CompaQ Presario CQ40-401AU Running XP

No longer is a new topic for many user to switch from Vista to XP. Initially when Vista launch, many user were scratching their head on the Drivers to support the hardware such as printers and scanner. Worries that wrong pieces bought that doesn't work. Down the road, many have switched back to XP because of many reasons..... but here comes the new questions, most of the PC and Notebook in market are release with preloaded Vista. Immediately, can it support XP?

Some manufactures are kind enough to provide duo OS when purchasing their products such as Sony VAIO or Dell. At lease others will still provide drivers to be download from their website but not HP CompaQ. They no longer provide drivers supports in XP for their PCs products. There's no XP drivers for display, sound, wireless lan and etc to download. If you google around and you'll find 9 out of 10 are searching and asking guides for drivers to their hardware and the balance 1 will share the links and guides.

It is difficult for user to verified what and which drivers to install. Not to mention numbers of manufacture branding and the models will drive you crazy. You may ask, can't we just install and try? Well, this is the beauty of it, wrong drivers or software installed will give you BLUE SCREEN. Anyway, to conclude. You either need someone having the same model or questions you are looking for to post on the net or some IT people to share these informations. Here's are some link and guides to share with my readers and friends like you out there who like to DIY. Otherwise, you might want to consider switching to Apple ^_^

Windows XP Drivers Part 1 - There are still some bugs I couldn't finished but basically you'll get the Display, Audio, Wireless and Memory card up and running.

First step, the biggest question. XP installer CD even SP3 version doesn't support AMD SATA AHCI driver. (Download here) After download, two ways of doing this, first save the drivers to floppy and during XP setup you'll be ask to "press F6 if you need to install additional SCSI adapters or other mass-storage devices" later you'll reach a stage to browse the floppy and load for the drivers.

Second, integrates those drivers into the XP installer CD. By doing this, you need nLite. Here's the steps. For DIY user, assuming you know the steps to install XP. If you are fresh, click here to show you more.

Now drivers. It equipped with:-

ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics; link and you also need Netframe 2.0

LAN; RTL8102E Family PCI-E

Broadcom 802.11bg Wireless; Link or Acer 4720z Compatible

JMicron JMB38X Card Reader; You can use the same Vista driver provided from HP

Audio; IDT HD Drivers from Mediafire

You also need to install HDMI Audio; download from here

HD SmartCP 56k Modem; link and manually install guide (after installed audio)

1.Right click on "Modem device on High Definition Audio Bus" and click Update driver.

2. Select "Install from a list or specific location"

3. Click Next. Then select "Don't search, I will choose the driver to install"

4. Click Next and then select "Modem" from the list.

5. Click Next and then click Have Disk.

6. Click Browse C:\swsetup\sp33890 folder and select the .inf (wis30b2b) file and click open

and Ignore if complaints

After above items finished install, you'll notice there are still 7 unknown devices, I haven't finalize what are those but one of it is the scroll function from the TouchPad. But the TouchPad went crazy after I update them using this link drivers.

Lastly, Million thanks to all out there who provide links, guides and sharing.