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jcmarasa

4 Posts

84117

September 28th, 2007 21:00

1521 running xp ? sm bus controller

I bought 2 Inspiron 1521 laptops - was told by Dell they would run XP and W2k just fine. Only prob is no drivers! I gave up on W2k (will run virtual), but found the drivers for XP after spending about 3 days looking. I have 2G ram, Radeon 1250 or 1270 video (depending upon whether you look at the shipping slip or on the computer. Got all loaded in Dell prescribed order, seems to run nicely, including wireless and camera and MediaDirect, but still have the ? SM bus controller in Device Manager (this never shows up on Vista, even before loading drivers). After much internet searching, and no help from Dell tech service, (and reloading both Vista and XP several times), I found that it could be Chipset. The only Chipset provided for this computer is the Ricoh driver for the Card Reader. So I found the chipset driver for the AMD Turion 64 on the ATI site, and installed that on one. It works nicely, but still have the ?. What's the story? Can I disable this? What am I missing? Should I just give up and buy some nice used Lenovos with XP and W2k?

Message Edited by jcmarasa on 09-28-2007 05:46 PM

jennscott

10 Posts

November 13th, 2007 17:00

Help on installing Windows XP on Inspiron 1521.  I need some help please have spent over a week trying to get Windows XP to format drive and installed.  I have to downgrade Vista to XP or spend lots of money on all new software.  I have read in several posts and spent several hours reading over them how people have gotten XP to install on the inspiron 1521.  Even Dell Tech. Support says XP will install and run on 1521 you just have to figure it out on your own.  I have removed all the partitions and the drive is blank.  I was told to slipstream the drivers onto my Windows XP CD or use the drivers posted in this thread but when I boot off windows XP CD and press F6 it does not like the drivers it keeps looking for a txtsetup.oem file for the Serial ATA drivers and motherboard drive controller chipset which I downloaded the SMBus.  I keep getting the *inf files but that won't work.  Any help is appreciated just need to get Windows XP to format hard drive and start installing.  I really need ot get this laptop back up and running been down for a couple of weeks now.  If otehr peope have gotten it installed then there's a way.  I have never slipstreamed drivers or dealt with serial ATA drives in Windows XP. Thanks.

mombodog

2 Intern

 • 

12.7K Posts

November 13th, 2007 21:00

Slipstream the smbus drivers using this software.
 
 
You must use a XPsp2 level CD.

jcmarasa

4 Posts

November 14th, 2007 12:00

Hi, This is the way I did it. To get the drive partitioned and formatted,I just followed the directions with the MediaDirect CD that came with the computer. You have to use this before installing XP, to create the right partitions for it. Then when you install XP, XP will go on the large partition and prepare the disk automatically. Then you install the program part of MediaDirect, and that goes automatically to it's proper place. My problem was then finding all the drivers, which was solved by mombodog earlier in this thread. Look on the Dell site for the proper order to install them. Works great now!

jennscott

10 Posts

November 14th, 2007 21:00

Thanks that nLite is great.  It has gotten me further but it has been stuck at installing devices and on 34 minutes remaining in XP installation for 5 hours now no I'm not exaggerating here.  The screen keeps changing as to the new features in XP and stuff and the progress bar is continually moving but I would assume it is hung up.  

mombodog

2 Intern

 • 

12.7K Posts

November 15th, 2007 01:00

jennscott

10 Posts

November 17th, 2007 14:00

Thanks just powered off when it hung at 34 minutes and powered back on to follow the steps given in the Dell knowledge base article for this problem and the install got past the 34 minutes. 
 
Now XP is installed and trying to get the last few drivers loaded in device manager.  Hitting a wall.  Have 3 base system devices that won't install and probelsm with audio drivers installed but with errors audio is not working properly.
 
Thanks for help to this point it got me past another hurdle.

jennscott

10 Posts

November 17th, 2007 15:00

All drivers installed now once I got the last few installed it let me fix the audio drivers.  All is well I have XP loaded.  Yeah thanks everybdoy for your help.  It is greatly appreciated.

jennscott

10 Posts

November 17th, 2007 15:00

Ok went to the Inspiron 1521 drivers for XP and decided to try the Ricoh Memory Card Drivers it got rid of the 3 Base System Devices in control panel. 
 
Just have the PCI Device with a yellow exlamation mark and I clicked on update and it still did not fix it.  Also getting Audio found then errors when trying to use the ATI SMBus/Southbnridge audio drivers told to use.
 
Thanks for all your help so far.

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