NP9261 no O/S

[g48dd]

I recommended this laptop to a friend here in Iraq. I was gone back to the states when his 9261 arrived. He had ordered it without an O/S because he already had a brand new seal unbroken XP Home disk. He told he thought he could get it loaded up ok. When I returned he brought the new laptop over to my hooch and explained, that when it came he could not get windows loaded on to it, ( I did not ask how he was trying to load it). However another fried of his who has custom built laptop that I recommended built by another company, a 20" model. Offered to help him. They took a look at the AMD 20" laptop BIOS system and compared it to what his BIOS system looked like. Rather than coming here and asking the people who built it. Anyway they decided to change a couple of lines in the BIOS System. ( I am currently working on getting which lines and changed to what) The 9261 did come alive and load the windows XP Home O/S. He had no complaints. Except that he noticed that his laptop sure took a long time to load windows when he turned it on.

He asked me could the BIOS tinkering he did have something to do with that. I told yes. A few days ago he brought the laptop to me told me that there are sound problems. I checked it out. Definitely sound problems. ( plays most sounds fine, plays most games fine, Windows start up jingle sounds like crap, loaded MS Flight Sim X, it sounds like crap, tried using WMP to play DVD get an error about can't play DVD due to problems with the sound ) So we have sound problems, I reloaded the sound drivers from his CD that came with the laptop. We still have sound problems. My internet is real slow during the day here but tonight I will try and download the 93mb sound drivers on your download page for windows XP see if that will fix things.

I regards to the BIOS can someone send me what the BIOS should look like before loading windows XP. I am going reformat his laptop, I am thinking that if I do this it should naturally return to the BIOS it was sent with but I am not sure? So if someone could send what it should look like then I could make sure that all is correct before loading Windows XP.

Thank You
Ken

[xpcdude]

There is an option for Optimal Settings in every BIOS. You should try that. Also, make sure Sound Blaster is enabled and that all the drivers (sound,GPU etc) are updated(the most recent ones).
You should be able to find everything you need here. The drivers supplied over there are for Vista 32 & 64 and XP 32 bit only.
http://www.sagernotebook.com/information.php?information_id=7

[g48dd]

here is the boot order as it arrived here at camp Al Asad
1) USB FDC:
2) USB KEY:
3) PCI SCSI:
4) IDE HDD: ST9160823As-(s1)
5) IDE CD: OPTIARC DVD RN AD-7530A
6) PCI BEV: Realtek boot agent

He said that it would not load windows because he did not think that the boot was looking at the CD drive soon enough so he changed the order and moved the #5 IDE CD to the third spot where PCI SCSI is now and everything else just moved down one step. The laptop with this set up found the CD Drive and loaded Windows.

so now the boot order is
1) USB FDC:
2) USB KEY:
3) IDE CD:
4) PCI SCSI:
5) IDE HDD:
6) PCI BEV:
Do I need to go in and chage this boot order back to the way it came?

[xpcdude]

No,that's fine.However,if you are not sure as to what is causing the problem,a full system instal is recommended.

[br2]

To speed up boot, I always keep my boot drive at the top of the list.
I move something else up if I need to do something out of the ordinary.

[rswarkentin]

I read in another forum on a different site that someone was having trouble installing XP after they ordered the 9261 with no OS. He couldn't get the system to properly boot in order to load XP on it. Is there a common problem with trying to install your own copy of XP on the 9261?

[g48dd]

I was not present when my friend tried to install windows XP, so I am not sure what happened. Anyway I went in and reset the BIOS to the Default. There is still the sound problem but I did not expect resseting the BIOS to effet that.

Where do I look to see if the SOUND BLASTER CARD is turned on?

I am planning to do a full system install today or tomarrow for him and see if we still have the sond problem. Music CD's play ok, Movie DVD's do not. They won't play because there is a problem with the sound. I am thinking that there is a problem with Dolby Surround Sound 5.1 but not sure. He has his drivers cd that came with it so it sould not take long to get it done and find out if he still has a sound problem.

Thanks Ken