Really, really annoying issues...

Hey guys,

I've recently bought a 751h, and while it's great, I'm having a few issues. I promptly upgraded to W7 when I got it, and while the install went fine, I'm not liking the performance. I tried going back to XP, but I get a BSOD at the end of the basic driver load [blue screen, with the specific divers being loaded at bottom-left of screen - doesn't even get to drive format]. I've tried a few different versions of XP that I know are working on other PC's/laptop's [the IT manager at work took a look at the netbook, tried installing his version of bog-standard XPSP3, which he uses on the POS tills if something happens them, and it works 100% of the time - seriously, it's got nothing special about it, apart from it's an XP SP3 version on a U3 USB drive]. I've also tried a few others from rs, etc, and none of 'em work.

Meanwhile, I've bought [and downloaded] a few low-spec games, like Planescape Torment, Independence War, Freespace 2, Haegemonia, Baldur's Gate 1&2, Uplink, Darwinia and Torchlight [I actually already had Torchlight, but as it has a 'Netbook mode' I thought I'd give it a go]. Every single one of these either run like absolute crap, or not at all [some like Indie War have known issues with W7 - part of the reason I'm so desperately trying to go to XP, where I haven't seen any of the issues I'm having]. Now I've ordered a 2GB stick, which should arrive next week sometime, but i can't imagine it doing much good except allowing me more freedom. I'm also getting a bigger, faster HDD, but again, the same thing. Most [if not all] of these game meet the minimum requirements, if not the recommended - so I'm at a loss really]. I've tried reninstalling W7, drivers, the game itself, but all of that has either done next to nothing, or made it worse

The main thing I want to know is, is anyone else having any of these problems with this damn netbook? I feel that if I'm able to just get XP installed on it, majority of the issues would just... evaporate. Some help please?

 

Yeah XP works fine on these things
But it wont install without sata drivers see here:
http://www.digitgeek.com/how-to-slipstr ... nto-xp-cd/
Hope that helps

 

I'm never a fan of upgrading to OSs that have substantially greater resource requirements than the machine was built for, and no particular functionality I'm missing. But now you've ordered more RAM and a faster drive, might as well wait to see if that picks up W7 to your satisfaction. Worst that can happen is you decide to run XP on the better specs.

FYI, XP has always been and still is frisky as hell on my two year old N275 machine (knock on wood.)

 

Right, thanks for the link!

I used to have a ZG5, which I upgraded to Win7, and that worked fairly well. But that's probably because of the extra 300MHz of oopmh it got from the CPU. Really am a loss as to why Acer decided to "bless" it's biggest netbook with the z520 when it's smaller, older brothers have faster versions. The reason I say "used to" have a ZG5 is because I upgraded the RAM to 1.5GB, and the WiFi to an Intel 3100. The Atheros WiFi in the ZG5 doesn't like the Win7 connection manager it seems, and keeps dropping the connection, which I discovered was because of the BIOS version. I quickly proceeded with a BIOS update, only to have it brick on me [Yes it was the correct BIOS version, and yes the replacement 12-Cell battery was full, and it was connected to the wall]. I couldn't send it back for repair, as it had just fallen out of warranty [always the case, eh?], so the aforementioned IT Manager mentioned if he could have a crack at replacing the chip. He failed.


Since I posted the original thread, I've tried various different versions of XP, including one with a slipstreamed SATA driver, and every single version got a txtsetup.sif error [Error Code 18]. I looked into it, and a few problems, that it could've been were that, A.) The RAM was bad [which I thought may have been causing some of the original issues], or B.) The file itself was corrupt. I've tried majority of the versions with both the old 1GB RAM and the new 2GB stick [the netbook is running much better, but mainly allows me to have more open programs - which is handy ], but to no avail. It couldn't be the file is corrupt either, as it happens on every version I've tried recently.
I'm really at a wit's end as what the f**k this is, and it's really, really, really annoying me.

The other thing that's annoying me is the random crashing [I'm trying to recover data on a hard drive, but the netbook doesn't stay idle for more than a couple of hours without this happening]. Anyone know what to do about that?

*EDIT* - I've just tried one of the versions [all are USB btw - no real need for discs anymore, although I will admit they are handy], from within windows, and the Autoplay didn't notice the blatantly obvious 'autorun.ini' on the USB, and when I manually entered the setup, the "Install Windows XP" button was greyed out, and the same for the "Check my system automatically" button under the "Check system compatibly" menu. Which I think is all very strange

On top of that, I've noticed that the likes of Acronis Disk Director, and UltraISO [which are both very handy in the current situation] aren't staying installed. I'm not doing anything to them, in fact once I stop using them, for their intended purposes, I don't touch them, period. It's nothing that causes serious concern, but I've not seen nor heard of this sort of behaviour on any version of Windows to date. It's like some invisible force is preventing me from allowing me do what I truly want to do, but being very... Ninja while doing it. I've run scans with up-to-date versions of Avast! free, and Windows Defender, and they both came back clean, so I'm not sure what to make of it


Any help, or suggestions are greatly appreciated!!!