Question

Drivers for Compaq Presario - downgraded from Vista to XP - Wireless, Modem, Power management etc

Asked by: mbhh

I recently purchased a HP Compaq Presario B1900 (B1959TU) which came with Vista Business.

Not being a mad keen Vista fan, I installed XP Pro instead but now I can't get much of the hardware to work at all, and the HP site simply offers an upgrade to Vista for this model.

The plethora of problems as follows ...
- no sign of an internal dialup modem
- no wireless (the Broadcom wlan adaptor is showing, but cannot seem to get a driver to work for it)
- the battery indicator does not show
- power options do not include a tab for setting up hibernate
- in the devices listing there is a bunch of "Other Devices" with question marks including Base System Device, PCI device SM Bus controller, Video controller
- when I plug in a Prolific USB to serial adaptor this will not install by itself - and after installing with the Prolific setup utility, it still does not show as a device or a com port - in fact there is no Ports paragraph in the Device Manager

I am guessing that this hardware just isn't meant to run XP, but also that I am missing a factory setup utility.

I wonder if there is a utility for a closely related model which would work on this one?

Hoping some expert can help.

cheers
mark

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Asked On
2007-03-24 at 21:17:55ID22470739
Tags

compaq

,

presario

,

xp

,

driver

Topics

Wireless Local Area Network

,

Drivers

,

Windows XP Operating System

Participating Experts
2
Points
250
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: qz8dswPosted on 2007-03-24 at 21:29:40ID: 18787305

UGGGHHH, I'm going to shoot Compaq sometime soon.

OK, heres the deal mbhh.

Compaq bundled it with Vista, not thinking people would ever downgrade.
I spose they might now be thinking it was abit short sighted.
The hardware is fine for XP, just you need to manually find the drivers.

You need a program like Everest to identify what it can about the "unknown devices" in your machine, then go to the manufacturers sites for the cards and get the drivers yourself.
I've been doing that myself with another Compaq laptop.

Something to give you a head start on that as to what your machine has is the vista list of drivers.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=2093&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=3347795&lang=en

Don't install any, but from that I can see you need
 Realtek Audio Driver
 ATI Video Driver and Graphics Control Center
 Synaptics Touchpad Driver
 Conexant Modem Driver
 Realtek LAN Driver
 Ricoh 5-in-1 Card Reader Host Controller and Driver

Googling on each of those with XP before (Or after) the word driver should yield results.

Terry

 

by: qz8dswPosted on 2007-03-24 at 21:40:53ID: 18787325

BUT in saying that something like Everest will tell you the "chip" or model number for the driver your after so you really need to use something like everest.
You can download Everest here.
http://www.lavalys.com/products/download.php?ps=UE&lang=en

(Sorry forgot to put the link in)

Terry

 

by: mattyfonzPosted on 2007-03-25 at 20:27:25ID: 18790568

i had the same problem with the presario v6204au. they only had vista drivers available for it so what i did was use v6000 series drivers (they still have xp drivers for generic series) and then used the more specific drivers listed under v6204au drivers.

try the same thing with yours, use the b1900 drivers and then for the hardware it hasnt detected with those use the  B1959TU drivers

 

by: mbhhPosted on 2007-03-26 at 01:12:11ID: 18791271

Thank you Matty, that has set me a long way forward. Now I have wireless network running.

I still can't get a dialup modem, or a hibernate function .. any ideas? especially the hibernate please.

 

by: mattyfonzPosted on 2007-03-26 at 17:53:17ID: 18797102

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=228&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&tool=softwareCategory&query=b1900&product=3204847
try that link its for the  b1901tu WIN XP drivers
id imagine your hibernation features would need the right chipset  drivers installed so i think it would be a matter of finding and installing the right drivers.

another link for B1900CTO drivers WIN XP
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=228&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&tool=softwareCategory&query=b1900&product=2512117

 

by: mbhhPosted on 2007-03-26 at 19:42:59ID: 18797533

thanks to you both

 

by: qz8dswPosted on 2007-03-27 at 03:09:35ID: 18798718

No worries.

 

by: mbhhPosted on 2007-03-27 at 05:07:37ID: 18799172

No worries alright mate!

Finally everything works .. after I ran all of the driver install apps (it looks to me like they are exactly the same for B1900CTO and B1901TU) .. had to run a couple of them twice (modem) so presumably there is a critical order for them in the elegant scheme of things.

cheers
mark

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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