Dell Studio XP Drivers?

[dynamitemonkey]

I'm going to get a dell studio 15 laptop, but from all I've read, still not 100% confident of availability of windows xp drivers for this laptop? I want to dual boot just incase Im doing anything hefty on mem (or just don't like vista.) Also, does anyone know if the ati mobility hd3450 is xp compatible?

Cheers

 

[Justin]

A lot of prebuilt resellers are doing the whole "we're not offering Windows whatever drivers" hogwash on their websites, even if the hardware itself is compatible. I've found this with my laptop (Asus F3 series) and with my gaming rig (Asus M2N SLI Deluxe).

Usually, however, if you find the manufacturer of the hardware component itself, you can find some generic drivers or manufacturers drivers that will function.

Considering that Dell has a "switch to XP for $50" option on a lot of their desktops, I imagine you shouldn't have too much trouble.

As for your video card, there are a few sites that specialize in making generic drivers for mobile chipsets. The problem with mobile chipsets is that often a vendor will to lock you into using only their drivers, rather than the OEM drivers from ATI/AMD or Nvidia. That's why those third party sites exist.

I'd worry about the other components of your laptop more than the video card.

 

[dynamitemonkey]

yeh right enough. Id forgotten they offered xp, but less obv now. I think its vista premium with option of downgrade or something. I reckon I'll be ok with 3 Gb mem on vista, but incase not I want to have the option of xp. Esp if vista struggles with some games, or they'd perform better in xp. Plus I'll be doing cad work on it.

suppose sound drivers are one of the main ones to find. Don't mind bout all the secondary things for now like webcam etc

 

[mscrx]

well the dell support pages do not hold any xp drivers for studio 15 laptops. did you already try to install a vista driver in xp or have you checked the hardware vendor pages for other drivers?
sometimes they offer non-cert drivers...