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RowleyFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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HP IQ500 Drivers

A friend asked me to re-install vista 32-bit (downgrade from 64-bit) to allow him to run a particular piece of software on it.

I am having AN ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE trying to find device drivers for this crappy system. Lord help me, I will chuck this thing out the window and set fire to it whilst doing a jig if I can't resolve this soon.
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When you do the Vista Jig are you making a video for YouTube?

Did you install Service Pack 1?
You should be able to get all the drivers running Windows Update.

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The machine came with 64-bit Vista installed. I mailed HP about it and they said:

"The only drivers we have available can be found at www.hp.com, under the software and driver downloads section.  HP doesn't have many 32 bit drivers for this model as it was only sold with a 64 bit operating system.  Unfortunately HP doesn't provide software support for the 32 bit operating system on this model of Touchsmart computer."

I've downloaded Everest Ultimate from http://www.lavalys.com/ which has helped me identify the hardware (easier than looking at the driver id's in devmgr). Now I just need to hunt about to see if 32-bit drivers exist.

Fun, fun, fun!
You should be able to get all the drivers running Windows Update.

Just because -HP- doesn't have a driver set aside for the 'xyz' chip in -that- system doesn't mean there isn't one in Windows for an 'xyz' chip by now.
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I have already looked in depth at the most obvious port of call hp.com. The drivers there are not the complete drivers for the system. I've found some software that lets me easily identify the hardware in the system (as opposed to drilling down to deviceID's in device manager), this is asides from intel's hardware identification software and a bunch of other stuff.

Running windows update will not work in this case and I'd never trust it with anything but security hotfixes anyway and HP themselves have come back saying THEY don't provide drivers as the system was only shipped and supported with a 64-bit OS. It seems my only option is to identify the hardware and hunt for a compatible driver.

So...what is the objection?
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Apologies, my soul had been crushed and all faith lost. I must be going through the "seven stages of grief" with this one, especially as I know there are another three of these buggers (slightly later model) I need to figure out.

Right now I'm at around stage four...

I've run windows update, will post detail as soon as I can.
>> this model as it was only sold with a 64 bit operating system

That blows, even for HP.   : /
So far basically all you've you've given us is that you can't find drivers for "some devices".

What "some devices"?

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Three issues:

1/ What could be a ralink wireless card:
Device ID PCI/VEN_1814&DEV0781

2/ Unknown multimedia controller:
Device ID PCI/VEN_1131&DEV7160

3/ Unknown device:
ACPI/JAN0100

Any help much appreciated.
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To add...motherboard is an Intel Crestline GM965.
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Yep, alreadyt loaded up the drivers for the Ralink, unfortunately I get an "unable to load driver" error in devmgr. Will give the other two a try tonight. Either way, these devices are never going to be used so i'm ready to throw in the towel with this anyway.

Thanks for the help.
Did you try installing Ralink driver -after- installing chipset drivers?
Depending on which variant it is chipset specific USB/PCI/Card-Bus drivers may be needed for it to load.
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I don't recall. I'm sure I downloaded the drivers for the chipset and installed them, but i'll give it another go, then try loading in the ralink drivers.
Good Luck.
Hold your teeth right!
Software drivers befuddle me too but hardware drivers make a lot of sense.

A hardware driver is basically an OS for an individual IC chip.
The IC chips communicate -through- each other to the PC's OS.
If there is a chip in the middle of the chain that doesn't have it's 'OS' installed then the communication will fail.
Driver install routines often check that the communication works so if some chip in between the new device and the OS isn't 'installed' the device's driver install may choke.

The sequence for hardware drivers is from the main chipset's MCH [Memory Controller Hub] out to the device.
(Something like USB 'chip' that's integrated into the main chipset should be thought of as a discreet IC chip when figuring this out. Same-same with PCI BUS drivers, GPU or GPU BUS drivers.)

So lets say we want to install a USB modem via a USB card in a PCI slot.

The communication sequence is:
MCH -> PCI BUS driver -> USB Chip driver -> Modem Chip driver.

The OS [Windows] may, and probably does, have the USB Chip driver but if the Main Chipset is newer than the OS's [or Service Pack's] build date then the correct PCI BUS drivers may not be present in Windows. If that PCI controller chip is far enough off 'standard' that a generic PCI driver won't work then a link in the middle of the chain is missing and that USB chip and Modem aren't going to function.
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That's why installing the Main Chipset drivers immediately after OS install is so important.
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Managed to get everything bar ACPI drivers loaded. The software intel provide to the public just says...well.. no.
Thanks for everyone's help/input.