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Redjake · 10-29-2007, 04:56 PM

I have did this in the past 6 months on my new Gateway laptop -

Came with Vista preloaded, and it took 7 minutes and 30 seconds to turn on the first time, literally

From then on, it took a solid 3 minutes to fully boot into Vista

Luckily, the laptop came with a utility that allowed you to burn a Restore disc that contained ONLY Vista with none of the preloaded software and advertisements - I immediately created the Restore disc, formatted, reinstalled Vista, and the computer was approximately 300% faster

Then I started to notice that the laptop should simply be faster than it was, still

So I started looking around, and ZERO XP drivers existed for my laptop

At that point, I spent 8 hours tracking down every single hardware component to my laptop and finding stand-alone drivers for every component that went to DIFFERENT models of Gateway laptops, but similar in make

10 hours of web searching and trial and error later, I found a driver for every single component in my laptop - they were just for a slightly different model

Formatted the motherfucker, installed Windows XP, the laptop turns on and is completely in Windows in 25 seconds flat, and every. last. one. of the drivers worked. The 5-in-1 card reader works, the modem, the LAN, the sound, the video acceleration, the DVD-RW, the USB, ALL of it works - and none of the drivers are even made for my laptop

I basically found the model name of each hardware component, searched for it, found a similar Gateway laptop with XP on it that featured the same hardware component, and used those drivers - and it worked.

I couldn't pass it up (keep in mind this was 7-8 months ago):
1 GB of RAM
DVD-RW
5-in-1 card reader
5 USB ports
1.8 GHz Athlon 64
Lexmark Printer/Scanner/Copier

$450, no rebates

10-29-2007, 04:56 PM	#8 (permalink)
Redjake I'm a family man - I run a family business. Location: Wilson, NC	I have did this in the past 6 months on my new Gateway laptop - Came with Vista preloaded, and it took 7 minutes and 30 seconds to turn on the first time, literally From then on, it took a solid 3 minutes to fully boot into Vista Luckily, the laptop came with a utility that allowed you to burn a Restore disc that contained ONLY Vista with none of the preloaded software and advertisements - I immediately created the Restore disc, formatted, reinstalled Vista, and the computer was approximately 300% faster Then I started to notice that the laptop should simply be faster than it was, still So I started looking around, and ZERO XP drivers existed for my laptop At that point, I spent 8 hours tracking down every single hardware component to my laptop and finding stand-alone drivers for every component that went to DIFFERENT models of Gateway laptops, but similar in make 10 hours of web searching and trial and error later, I found a driver for every single component in my laptop - they were just for a slightly different model Formatted the motherfucker, installed Windows XP, the laptop turns on and is completely in Windows in 25 seconds flat, and every. last. one. of the drivers worked. The 5-in-1 card reader works, the modem, the LAN, the sound, the video acceleration, the DVD-RW, the USB, ALL of it works - and none of the drivers are even made for my laptop I basically found the model name of each hardware component, searched for it, found a similar Gateway laptop with XP on it that featured the same hardware component, and used those drivers - and it worked. I couldn't pass it up (keep in mind this was 7-8 months ago): 1 GB of RAM DVD-RW 5-in-1 card reader 5 USB ports 1.8 GHz Athlon 64 Lexmark Printer/Scanner/Copier $450, no rebates __________________ Off the record, on the q.t., and very hush-hush.