gatewaydrivers/Gateway_Drivers.rar

The SATA Driver is "Intel(R) ICH9R/DO/DH SATA AHCI Controller" located in the file: iaAHCI.inf

Use nLite to Slipstream it in your Xp CD.

nLite:

• Install Nlite
• Insert your XP Disk into the cd drive
• Run Nlite, it will ask you where your xp installation is. Chose the drive the XP disk is in, and it should recognise it.
• Next, it will ask you where you would like to save your installation.
• Next, Task Selection Screen should come up. Make sure you check Drivers, and Bootable ISO. I also like to check Unattended, so I have less work to do during the installation
• Next, you have the chance to insert the SATA Driver. Click Insert > Single Driver. From the f6flpy32_85.zip, chose iaAHCI.inf, it will open up a screen of the contraining drivers. Select the Intel(R) ICH9R/DO/DH SATA AHCI Controller
• Next, you have the options to change the default values of the XP install, you can pre-insert your serial number so you never have to type it in at installation, add desktop themes... you can toy around with some of the settings that you're familiar with at this point.
• Next, it will build your install of windows. Click yes if it asks : do you want to start the process
• Next, the final step. You have the option to either burn your install to a disk or write it as an image file.

 

DONE!!

 

Tags: gateway, dx4710-05, dx4710, windows xp, drivers, xp, intel, g33
Categories: Hardware

Recently bought a HP Pavilion Elite m9250f

Configuration:

• 64-bit Motherboard
  
• Intel Core2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz
• 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM (Exp. Up To 8GB)
• 1 TB (2 x 500) 7200 RPM SATA 3G (3.0 Gb/sec)
• NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT 512MB
• TV tuner card with FM tunerwith USB infrared remote for Media Center
  
• 16X DVD(+/-)R/RW 12X RAM (+/-)R DL LightScribe SATA drive
• Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g
• Integrated 10/100/1000 Base-T networking interface
• Realtek ALC 888S chipset up to 8 audio channels
• Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit SP1
  

 

Details can be found on:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01374062&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=ca&product=3688702&os=2093&lang=en

The only downfall was that it came with  Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit SP1 which is useless for me since my work is Xp for client and 2003 for server based programming.

Getting it to downgrade was not an easy task. Took me around 24hrs of research and 24hrs on the machine itself to run Xp smoothly.

To make the task easier for brothers out there like me, here is everything in a nutshell.

First, You need to disable SATA from BIOS so that Xp can detect the hard drives by changing SATA1 Controller from AHCI to IDE.
For that you need to Press F10 when the computer boots up to enter BIOS.
When you are under BIOS, Go to Advanced and make sure the settings are:
SATA1 Controller: Enabled
SATA1 Controller Mode: IDE
SATA2 Controller Enabled

Then Save and Exit setup.

Now you can install Xp without any troubles.

Regarding drivers,
Here are the basic drivers for Windows Xp SP2: 

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/dotnetfx.exe

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/MotherBoard.rar

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/LAN.rar

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/Audio Driver.rar

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/Wireless LAN.exe

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/TV Tuner.rar

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/Wireless KeyBoard Mouse.exe

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/Modem.exe (Did not work for me, worked for friend)

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/Graphics Card.exe

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/Sm Bus Controlerl.rar

 

Driver Not Included/Found by me yet:

Infrared Reciever for Media Center Remote Control

Cause: The Infrared Remote is supported on on Windows Xp Media Center, which is based on Windows Xp Home Edition, So, Pro enthusiasts cannot achieve that.

For Media Center users, here is the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?FamilyID=b39d53f1-0ac9-433b-b488-4cab82f31dc8&displaylang=en

DO NOT TRY AND INSTALL THIS ON WINDOWS Xp PRO ELSE IT MAY CRASH.(Try booting from XP with "Last Known Good Configuration" if you did it anyways)

 

Finally!
Found the missing peice in the puzzle.
SATA Driver for installing Windows Xp without changing SATA1 Controller from AHCI to IDE.
The driver is ICH9R

http://www.gouravsharma.com/pranay/drivers/f6flpy32_85.zip

In order to use this driver, either you need to plug external floppy drive, install internal floppy drive and provide the driver in the floppy by pressing F6 when Xp boots up.

Or slipstream Driver in Xp Cd  using nLite.

nLite:

• Install Nlite
• Insert your XP Disk into the cd drive
• Run Nlite, it will ask you where your xp installation is. Chose the drive the XP disk is in, and it should recognise it.
• Next, it will ask you where you would like to save your installation.
• Next, Task Selection Screen should come up. Make sure you check Drivers, and Bootable ISO. I also like to check Unattended, so I have less work to do during the installation
• Next, you have the chance to insert the SATA Driver. Click Insert > Single Driver. From the f6flpy32_85.zip, chose iaAHCI.inf, it will open up a screen of the contraining drivers. Select the Intel(R) ICH9R/DO/DH SATA AHCI Controller
• Next, you have the options to change the default values of the XP install, you can pre-insert your serial number so you never have to type it in at installation, add desktop themes... you can toy around with some of the settings that you're familiar with at this point.
• Next, it will build your install of windows. Click yes if it asks : do you want to start the process
• Next, the final step. You have the option to either burn your install to a disk or write it as an image file.

 

DONE!!

 

Now you can install Xp without changing BIOS and you can DUAL BOOT with VISTA.

Tip:

For increasing performance, install Xp on a bare 5-10GB partition.(C:)

Using nLite, Select options to install folders like "Program Files", "Document and Settings" in different partition(D:)

leaving C: with only one folder "Windows"

This will boost the performance of your Windows to Max.

The partitions need to be setup and formatted before you install Xp or it will use the default (C:)

 

ENJOY!

Tags:
Categories: Hardware