Installing Windows XP Professional SP2 on Acer Aspire 5315-2153 Laptop
This is for all of you who figured the Acer Aspire 5315-2153 (which comes packaged with Vista) would make a great Windows XP Professional notebook, for only $348 + the cost of windows… and then realized you had problems.
We have been receiving a large number of visits from folks with non-English-speaking configurations. As a convenience to visitors, we are offering a machine translation of this tutorial powered by N2H and Google Language Tools: 
There are two methods for getting this to work, one only requires the internet, a few minutes, and a CD burner. The other requires a USB floppy drive.
UPDATE: We’ve got a working modem driver now. Check out the tutorial on getting it up and running (should be installed last).
You’ll probably also need a USB thumb drive for either method, and of course your copy of WinXP.
You may have already tried to install WinXP on this notebook. With the BIOS set to it’s defaults, the WinXP install disk can’t even see it’s Hard Drive, and if you set the hard drive to a non AHCI mode in the BIOS (such as native emulation), you are increasing your risk of data corruption, and at the same time reducing your speed.
These two methods are the correct way to handle the situation, and result in no performance compromises.
NOTE: All data on the hard drive will be erased.
If you experience problems related to .DLL files, try DLLCentral.com for resources and downloads.
The Floppy Method
First we’ll explain the floppy method, as it’s the fastest if you’ve already got the floppy drive and a blank floppy.
Download the floppy creator from here: f6_floppy_maker.zip
Extract the executable from the zip archive, insert a blank floppy, and run the executable, following the prompts to create an “F6 Driver Floppy.”
Attach your USB floppy drive to the new Acer notebook.
In order to be able to boot from the CD, we’ll first need to make a couple of quick changes in the notebook’s BIOS. Click here for instructions on modifying the BIOS settings.
Now boot your notebook from your WinXP install disk. One of the first prompts once the screen turns blue is to hit F6 to use a driver floppy.
Hit F6, insert the driver floppy. Windows won’t really give you any prompt that you’ve done things right, it will just keep installing for a while. After some time, windows will ask you to pick which driver off of the floppy you want — you should choose “Intel(R) 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH8M-E/M).” Be sure to leave the floppy in during the install, as windows will periodically pull files off of it until the installation is complete.
The Windows installer will ask you to where you’d like install Windows XP… follow the prompts to delete all the current partitions, then follow the prompts to create a new partition, and install Windows XP to that. You may chose the “quick format” to speed things up.
After windows is done installing, you’ll need to install some drivers. Acer isn’t providing a driver set for WinXP on this notebook.
We recommend installing drivers in this order:
- Realtek HD Audio Driver
- Intel Chipset Driver
- Intel Graphics Driver
- Atheros WiFi Driver
- Broadcom Ethernet Driver
- Launch Manager
- Touchpad Driver
- Acer Empowering Framework
- Acer ePower Management
Alternatively, you can download all of these (except for the last three) at once in a single 46MB zip file. Remember that these are specific to the Acer Aspire 5315.
The Broadcom drivers must be installed through the device manager, the rest have installation executables which should be used. Sometimes you have to have windows “Update Driver” on an unknown PCI device in order to get the Realtek to work.
We have a working modem driver. Check out the separate tutorial on getting it up and running (should be installed last).
Internet and CD burner Method
The second method is slightly more advanced, and intended for those of you who no longer have floppy drives of any kind. Or at least none of the USB kind.
First download and install nLite.
(Requires .NET Framework 2.0, you’ve probably already got that, but if nLite won’t run, download the .NET Framework)
Now download and extract the slipstream drivers to a folder like C:\Drivers-temp\
Insert your WinXP install disk, cancel out of the autorun if it pops up.
Start up nLite, click next on the splash screen. Tell it where your CD is. It will ask you to tell it where to cache the files at. You can just use a folder like C:\XP-temp\ for that.
On the “Presets” screen, click Next again. Now click on the “Drivers” button, as well as the “Bootable ISO” button, then click “Next”
On the “Drivers” screen, click “Insert”, then “Multiple Driver Folder”. Point nLite to the location where you extracted the slipstream drivers, such as C:\Drivers-temp\ and then click OK.
On the “Select multiple drivers to integrate” window you’ll need to highlight the path at the top (such as C:\Drivers-temp\) by clicking on it once, then click “OK”.
On the “Driver Integration Options” window under “Textmode integration options” highlight the whole list by clicking once on the top item, then shift-clicking once on the bottom item. With that list still highlighted, click “OK” at the bottom.
Back on the “Drivers” screen, click “Next”. The “Apply Changes:” dialog should pop up, asking if you really want to start the process. Click “Yes”.
After the processing completes, you’ll need to click “Next”, at which point you’ll be taken to the final screen.
On the “Bootable ISO” screen, change the “Mode” drop down menu from “Create Image” to “Direct Burn”. Eject your WinXP disk, and insert a blank disk into your burner. For safety’s sake, put a check mark next to “Verify”.
Finally, click Burn.
Congratulations, you now have a proper install disk for the Acer 5315-2153.
Now you’ll need to boot your laptop from that disk. In order to be able to boot from the CD, we’ll first need to make a couple of quick changes in the notebook’s BIOS. Click here for instructions on modifying the BIOS settings.
After it gets started, windows installer will ask you where you’d like to install Windows XP to: follow the prompts to delete all the current partitions, then follow the prompts to create a new partition, and install Windows XP to that. You can chose the “Quick Format” to speed things up.
Follow the rest of the prompts to windows in the usual fashion.
Next, use the following drivers to get all your hardware set up, since Acer is providing only Vista support on this notebook so far.
We recommend installing drivers in this order:
- Realtek HD Audio Driver
- Intel Chipset Driver
- Intel Graphics Driver
- Atheros WiFi Driver
- Broadcom Ethernet Driver
- Launch Manager
- Touchpad Driver
- Acer Empowering Framework
- Acer ePower Management
Alternatively, you can download all of these (except for the last three) at once in a single 46MB zip file. Remember that these are specific to the Acer Aspire 5315.
The Broadcom drivers must be installed through the device manager, the rest have installation executables which should be used. Sometimes you have to have windows “Update Driver” on an unknown PCI device in order to get the Realtek to work.
We have a working modem driver. Check out the separate tutorial on getting it up and running (should be installed last).
Modifying the BIOS Settings
Shut the notebook completely down. Now turn it back on, and as soon as the Acer screen comes up, hit the “F2″ key to enter the BIOS. Navigate to the second page of the BIOS (titled “Main”) by pressing the right arrow key.
You may wish to turn of “Network Boot” by selecting it with your arrow keys and hitting enter, then changing it to disabled. This is often used in a cluster-lab environment, and for normal users only slows down your boot process.
You must now turn on the F12 Boot Menu by selecting it with your arrow keys, hitting Enter, and changing it to “Enabled”
Now switch to the “Exit” page, and hit Enter to “Exit Saving Changes”. The BIOS will ask you to confirm, tell it “Yes”.
Now the notebook will reboot, and you must hit F12 to boot from your CD.
On the “Boot Manager” screen, chose the second option which should be an ATAPI drive, such as a DVD-RW or CD-RW, highlight it with your arrow keys and press Enter.
Back to the Floppy disk method
Back to the Internet and CD burner method
Modem Driver Installation
Extract the Agere modem drivers zip archive somewhere on the Acer notebook.
The links in this list go to step-by-step screenshots! Full album here.
- Click on your “START” menu
- Right click on “My Computer”
- Click on “Properties”
- Click on the “Hardware” tab at the top
- Click on “Device Manager”
- Right click on “Modem Device on High Definition Audio Bus”
- Click on “Update Driver…”
- Click on “No, not this time.” Click Next.
- Click on “Install from a list or specific location (Advanced).” Click Next
- Click on “Don’t Search. I will choose the driver to install.” Click Next.
- In the list on the “Hardware Type” page, highlight “Modems”. You may have to scroll down. Click Next.
- Click on “Have Disk…”
- Click on “Browse” and navigate to where you extracted the Agere Modem drivers. Highlight the “agrmdv32″ file and click Open. Click OK.
- Highlight Agere Systems HDA Modem. Click Next.
- Click Yes on the “Update Driver Warning” dialog.
You should now have a working modem.
YMMV, if these drivers don’t work, try using the Foxconn drivers.
This tutorial was written by IT enthusiast and expert Alex Wells, published exclusively on soulpass.com.
November 10th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Could these be the ACHI drivers for XP?
ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/…tel_v7.5.0.1017_XP.zip
November 10th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Takes a long time. Will let you know if it works.
November 11th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
those are indeed working AHCI drivers, although they appear to be a much older version of the ones we provide on the above article.. those AHCI_Intel_v7.5.0.1017_XP.zip files show 7.0.0.1012 in the actual INF, while ours are 7.8.0.1012
stay tuned for High Definition Audio (HDA) Bus Modem drivers later today, they should be ready in a few hours.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:24 am
does this work
November 12th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Yes, it does.
November 12th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
hi,
does it only work for 5315-2153 or all 5315 models?
got 5315-050508Mi model
thx
November 12th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
the floppy method hang at the second prompt for the disk a: containing the Intel Matrix driver, press Enter and nothing happened, just F3=Quit.
November 12th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Erwin, could you please describe in more detail what led up to that, and the exact error message? If you could post a screenshot that’d be great too…
November 12th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Weapon FR, you should be able to use the same WinXP CD (made with nLite), but you may be lacking a couple of drivers.. if you take it apart and send us high-res pics, we might be able to help with that too… need pics of everything you are missing drivers for, like WiFi card, Modem… (modem is installed -under- the WiFi card on that chassis!).
Realistically, the whole guide should probably work for you -except- the WiFi, Modem, and Card-Reader drivers. I’m not sure whether the card-reader needs drivers. Why don’t you try it and let us know? You’ve got very little to lose.
November 12th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
I tried to install unattended XP Prof SP2 from a CD allready I used before, using the F6 and the floppy driver diskette, the instalation procedure stop after format and copy files, prompt me again for the Intel Matrix driver provided on the floppy, but nothing happened when I press Enter, the usb-floppy drive did not respond and install failed.
I try next install the system with the IDE mode on the Bios Setup, everything s work fine, except the wifi, that is not the Atheros Wireless card; I have the Broadcom BCM94311MCG instead. I downloaded the driver from http://www.x-drivers.com but it won’t work yet, I will try to get another one.
November 12th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Erwin - again, we recommend against “IDE Mode” aka “Native Mode”.. the problem with the “Floppy Method” may just be that you are using an unattended disk. Why don’t you try using a -normal- XP Pro SP2 disk? no reason to add weird factors like an unattended install when you’re obviously going to have to attend it anyway, due to the drivers…
do you have an Acer Aspire 5315-2153, or some other model?
this package is intended for the Aspire 5610z, it should work for your wireless.
Acer Wireless BCM94311MCG
http://www.acerpanam.com/synap…211bg_Broadcom_v4.2.2.7.zip
November 13th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
There’s nothing all wrong with avoiding the whole ACHI mess and just selecting IDE mode. It’s usually faster than ACHI anyway.
November 13th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Merci beaucoup Alex
it works very fine…I only used audio driver from acer’s website and now,adieu Vista et bonjour Xp^^
tell me when you come to france.it’ll be a pleasure to see you
bye!
November 15th, 2007 at 6:37 am
Ok, I keep getting an error when tryign to install the Realtek HD Audio drivers. It goes through the installshield stuff, then the installer bar with the Realtek logo on the left wide pops up. The bar gets about 2/3rds of the way across when it crashes with the message of “Install Realtek HD Audio Failure !!”
That’s it. Nothing else I try will work. I can’t even select “update driver” or “reinstall driver” from the Device Manager, or from when Windows detects there’s a device.
I’ve tried all version:
http://files.soulpass.com/acer/realtek_hd_audio_driver.zip
http://files.soulpass.com/acer/acer_5315_tutorial_allfiles.zip
and the ones from Acer’s web page.
Now what?
November 15th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Hello, wanted to give a great big Thank You. I messed with my Brother in laws Acer for an hour, found this site (installed the Internet and CD burner method) it works great. you saved me hours of the run around on the internet. Folks read this guide step by step and you will be pleased!
November 16th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Thanks for the kind words everyone!
November 16th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Thank you so much for posting this information. I have my Acer ~almost~ perfect. Still missing the High Definition Audio (HDA) Bus Modem drivers. Have you posted that link, yet? Also missing a driver for Ethernet Controller - although my Ethernet connection is currently working. Any idea on what I’m missing there? thanks again for all of your support.
November 16th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Thank you, I have followed the instructions and I have installed windows xp. Now I have a problem, I’ve downloaded the webcam driver “Bison”, “Chicony” and “Suyin”. Only “Bison” driver work, but the image appears turned around. Any idea about this.
Thanks and sorry for my english.
November 16th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
@ Javivi please post a screenshot. Which way is video turned? Rotated or Flipped? Which model Aspire do you have? (5315-XXXX?) Your English is nearly perfect.
@ Kelli. The missing “Ethernet Driver” may be your WiFi, is that installed yet? the HDA bus modem tutorial is on this page, here’s the link to the right section:
http://soulpass.com/2007/11/10/installi…re-5315-2153-laptop/#modem
if that doesn’t work, let us know. what country are you in? different modems are used for different areas! we can help you get the right modem drivers though. are you running an Aspire 5315-2153 or some other model?
November 17th, 2007 at 5:51 am
Attached I send you a screenshot of the problem with my webcam:
http://img266.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture0001ks3.jpg
My Aspire model is 5315-051G12Mi
Thank you
November 17th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Javivi, do you have the Bison camera application installed? if so, try to do this.
Go to the “Options” menu, hit “Video Capture Filter”, then go to “Rotation”. From there, set it to “Vertical Flip”.
November 18th, 2007 at 4:52 am
Ok, I go to “Options” menu, “Video Capture Filter”, “Rotation” and this and another option is not possible to mark, only can to mark “Exposition”
Here you can see a screenshot.
http://img266.imageshack.us/my.php?image=errorwebcamcy7.jpg
Any idea?
Thanks
November 18th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Javivi, it -looks- like you may have the wrong Bison driver installed.
did you run -both- the installers acer provides for Bison, the “camera” and the “application” installers?
it looks like WinXP might have picked the wrong one, and you might have to manually tell it to use a different driver, similar to what we do with the “Modem” driver in this guide. you might have to tell windows to use a “specific” bison webcam driver.
you might also be able to “uninstall” the bison camera, through the “Device Manager” and then let windows re-install it automatically after you restart, and see what happens.
November 19th, 2007 at 7:04 am
I found a whole lot of drivers for this notebook. Many which seem to be for windows xp. Did you get yours from here or are these maybe newer?
http://www.acerpanam.com/syna…D=4579013&CFTOKEN=98236837
Thanks for this great article!
November 19th, 2007 at 8:25 am
THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I put the driver manually similar to install the modem and the webcam works fine.
One question more:
Is possible to put the “empowering technology” software of Acer in Windows XP?
Thank for all.
November 19th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Yonder - our drivers didn’t come from that list. I’ve seen it around the forums, I know that:
- some of our drivers are newer
- some aren’t even on that list at all
- some are probably the same version as on the list
Javivi - I’m glad we’ve got you all up and running now. I honestly don’t know much about the “Empowering Technology” software, unlike the drivers. Now that you have everything -working- right, you should probably set a system restore point before doing any more experimentation!
Are there specific Empowering Technology programs you want?
you could try the ones intended for older variations of the 5000 series notebooks, such as these:
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_5050.html
you could also try the “Vista” programs under WinXP, just to see what happens…
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_5315.html
let us know how you do
November 20th, 2007 at 4:45 am
[Russian text temporarily removed for technical reasons]
November 20th, 2007 at 9:23 am
Hey Everybuddy! Just post this message to thanks this site to exist and all the guys behind… cause I am coming from far away to have my XP running on my Acer 5315! Why is Acer support (ftp)so empty about other Operating system inclulind at least XP!
So thank you all sincerly! Vraiment Merci les amis!
November 20th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
ALEX ROCKS!
The modem is now working, the missing ‘ethernet’ driver was the wireless and my Acer is 100% working. This page is on my favorites - and Alex IS my favorite tech! Thank you, once again, for this amazing forum.
Kelli -> off to create a restore point.
November 21st, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Kelli, jerome, Mikhail… glad you guys are all running now! (at least I think Mikhail is, I can’t speak a word of Russian, but Babelfish -seems- to say that you’ve got it working…)
thanks for the kind words everyone.
November 25th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
When first got my Acer 5315, all efforts to create the restore CD’s have failed. I understand this only will work one time and apparently my machine thinks I have already done this. This leads to 3 questions: 1) Is my hidden restore partition now useless? 2) Will your XP install process remove the hidden partition? 3) Will I still have a C: and D: partition or will it be one larger partition?
November 25th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Bill, I’m not entirely certain, but I think it would be fair to say that your restore partition is now useless. You should be allowed to order replacement restore media from Acer though for a nominal fee, probably around $6-14 (USD). Following this guide for installing Windows XP removes the hidden restore partition, you will have only the C: partition (with the full formatted capacity of your drive, hopefully).
November 26th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Hi, you are the best, all was correct. Thenk You very very mutch.
sorry for bad english.
P.S. CD matod more efective
Giggga
November 28th, 2007 at 7:17 am
After finding a simple hack to re-use the OEM license file and an Anytime Upgrade DVD… I created a custom DVD-RW of Vista Ultimate using vLite. Then I booted with an XP CD to delete the original partitions.
I made restore DVDs first by using a USB2 to IDE cable temp connected to a DVD burner in my desktop PC.
Without the screwed up formatting it had originally (Paragon Partition Manager and other such apps claimed that C: was not only not formatted but it was a 32gig FAT16 partition) it’s MUCH FASTER with Vista Ultimate- minus some of the bloat like Windows Defender.
My first thought when I got this laptop was to install XP, I search for and downloaded all the XP drivers. Then I decided to keep Vista, at least for a while, because I do freelance PC service and eventually I’ll have to help people with Vista problems.
And to my surprise, when the Intel video driver install ran the performance test, it decided it was fast enough to enable Aero Glass. (I may change it, again, to Classic.) Before I “nuked and paved” I used the hack to upgrade to Ultimate and the Intel video driver install *didn’t* detect it as being fast enough for Aero Glass. Acer’s preloaded load of junk and their screwy drive formatting bogs it down a bunch.
BTW, the “hack” to upgrade to Ultimate is “built into” OEM Vista installs! You just run a command prompt as administrator AFTER installing Ultimate with the OEM Ultimate key for your brand of PC- then enter a specific command to reinstall the original OEM license file. (It’s in c:\windows\system32\OEM You should just make a copy of the whole OEM folder.)
No activation required!
Can you say “Microsoft R Dumb”?
November 28th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Perfect- followed the steps as indicated and my new laptop is usable again!
November 28th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
(The laptop is acer aspire 5315.)
This webpage is great but I have a problem.
Firstly I would like to list the method I used to revert to win xp pro from vista. I changed setting in bios to ide emulation to install win xp pro. During installation I notice 3 partitions…C:,D:,F:. A Hidden partition is so rude! I erased partition C: and installed win xp pro on that. I did not delte any other partitions at this time.
Once installed I then booted win 2003 web OS cd to delete the hidden partition and installed the win 2003 OS on partition D: (2 operating systems - win xp on C: win 2k3 on D:). Once win 2003 was up and running I booted from win xp pro cd and deleted both partitions completely and installed a fresh copy of xp pro.
Everything had been working for about 48 hours until now. My parents just got off the phone to tell me that the laptop keeps automatically restarting whilst she’s surfing the web. Immediately I think of hdd instability.
I’m asuming I need to switch back from ide emulation? How do I install the matrix software? There is no floppy drive.
THANKS
November 28th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Robert - honestly, off the bat I might assume that something else was bad, RAM, HDD, or some other component. It doesn’t hurt to check those with the utilities on a CD such as the Ultimate Boot CD (aka UBCD), which is free. I use Memtest86 (under the motherboard tests section) to test the RAM and the IBM/Hitachi Drive Fitness Test (aka IBM/Hitachi DFT) to check the HDD… if you want to check the CPU as well, you can use the Mersenne Prime test (from the Motherboard / CPU section). all that aside… if you just want to jump into reinstalling the “proper” way, you should follow the “Internet and CD burner Method”, it’s really very simple and obviously works perfectly.
if the HDD is bad, I would just buy a new one… anything else, I’d pull the HDD, call acer, get an RMA and mention to them that the HDD contains sensitive data and you may not return it to them… that way they can’t whine about the XP install which really had nothing to do with any CPU failure.
bizzybody - honestly the “last straw” that made me like these laptops are the GMA3100 graphics, which Intel launched in order to allow their onboard graphics to run Aero Glass, which the GMA900 graphics found on most notebooks today is not appropriate for. Other than machines built to play DX10 games (read Crysis, UT3, Bioshock) and a test machine or two, I don’t plan on putting vista on anything I directly oversee for the time being. My 5315 will never have vista, and probably never have any upgrades.. I bought this thing to install XP on it. I hate to be a hard-ass, but have you considered whether your “Vista Anytime Upgrade” trick is legit? eg… everybody loves to say “Oh I have a legit copy of Vista” and have a clear conscience… but are you operating within the terms of your license? if not, then you have an illegitimate copy of Vista, and should not feel any better than if you installed a straight bootleg copy. I don’t intend to be mean, I just want people to consider the implications of their “hacks” vs software licensing…. all those hacks accomplish is keep WGA off your back, not make you Legit, AFAIK. again.. not trying to cut you down, but at the same time I don’t want visitors to get the wrong idea on the legality of that hack.
November 30th, 2007 at 2:32 am
Hi !
I have been searching for info on “upgrading” to XP for an Acer 5610z.
I am the “Chosen One” for installing (destroying), and REALLY don’t want to screw it up. Do the same steps and drivers in the article apply to this laptop? If not, can you help someone who’s mouth has overloaded their knowledge???
November 30th, 2007 at 2:33 am
This is a friend’s laptop, by the way.
November 30th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Hy guys,
Thanks for this page.
As any of you gone for Win 98 SE instead of XP ?
November 30th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
John, that might be a little hard. Honestly, back in the day, Win98 was better, but now… WinXP is better than Win98… why do you need Win98, for what program?
I don’t think Win98 can support most of the features, like the HD Audio, the HD Audio Modem, the WiFi, etc…. Intel does not support using Win98 with the chipsets the Aspire 5315 uses, so…. you’d have to switch SATA to the less desirable “IDE Mode”, then you would install Win98 as normal, but it would be a total mess without Intel Chipset drivers… bad graphics, no sound, no modem, no WiFi, no Ethernet (i think?), no nothing basically… not even sure the touchpad would work.
you might be able to use an older unified package, but I doubt it, and i’m not going to try unless I hear a “really good excuse” for using windows 98…. and i mean -really- good, it has to be enough to get me curious enough to install Win98 on one of my own.
November 30th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Jenny - well, as far as I know, all 5610z drivers are available, I’m pretty certain this page has all of them:
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_5610z.html
the real question here is how to get XP on the thing in the first place… does the XP install disk say “No Hard Drives Found”?? if it shows your hard disk at the beginning of the WinXP installation (like normal), then just install that way (and then use the Acer driver page I linked to right above for all your drivers). If it does -not-, then we need to figure out what SATA controller that thing has… good thing it’s easy to do, right? We’ll need to open the device manager in Vista. Follow these instructions…
Click on the Start Menu
Click on Run
Type in “devmgmt.msc” without the quotes
Hit the Enter key
Click the + symbol next to “IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers” if present
[Carefully type up everything listed under that, post the info here.]
Click the + symbol next to “Storage controllers”
[Carefully type up everything listed under that, post the info here.]
from that we can see what SATA controller you have, then you can follow the nLite portion of our “CD Method” instructions to get rolling. It’s probably running an Intel chipset, if it is… you can just go ahead and follow the instructions outright, with no modifications. If it’s using another controller, we’ll have to modify the instructions a tad for you.
December 1st, 2007 at 4:31 am
Thanks Alex for the answer.
The only good excuse to use win98SE is that I own a legal copy of it …
and as this computer is not mine, I don’t feel like “cheating”. More over, win98SE should use less ressources no ?
This computer is going to be a media box (mp3, avi, jpg, cd and dvd) for my mother, so nothing big. She doesn’t know anything yet about computers.
The idea is, she just need one click on the desktop to view or listen what she wish (Geebox is way to complicated for elderly people).
December 1st, 2007 at 8:44 pm
John - well… yeah, you hit a couple of good points. Legit XP costs megabux if you don’t already have a retail copy to uninstall from another machine. Vista is a steep wall for older folks to climb. Honestly at this point, I think it’s safe to say that Win98 can’t -allocate- enough resources to “use less,” lol. OK that was a mean joke on Win98, but it’s sort of true.. I doubt you would (hypothetically) see much of a speed jump, but since the critical networking drivers won’t go (modem/ethernet/wifi), you’re stuck w/ a newer OS.
and since you already use Geexbox, suggesting Ubuntu or Debian would seem be mostly pointless.. EXCEPT you really might want to look into something like an already stable release (maybe 6.06) of Ubuntu, possibly Xubuntu… free, and a distro like Xubuntu can be (fairly easily) made -painfully- simple looking. there are guides on how to install full codec support, although i’ve personally always ended up using either mplayer or VLC for videos, and XMMS/BMP/Audacious (the second 2 are just newer forks of XMMS1) since I can’t get the default players to do work.
older folks seem to be less scared of it if it looks like a cross between Win95 and MacOS 7.5, know what I mean?
http://www.xubuntu.org
Xubuntu is supposed to be really fast, people always brag about how fast Xfce (the window manager / desktop environment Xubuntu uses) is… I normally run Ubuntu so I couldn’t say for sure, other than what I said above.. XFCE can be made to look very oldschool and friendly. worth a try at least.
there are already big discussions elsewhere on the internet about getting WiFi and HD-Audio Modem (don’t hold your breath on the modem I think) to work in Ubuntu, i’m not all that sure what the results were.
be sure to turn Multiple Desktops down to 1, to prevent frantic phone calls in the night about solitaire games suddenly going missing…
be interested to know what you settle on. if you choose to attempt a 98 installation (using IDE Mode), feel free to ask for help getting things to work (if it’s possible)… i’m just not going to do it on any of mine.
December 1st, 2007 at 10:52 pm
I couldn’t dig Audio codec for Aspire 5315 050508Mi but Acer Aspire 5315-052G16Mi has Realtek LC203 (”Advanced AC’97 Rev 2.3 Audio CODEC”).
This is not HD audio, at least not Intel HD?
Which mean the modem is also not HD?
Anyone knows which codec 5315 050508Mi use?
Realtek v.0.1.5413 or5443 maybe?
December 2nd, 2007 at 4:57 pm
bob - you are correc,t AC’97 is -not- HD Audio (which is an intel standard, anything else is just marketing… the Realtek HD Audio stuff all follows the Intel HDA standard). you’ll want to have the sound drivers installed before you mess with the modem either way though: AC’97 modems exist as well as HDA modems!
i’d try the HDA installer first, it carries some older AC’97 drivers as well, unless I am mistaken. if that doesn’t work, post back.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Alright, I’ve been wanting to install XP on my Acer 5315 since I first purchased it. I haven’t gone through with it yet but I’ve read about the install procedure and I’m going to give it a try later tonight. I’ll post again if I run into any issues along the way. Thank you guys for all your hard work, and I hope this works out well.
Fall3n ~
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Guys, Thanks for all the hard work putting this together, used the CD methoid and worked like a charm, saved me hours of endless searching.
-Cross
December 4th, 2007 at 9:56 am
Thanks for the drivers, Alex. I already had installed by selecting IDE over AHCI in BIOS. Any alternative solutions regarding the ethernet port? Mine doesn’t seem to get all the DHCP settings correctly from its cable modem connection. Also had to find a touchpad driver so I could disable the tapping. Any clues why a USB mouse on this might hang frequently?
December 4th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Just wondering if any of you are having the overheating/shutdown problem?
It appears that you need the Acer ePower Management utility that part of the Empowering Technology Suite to control the CPU fan properly. What I was experiencing, which was confirmed by Acer and other forums, that when the computer awoke from being suspended(sleep mode) the CPU fan would no longer run. Causing the CPU to slowly overheat and finally causing the computer to shutdown.
I was able to make this happen in XP and Vista (when I unloaded the Acer ePower Management Utility).
-Richard
December 4th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Alex , my man , you are number one….
you really give us golden informations about 5315…
December 4th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Have tried this and I have installed xp, thanks, but the audio drivers do not work. Which audio drivers has everyone used? thanks
December 5th, 2007 at 8:06 am
OK my ISP caused “ethernet” prob and a new USB mouse resolved mouse prob so we’re good to go. Thanks again, Alex.
December 5th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
hi…
can i ask a question to you Alex ??
At the start of second method we make a proper install disk for the Acer 5315,ok,but i couldn’t understand when or where we’ll use the proper install disk ???
Before installing Windows XP or after finished installation XP ???
I apologize for my grammar
thank you so much….
December 5th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Kimi - the second method (”Internet and CD burner Method”) actually makes a -new- XP install disk. you need to install XP off of that, instead of a normal XP install disk!
Paul - good stuff, glad everything ended up being simple issues.
James - Audio drivers -do- work. You (probably) do not have an Acer Aspire 5315-2153, please post your actual model number… otherwise your download must be corrupt, or.. who knows? either way, post up with more info. if it -is- an Aspire 5315-2153, post up about what store you bought it from, what country you were in at the time, etc.
Cross - glad everything went smoothly.
Fall3nPutz - hope everything goes smoothly.
Richard - wow, i had no idea… i’ve played around with mine a -lot-, and managed not to notice this behavior…. until you pointed it out. From my brief tests, it appears that if you put it to sleep while the fan -is- spinning, it will continue to work after you wake it up. if you put it to sleep with the fan -not- spinning, it will not work when you wake it up. I am taking a look at solutions right now. Thanks again for pointing out this debilitating flaw!
December 5th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
This Tutorial helped solve all of my problems, Headaches and Hassles, getting rid of (”Vista the nagger”) And all of the unwanted crap that comes with a “store - bought puter”. Even though my XP Pro disk was sp1 and all the updates and sp2 took a few minutes to download from good OL “Billy-Bob Gates” all went well!! Now that Windows is all updated and SET I will download the slipstream drivers and create a New Bootable DVD with this EXCELLENT tutorial.
Thanx Alex
December 6th, 2007 at 3:30 am
Do the Intel Matrix Storage (SATA) drivers work with the Intel Celeron Processor that is in the 5315?
Also I’m considering keeping Vista, but how do I install the SATA drivers for that operating system? The Intel website states that the F6 method does not apply to Vista. I guess you’re supposed to be able to use USB, or a CD with the drivers. Alex do you know about this? I’d appreciate your help.
IDK if it would help anybody or not, but you may be able to find drivers on the acer euro ftp site.
December 6th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
zapped the vista off my 5610Z & loaded up XP Home following your instructions and everything is almost fine.
Exception that I have 2 drivers that show up in device manager that I cannot find, “Ethernet controller” & “Modem Device on High Definition Audio Bus”. I burned all the driver downloads available for the aspire 5610Z off the Acer support website onto a CD but the device search for the missing drivers did not turn anything up. I’d appreciate if anyone could help resove the remaining device issues but I really have to thank you for all the great instructions which were provided.
December 6th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
I too am having the problem that Richard reports (I suspect all of you are, you just might not have noticed.) There is a good thread on the ubuntu forums ( http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=604158 ) but unfortunately, no good news or solution. I called Acer and of course they had no ideas and asked me to send it in. I am not sending it in because I figure I will get the same Vista+Acer Software back from them.
Other than this one issue, the solution listed here worked fine. My coworker bought the same laptop at the same time as me. He is constantly complaining about Vista, while my machine hums along. I figure at this point, its better to let it fall asleep when in battery mode, then I can wake it up, save anything I was working on and reboot rather than letting it overheat and lose data. Even with this inconvenience, I’m much happier with XP than I was with Vista.
Hope we get a solution, but I’m not being overly optimistic at this point. Thank you for this guide though…super helpful! Cheers!
December 6th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Carl, the 5315 comes bundled with Vista, and working SATA drivers. This tutorial is actually just for those who want to “upgrade” the 5315 with XP… If you want to keep Vista, you should be good with the laptop out of the box and won’t have any use for the files in this tutorial.. Just filling in for Alex on this one…
December 7th, 2007 at 4:39 am
I have successfully installed WinXP Pro on my 5315-2153. I played with Vista for a couple of days and decided it was horrible. I get the ‘no fan’ problem too. I’ll be cruising along just fine, then all of a sudden it just shuts off. I wait few minutes, then it restarts with no problem. Hopefully there will a solution to this problem soon. Is there any software that will allow me to control the fan? Is there any advantage to AHCI over IDE drives? Great website BTW!
December 7th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
-Could WIN98SE run on 5315 from inside of some Virtual Machine running on XP?
(sorry to bother with 98 again, just for IE5)
December 7th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Bob, that would probably be the best idea…
As far as I know, Virtual PC 2007 is a free download.
December 7th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Dan thanks for the response, but I guess I didn’t make myself clear enough. What I’m wanting to do, is scrap the ACER installation, and reload My own personal Vista operating system utilizing the full capacity of the HDD rather than having recovery partitions.
So basically I’m doing the same thing that all of you are doing except I’m choosing to use Vista.
In regards to the overheat issue that I’m hearing people talk about, I heard that the BIOS update will resolve that problem. I believe that you need to install version 1.19
December 7th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
sorry I can’t reply to everybody just now, maybe tomorrow.
bob/dan - a virtual machine may be a -bad- solution to the Win98 problem, as you will still not have drivers for jack shit. you might want to look into a full blown pc emulator, i’m not really sure. then again, you can at least -try- a virtual machine, and see where you get.. I just don’t see how you’d get drivers for most of the stuff going. post back here with any interesting findings of course, please.
carl - where did you hear that the BIOS update takes care of the overheating issue? i’d love it if it did, but I’ve only heard the -opposite-. the BIOS update does nothing in that regard, I am told. I suppose I may try it myself to see, but Acer seems to have a bit of a history of weird ACPI implementations, such as that one. on the other stuff: I’ll be straight with you. You do not have the experience, motivation, or communications skills to play around with this stuff. most people would not translate “considering keeping Vista” as “considering re-installing Vista from scratch”. furthermore, asking if SATA drivers are compatible with a celeron is universally stupid, to steal a phrase from the character Cereal Killer (Hackers, 1995). in no way is installing Vista similar to what “all of [us] are doing”. installing Vista should be a cakewalk, for most people installing XP on this has turned into a pain (until they read this handy guide, of course). if you -do- unwisely choose to handle this yourself, be sure to net the drivers -and- empowering technology software from the acer support site, you’ll need the empowering technology framework and power management utility to keep the notebook happy after it returns from sleep. dan replied to you out of the kindness of his heart to spare you my wrath
for the stupid questions, then you go and stir up the wrath again.
for the people who are =supposed= to be here (the people installing WinXP on the damn things!)…
we’ve got working Acer Empowering Technologies Framework and Acer Power Management software, this solves the fan/sleep/heat issue just as well as it does in Vista. just a matter of getting everything ready to post. it’s not the solution I want, believe me. I hate running extra bloat just to make a friggin’ -sleep- function behave… I was hoping to find other resources. no such luck for now.
anyone who knows about it, let us know about the 1.19 BIOS update though… if that preempts running stupid software, i’d love it.
and I pity all the linux folks who can’t use it w/ sleep on the acer just yet… i’m sure they’ll get new Acer ACPI modules to handle it soon, where we’ll be stuck w/ Acer Empowering technology. anyway, this will get worked on tomorrow.
sorry for all the people who didn’t get answered, i’ll have to go back over and look at comments again tomorrow… on the positive side, i don’t think any of the people who I have yet to answer asked anything too annoying.
December 8th, 2007 at 12:58 am
Sorry to upset you, but the only question I had was about the SATA drivers. The Acer downloads website has them for XP, but not Vista. I also had to scour the web to find the modem driver.
If you can’t answer me, then that’s fine. But if you’re interested I can get you the information about the BIOS update.
December 8th, 2007 at 4:07 am
Alex,
I was using BIOS 1.19 and I was still was experiencing the fan problem that I first reported here. I talked to Carl, a 2nd level support specialist at Acer, and he confirmed that BIOS 1.19 did not fix this problem. He basically said that you needed to use their bundled ePower Management utility. By the way, I upgraded to 1.19 because it was proported to solve an issue with a jumpy touchpad I was having (which by the way it did improve).
I’m glad you found a solution to this fan problem even though you have to use Acer’s bloatware. Unfortunately, after having to make a XP boot disk, then getting all the drivers working, then installing my apps, then having the shutdown problem, then researching the problem on the web, then restoring Vista, then confirming the necessity of their bloatware, then calling Acer, then installing XP again, then trying fan utilities like speed fan and others, I decided times up. I got Walmart to return my 5315 (which did amaze me since I had it 30+ days and they have a 15 return policy on computers). Now I’m (kinda) happily using Vista on my new Sony Vaio VGN-NR160E/T.
On a positive note, Acer’s tech support was really responsive (aside from not being able to fix the fan issue - I blame Acer design team, not their tech support department for the problem). I explained my problem to their 1st level support person, they quickly forward me to a 2nd level tech who was able to confirm my suspicions. The whole call lasted 15 minutes.
December 8th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
First of all, I want to say thank you for posting the instructions on how to roll back to Windows XP on the Acer 5315 laptops. I did not like Vista too much, but needed XP for work purposes more than anything. I too have installed the 1.19 bios update, and it definitely did not address the overheating issue. I am thrilled to know that many others are having this issue, and it is not just me. I do not want to run the extra software of the Empowering Technology, but am willing if this fixes the problem. So thank you for the help that you have provided.
December 8th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Barry - have you tried these? ftp://ftp.work.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_5610/driver/ those should be the WinXP drivers… it’s still possible that neither of those drivers are the correct HDA modem drivers, just let us know what you find out.
Jake - you are not experiencing the “fan problem” it is totally normal for the fan to shut off and cut back on. do not worry about it. if the fan doesn’t come on regardless of heat, then -that- is a problem. we are discussing a specific behavior, please re-read the earlier posts for details. on the other thing: some people seem to be doing just fine in IDE mode, but in the past that sort of thing has lead to data corruption. I see no reason to risk it when the CD method posted here is so easy. on the same note, plenty of people on the forums seem to be happily chugging away in IDE mode. they probably still come to us for drivers though, heh.
Richard - thanks for the confirmation on the 1.19 BIOS… I doubt i’ll be upgrading after you and ryan confirmed that it doesn’t help… I use a USB Keyboard and pointing device, the performance of the built in ones is largely irrelevant to me at this point (although I am glad to know that Acer tightened that right up, of course). I don’t blame you a bit on taking the thing back… I’m pretty disappointed in having to run extra bloat, like I said. makes the wal*mart deal seem as much -less- appealing as that GMA3100 made it sound -more- appealing. as far as the Acer support.. i’ve had good dealings with them, and the factory parts are -uber- cheap. Sony is the inverse on parts, but at the same time they don’t build stupid ACPI quirks into their hardware, and on the whole I really like their notebooks.
Ryan - thanks for the praise, and again thanks for the confirmation on the 1.19 BIOS update. I know the feeling on the whole “oh good, it’s not my fault, I have not created some -insane- scenario no one has heard of before” business.
GEEZER - hope everything goes smoothly, sounds like you are primed and ready though.
December 8th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Check this link out. There’s a person on here that says the update seems to help. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=191737
December 9th, 2007 at 1:50 am
I “rolled back” my 5315 to XP using the slipstream method…worked like a charm. I also experienced the overheating problem described here. I resolved it by downloading and installing a program called “Notebook Hardware Control” (http://www.pbus-167.com) and experimenting with different settings. My notebook CPU is now holding a steady 45-50c degrees. It’s been a couple of days since I did this and I have had zero problems with standby/logon-logoff/shutdown/hibernate in any sequence and the have really tried to put it through the paces. I would still be interested in learning of an XP implementation of the Acer Power Management bloatware if one is found. Will check back often. Thanks Alex….you made this process a snap!
December 9th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Dear, Alex.
Thanks for solutions provided for XP installing on Aspire 5315. After a few tries all drivers are installed and work fine. But one problem on my Acer Aspire 5315-052G16Mi (for any case I put all model name) is not till solved. I can’t get to work touchpad below keyboard, while USB mouse works fine. I’ve tried all possible drivers offered by U and others- for XP (few older versions) and even for Vista. It still does not work, I’m getting thinking that it’s corrupted.
Can U advice me something else.
Best regards,
Andrew, Kiev
December 9th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Found the modem driver (must have skipped over it on the install.) Down to finding the “Ethernet controller” driver. Otherwise everything up and running smoothly for now.
Still using Vista on another Aspire 5610 Laptop, I cannot believe what a pain Vista is! In explorer each time you change directories and if the directory contains alot of files, it can take a couple of minutes for the files to show up (It’s thinking like the hourglass icon in XP) I don;t know what it is checking for before generating the file list but it really sucks and the need for permissions to do virtually anything is absolutely rediculous.
December 9th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Barry - you need to try the “Lan Driver Broadcom” drivers listed on that FTP link from my last post, those should be your Ethernet drivers.
Andrew - I will upload a Synaptec/Alps driver package, it has “Touchpad detect.exe” have you tried that already? Daniel can post a link later, after I upload it. It seems strange that it did not work “out of the box” after you installed XP. Maybe you need to check “Device Manager” and see what you find there?
Bill C - interesting findings, I may have to check that utility out. I meant to take a look at the recent notebook utility article on Overclockers.com, http://overclockers.com/articles1485/ I guess I’ll take a look at that soon.
In the mean time, I’ll get that acer power management stuff uploading, although I must leave immediately after I start this upload.. maybe when daniel stops by he’ll see the files and post the links here. you must install the empowering framework first, or power management won’t install.
December 9th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Alex, thanks for assisting,
The matter is that I did not find Synaptec/Alps driver package at this site. I used floppy method and zip file with all drivers (46 M) listed bellow. Earlier I tried to install this driver using my CD with Vista, links with XP drivers of older 5000 models listed by U bellow. Can U put here a link where touchpad driver is?
Everything is allright with Device Manager - no conflicts. It shows HID mouse (with Microsoft Windows Publisher driver, 5.1.2600.0 version) and PS/2 mouse (already with Synaptics driver, 8.3.0.0 virsion) .
Your help will be highly appreciated, I’ll be waiting for upload link.
Thanks
P.s. Sorry for possible misstakes, I’ve got tired.
December 9th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Looks like Dan’s added the Touchpad drivers to the downloads list, as well as the 2 Acer software installers… hopefully that should set everyone straight.
Andrew - hopefully the new Synaptics driver will work for you. please note that the touchpad may be “turned off” somehow. check for keyboard shortcuts to disable the touchpad, as well as check the Synaptics control panel after you install the touchpad drivers.
everybody else… let us know how the acer software works for you. from what I’ve seen, these are the newest XP versions. for those of you who “tried” the vista install that these notebooks came with (I didn’t… heh), how similar is this to the latest (2.5) version(s) for Vista? I kind of assume that 2.0 series for XP and 2.5 series for Vista are the same??
December 10th, 2007 at 8:17 am
[Russian text temporarily removed for technical reasons]
December 10th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Thanks a lot. It’s a shame for me to recognize, but I did know that there is the button combination on keyboard that switchs on touch pad (it is displayed in blue on keyboard).
Thanks again for pointing and assistance very much)))
December 10th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Can anyone tell me if I can put Windows XP Pro X64 bit edition on the acer notebook 5315, and if u can what drivers do I need?
Thanks a ton,
December 10th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Andrew - no problem, glad you are all straight now.
Anonymous - the “Conroe-L” core that the 5315 uses (aka the newest Celeron M) features the EM64T instruction-set… so as far as I know: Yes, WinXP Pro 64bit should be able to work. Do you have a good reason to run WinXP 64bit? I’m not going to waste a lot of time getting you drivers if you are just installing it on a whim. Offhand, I’d say that the Realtek HD Audio drivers and maybe the realtek ethernet drivers will work, and probably all or most of the Intel drivers. Again, -why- would you want to put yourself through the hell that is WinXP 64bit Edition??
December 11th, 2007 at 2:45 am
I allowed XP installation on my 5315 simpply by setting in BIOS to IDE mode… Everything works fine, but the audiu, it always gives me an error while installing, I tried in safe mode also, but nothing. There is a yellow question mark in the device manager on the HD audio driver, but it doesn’t let me uninstall or update driver at all. Any idea what to do?
December 11th, 2007 at 4:01 am
Now that I checked it better, my laptop is actually a 5315-051G12Mi and it actually came with a Linux instead of the Vista
Could this be the answer to my audio problems? If so, what now? XP will stay even with no sound, I’m decided about, but I’d prefer of course to have the sound working.
December 11th, 2007 at 7:58 am
Mate, I have been trying to install the wireless, audio and modem (dial up) for ages and mate you advice was great and it worked heaps well, Thanks so much merry christmas mate. Great work p[utting this info together. Thanks again Ian
December 11th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
[Russian text temporarily removed for technical reasons]
December 12th, 2007 at 9:46 am
@maksim: http://files.soulpass.com/acer/f6_floppy_maker.zip
this is the zip file that contains the needed F6 driver.
ovo je link do zip fajla. kada ga raspakujes, dobijas exe koji pravi floppy sa drajverima. srecno!
@alex: thank you for this tutorial, i wish i found it before..
I guess I did it all the hard way, except for the ahci driver (installed it in ide-mode).
I have heard of the method of changing the iso file, but (back then) it seemed like a too much work. Maybe I’ll give it a try, but my question is: is there a way to install ahci drivers AFTER the ide install? I guess not, but wanted to check with an expert..
another issue: I installed ubuntu, and now using triple-boot, and I was having overheating issue, so I’ll try solutions found here in xp and post back.
thank you for the info about bios update, i was wandering if that would help…
and sorry for my bad english…
December 12th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Thank you for this great page!!!
With your help I have spared a lot of time with installation.
The most strange was the soundcard, it has been detected only at the end of the drivers installation.
One remark: step 8 and 9 should be changed, as the installer of the epower management asking to be installed after the empowering framework. But before installing empowering framework .net framework 1 should be installed (at least the installer is complaining this…)
December 12th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Maksim,
Po angliski vse napiseno na etoy stranitse naverh…
December 12th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Wanted to say thank you for providing these drivers, and page. Thank you very much
December 12th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Hi! A friend of mine is interested in downgrading to XP on a 5315 aspire, so I started googling and found this great guide! We haven’t tried anything yet, I’d better be extra sure cause it’s not my laptop.
About the switching the hard drive mode to IDE, I read hear that you can switch it back to AHCI by installing proper software.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=185975
Any news on that heating problem? I guess that’s the main reason why I haven’t performed the installation yet…!
December 12th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Thank You very very much !!
I used the Web - CD method on my new Travelmate 6292 and it worked fine and frst time. Out with Vista In with XP
Your guide was so well written and easy to follow
Your a Legend !
December 12th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Any idea how could I solve my sound problem? I still couldn’t figure out why I can’t install the the realtec HD driver…
December 12th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Boti - sounds like you have a corrupt download. re-download the Realtek HD Audio drivers. also post details on the error you are receiving.
Ian Graham - thanks for the props, good to hear that you are running smoothly.
Maxim - is our machine translation -that- bad? I was hoping that it would be at least mostly understandable, but it sounds like you can’t really understand what we are saying in the article.
camypaj - thanks for posting to Maxim… if the machine translation of the article is not good enough, there’s not really a good way for me to explain things to him. As luck would have it, it seems that Vagelis has beaten me to the punch on addressing -your- question: you -can- switch to AHCI mode after installing in IDE mode. If -I- were doing it, I would install from scratch instead. The method where you modify the ISO (slipstream the drivers) is actually -super- easy, and fast. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=185975 is exactly what I was going to link you to in reference to switching modes though. I’d say most of the advice and drivers from there are supplanted by our article, but they discuss switching from IDE Mode to AHCI mode, which is what you want to do. There is currently no fix that I know of for the 5315-2153 in Linux, but AFAIK our acer software should work fine in WinXP. The easy solution is never to put the notebook to “sleep” when you are in Ubuntu… just start it up and shut it down. that way the fan will never have a problem. your english is fairly good, nothing to apologize for I’d say.
anon - we’ll get the order there fixed straight away (just a typo). maybe we should mention something about the .net framework being required, I meant to mention that and then completely forgot. thanks for bringing it up, and thanks for the compliments!
Justin - you’re welcome. let us know if you run into any issues.
Vagelis - you can switch back to AHCI mode after installing, but that’s one of the things I dread the most. -if- I were to install in IDE Mode, I think I’d stay that way… I’m just not comfortable making a switch like that. that said, nobody seems to have had any issues following the proceedures you linked to. I read that thread a while back, and nobody has posted with explosions or anything. as far as the heat issue though.. I didn’t notice it until it was pointed out to me, and I haven’t had time to mess around with my own equipment in some time. I’m pretty sure that the software we posted fixes the issue for WinXP, and nobody has posted with complaints.. whatever that means.
Dragon - that’s great, glad to see that everything is working for you.. you’ve got all drivers installed?
December 13th, 2007 at 2:29 am
Thanks a lot, everything worked perfectly!
December 13th, 2007 at 3:52 am
THIS IS A WARNING TO EVERYBODY! When you run Windows Vista or Ubuntu/Linux or Windows Vista without the Acer ePower utility, your notebook will overheat and switch off by a safety device (this applies to the whole Gemstone range and other Acer notebooks which are supplied with Windows Vista). However, this will eventually cause damage. to your notebook. Myself and other members of the notebook review community have contacted Acer and had this confirmed by their technical support. Acer is not willing to supply a fix for this obvious design fault and until they do you MUST MAKE SURE to switch off any setting to sleep mode and hibernation mode in the Windows Power Menu when you run another OS on your Acer. The ePower utility is not available for Windows XP and Linux/Ubuntu, so if Acer does supply a fix it will be only for Windows Vista. Because I want to run Windows XP, I will return my Acer 5315 as not “Windows Vista compatible” and will purchase Fujitsu or Toshiba with similar specs for similar price (the only shortcoming are the missing S-Video socket and shorter battery life but all XP drivers are available from their web site). I hope this information will help to prevent damage to your Acer notebook.
December 13th, 2007 at 7:24 am
peter - you are an idiot.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:45 am
This drivers is worked for acer aspire 5715Z?
December 13th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Alex, Thanks again for this tutorial, worked like a charm, I did have a glitch “slipstreaming” the drivers, and had to load them individually. After The acer was up and running I created a bootable unattended CD with Winlite, slipstreamed SP2 and the drivers…….wiped it clean (fdisk & format ) again ( just cause
) Voila! A nice clean XP PRO OS!!!!!!! SHWEEEET!!!! Now for 2 unrelated questions… 1) Compaq V5207NR…XP Home OS…2 gigs RAM,— msg b4 boot, HD failure is imminent press F1 to start, I know HD tripped SMART from HEAT..Have flashed bios ….didnt cure…any suggestions? 2) S-Video worked fine for a while, now only outputs black and white to TV….any suggestions? Thanks again Alex, Not only for this info, but also for the time you spend helping us “wanna be” incompetent techs.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Robert N - good stuff!
flox[BG] - hard to say. You will have to try and see. We do not have any Acer Aspire 5715Z notebooks to test with. You may email Daniel if you have an extra notebook to ship to us. If you do not have an extra one, feel free to try what we’ve got, and post back if you are still missing a few drivers.
Geezer - sounds good, nLite is amazing. what manufacturer on that compaq’s HDD? you may be able to reset things using the official utility. I’m not too sure, but knowing that would help. you could also just disable SMART… have you wiped the CMOS settings? no clue on the svideo, I honestly haven’t even bothered to test on mine. when you say black and white… do you mean grayscale? or just 1-bit black-on-white?? have you tried a separate s-video cable? IIRC, that could have something to do with it. any torque been put on the s-video socket on the laptop? good luck. helping people is fine, it’s the ones who cannot read that bother me (see below).
peter - to clarify: you need to read. we are just wrapping up a discussion on that issue… why don’t you TRY THE POSTED SOLUTION instead of writing warnings in all caps.
to EVERYONE - I certainly hope you realize that letting your notebook overheat over and over is a HORRIBLE idea. please do not do that. please just install the provided utilities for WinXP, -or- if you run Vista, install the Vista versions of the utilities (from acer). -or- if you are running Linux/Unix then -please- disable sleep and hibernation until the someone fixes the Acer ACPI package to deal with this issue.
if you just “live with” the issue and let the notebook overheat, you -will- cause problems.. overheating issues are thought to be more damaging to newer machines built with ROHS compliant solder (the newer ROHS compliant solder is more susceptible to cracking… when the notebook heats and cools down to/from such extremes, it puts stress on the solder joints and can make BGA components come loose underneath. blah blah blah.. bottom line: do not let it overheat. duh.
December 13th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Alex, HD mfg.,Seagate 60gb, used their utility, passed all tests, flashed bios.etc…really a non issue..on S-video I meant greyscale,have tried 2 diff cables….torque on socket..most likely and probably.( knowing my lil brother ) Bios ,as I remember is really sparse for choosing/changing/tweaking/or enabling/disabling much except for the basics. But i will take another “look” at it this weekend. Thanks again for your input.
December 13th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
Have already zeroed out Hitachi hard drive with Hitachi DFT utility….have cd burner….winxp pro will not install…..dos6.22 will not install…..also, tried Win98 and WinMe setup disks…..have used both drive modes in the bios….to no avail…..Could use some advice!!!!!!!!……Acer Aspire 5315 Notebook…….ALSO, Why is Acers’ Notebook different??????
Thanks
December 14th, 2007 at 7:28 am
Hi Alex,
in device manager I have a yellow exclamation mark at “audio device on HD audio bus”, and it is written that “the drivers for this device are not installed”. It does not react when I click on “update” or “reinstall” the driver, and when trying to uninstall it gives me “Failed to uninstall the device. The device may be needed to boot up the computer”.
Everything else works fine, all the drivers mentioned in the article are installed, including the wireless. I don’t have any clue what else to try…
When trying to run the Realtec WDM driver setup seems that everything is fine at the beginning of the installation process, but at the very end, when the progress bar is almost done it gives an error message “Install Realtec HD audio driver failure”. I downloaded once again the driver, but it gives me the same error
December 14th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Hi Alex,
You are doing a great job here! Question: I only have a XP SP1 cd at my disposal. I have actually set my hard drive to Ide and XP runs smoothly but I’d prefer to do a clean install using your method. Do I absolutely need an XP Sp2 disc to perform this install?
One more thing: this is the second aspire 5315 on which I install XP. The first didn’t give any problems, I found the drivers for the Atheros WLAN card easily. The second laptop though has a broadcom 4321AG 802.11 b/g WLAN card, and finding a working driver took very much time. I finally found it here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewf…ct=499849&os=228&lang=fr
December 14th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
tumblehome - Good job dredging up the broadcom driver, i’m sure that will be usefull to other 5315 owners. as far as I know, you don’t have to have an SP2 disk to use this method (although I haven’t tried, I don’t actually have one.) As geezer mentioned above, if you -want- to, nLite can actually slipstream SP2 (using the SP2 redistributable download from microsoft) as well as the SATA drivers. that’s probably the best course of action for you, not that I think installing SP1 would hurt anything, but you’ll need SP2 right away anyway, might as well slipstream it.
Boti - You are certain that you have installed the Intel Chipset drivers?
jim - you need to RTFA. by which I mean: please read the -entire- article on this page. It will teach you what you need to know.
Geezer - well, 3 things:
1. have you looked through the “Display Properties” -> “Settings” -> “Intel(r) Graphics Media Accelerator” -> “Graphics Properties” section, it has many settings, and while I am not in front of a notebook with Intel GMA on it at the moment, I hope you may find a setting there.
2. One individual on the internet mentions connecting the S-Video cable -before- you boot the machine up, and while he was running Linux, it still may prove a valuable tip. plus it’s easy to try, heh.
3. in order to -really- reset the CMOS settings, if you got ambitious.. here’s what I’d recommend. some people do not follow all these steps, but extra caution probably won’t hurt you here, so: Remove the power adapter. remove the notebook’s main battery. Remove the RAM. look under every panel on the notebook, see if you can find the small clock battery. if not, you’ll have to disassemble the notebook. once you find the small clock battery, remove it as well. now hold down the power button for a solid 60 seconds. now you may put the clock battery back in, as well as the RAM and the main battery, and finally the power adapter. after this process, any saved cmos settings will hopefully have disappeared.
hope some of that helps, although the prospects aren’t so great at the moment. i’m sort of doubtful about ever getting rid of the SMART warning until you replace the hard drive, but the CMOS reset may help, who knows.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Great work Alex. When I add the drivers in the “Select multiple drivers to integrate” step of nLite, how many items should I be selecting? Thanks.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
谢了
December 15th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Doh. Disregard the last question. I figured it out. Thanks again, Alex.
December 15th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Thanks for the quick reply Alex. Install worked fine with the XP SP1 disc.
Merci et à bientôt!
December 15th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Alex, Thanks for the speedy response :)…..been there done that on all points….cept the extreme clear cmos by pullin battery and finding the clear cmos jumper (holding power button for 60 secs is new to me as a method for clearing it….will remember that tip…lol..sounds easier than crossing those jumper pins with a paper clip …roflmao ) will tolerate the imminent HDD failure warning…and replace it when needed..S-Video I give up ..Ill just get him a 19″ monitor for Christnas and tell him to use HDMI….hehehehehe. Thanks again
December 15th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
I honestly thank you very much for this page. Invaluable help. I am not an expert and would not have been able to get through this without your ready made recipe.
Best regards,
ervin sperla
December 15th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
ervin/tumblehome - glad everything’s working.
travis - at some point Dan will probalby moderate/approve my response which comes somewhere in between.. stupid spam-catcher system. good thing you figured it out on your own, heh.
曾喜 - You are welcome!
Geezer - yeah, the power button thing is actually usually done in conjunction with other actions… it’s purpose is to clear capacitors on the motherboard or power supply which may (and sometimes do) retain energy and supply power to volatile RAM (like the cmos or system RAM). so you can use that trick in a couple of ways.. systems which are “acting up” can sometimes be “cold booted” in a harder way than just “shut down and turn it back on” if you have them “shut down, unplug cord [+remove battery if it’s a notebook], hold power button for a while, plug back in, turn back on”… works surprisingly well on weird things like Modems for example. you can also use it while reseting the CMOS, -especially- on notebooks, which usually do not actually have a “clear cmos” jumper at all!
i need to shorten my replies.
December 15th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Alex, actually I was a bit too fast to think everything was fine. Turns out I can’t get the sound working. I get the system chirps alright, but nothing else. No audio device is recognised by the system. I installed and ran Everest and even that doesn’t seem to find anything. Do you happen to have an idea how I can make it work or have you heard of similar problems from someone?
Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
December 15th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
argh! i am desperate for xp to be put on here but your slipstream_drivers.zip isn’t recognised as a web address. please fit it!
December 15th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Shorter replies ?? !! Then how would us old geezers get our FREE Education?, Thanks again for the tip AND the explanation of said tip:)
December 15th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Clare, that file should work; however, be sure you are clicking the link directly from the tutorial page. For bandwidth preservation, if it is clicked from a 3rd party site it probably won’t work. Also, what browser are you using? You may want to try clearing your browser cache and giving it another shot…
December 15th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
TY So much for this page, it was truly a blessing. I also had the problem with the fan and downloaded the EPower software that was provided and it didn’t fix the issue. So I tried that Notebook Hardware Control that Bill C brought up and everything seems to be running cool and smooth now. Thx to both of you =)
December 15th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Coach - thanks for mentioning that ePower Management did not help. could you post your model # as well? (such as Acer Aspire 5315-2153)
Geezer - no problem, as usual.. heh. maybe i could boil them down?
ervin - odd. need model #… is it a 5315-2153, or other model?
December 16th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Yes Alex it is an Acer Aspire 5315-2153. Sorry about that.
December 16th, 2007 at 5:03 am
Alex, the model number of this machine is 5315 - 050508Mi.
December 16th, 2007 at 6:56 am
right, sorry. it started working a few seconds after i posted that.
i’ve got everything working, apart from the wifi. when you put all the information for my router in maually, it will connect, and say everything is fine and signal strength is excellent, but won’t let you access any web pages. if you let it try to do it automatically, it will just get stuck on ‘aquiring network address’.
everythign is installed and working fine though.. so what is wrong? the connection works fine through a cable..!
cheers though. this laptop will be ace once it’s wokring properly. it is the 5315 acer aspire laptop too… so yeah =P
December 16th, 2007 at 6:59 am
i’m also in the uk if that’s any help. i’ve probably installed something wrong.. :S
December 16th, 2007 at 7:11 am
ok scrap that. new problem. i’ve just tried to reinstall the audio bus driver and that worked ok, and reinstalled the wireless agere modem, and now my laptop can’t even find a wireless connection! i can’t even find an option to set up a wireless connection.
=( help me please x
December 16th, 2007 at 7:20 am
it’s telling me the driver is not digitally signed in the hardware wizard, despite me taking the steps you posted for the modem installation at the top. i’ve tried both sets of drivers you suppy and i can’t get either of them working.
December 16th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Ey dude the tutorial is great, nice job really helped me out. Thx again.
December 16th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Hi, Alex.
Your description is very usefull, thank you.
December 16th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Thanks a lot Alex,
I suffered with Vista longe enough.
Your tutorial gave me the confidence to go ahead and dump the piece of junk. For me XP is much more stable.
December 16th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
clare - you need to calm down, and be verbose. you are posting fairly odd things for someone who is following the instructions.. it sounds like you may not be! at this point you have a mess. I suggest two things. #1… please post your FULL model number. there are many 5315 models, and since you are in the UK, i think it’s safe to assume that you do not have the 5315-2153, which is the focus of this article. #2.. please just wipe that WinXP install, start over, and follow the instructions. and FYI.. the drivers are -not- all signed… you must install them anyway.
Paul Corrigan, Sergio, Reislet - glad you’re up and running.
everything/everybody else - sorry, we’ll get to you soon.
December 16th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
IDK if it will help, but BIOS version 1.21 is available
December 16th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
IDK much about BIOS revisions, but it appears that in the readme file there is indication that version 1.20 corrected some “temp” related issue.
December 17th, 2007 at 2:37 am
does anyone have same problem as me,xp installs fine ,and runs just great,but acer empowering framework when installed has nothing on it at all,all the widgets are mssing save the power options one,also found it impossible to conecct to the internet using wifi
December 17th, 2007 at 8:43 am
is anyone of you from spain? has anyone from spain tried this method with versions sold here in el corte ingles, miro, milar, idea… versions are 050508Mi and 051G12Mi. thanx
December 17th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Just bought an Acer 5315-2681, this site was awesome to help me port over to XP, what a world of difference. This unit should NOT have Vista on it, might as well buy a Commodore 64
I’ve managed to install XP Pro with no problems all drivers installed perfectly but have encountered one problem, the Atheros Wireless driver. Everything seem to install fine, it detected the device, I can connect to my AP and even access the AP’s settings but for some weird reason cannot connect to the internet. Doesn’t seem to want to receive just send. I’ve tried different versions of the Atheros driver and same problem. I definitely have the right model of the Wireless device confirmed via Acer Tech support.
I spent a good hour with Acer tech support and they can’t seem to figure it out also. I’m out of options and ideas, has anyone encountered this issue? I know the wireless is working, because I can access the AP setup via wireless. I’ve turned off all firewall/AV software.
Thx in Adv.
Damen
December 17th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Manuel,
I’m writing from Hungary. I have bought model 050508Mi here. Following this post, I successfully installed XP, with the exception that I can’t make the sound work. I only get the system chirps, but no audio device is recognized.
I talked to Acer Tech Support about it. They basically said they do not support XP on this model, only Linux and Vista (HOW LAME IS THAT?). Responsibility thus comfortably ducked, they proceeded to recommend some drivers - mostly to get rid of me, it appeared. I will try those anyway and report back.
December 17th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Thanks for this great page.
D’you think it would be possible to install a 2nd HDD on this laptop ?
Thus, the 1st HDD would remain untouched, and the 2nd one would support the multi-boot (such as Xosl), and Windows XP as well as an Ubuntu Linux.
December 18th, 2007 at 6:04 am
Hello people. I’m 5315 owner. Please, help me with TouchPad drivers. I did all operations which Alex wrote, but still can’t use touchpad. Sometimes, when xp starts, touchpad works in a second and after that off. All drivers works, excluding touchpad. Help me p