HP Forum Archive 13

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compaq presario 2500 (2505EA) with windows 2000 has no proper video drivers!! Message #1 Posted by Carlos on 22 May 2003, 10:10 a.m. Hi all there, I have just bought a brand new Compaq Presario 2500 (model 2505 EA) with Windows XP Home Edition preinstalled. Unluckily (and unconciously) I have realized that I cannot install the windows 2000 professional on it. I have found in the Internet the drivers for the network card, but not for the video card (ATI Mobility Radeon 9000). I have found the drivers but, when I install them, the system tells me that "default VGA drivers MUST be loaded to be able to install the Mobility ones". I have called the technical support and they have told me that this specific computer is designed for the Windows XP Home Edition :(. They have even told me that those drivers for ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 and Windows 2000 don't exist. Has anyone have that problem as well?, can anybody help me?. Thanks in forthcoming.

Re: compaq presario 2500 (2505EA) with windows 2000 has no proper video drivers!! Message #2 Posted by Dave Shaffer on 22 May 2003, 12:51 p.m., in response to message #1 by Carlos Carlos, Welcome to the wonderful world of Microsoft: you can only go forward, as in marching off a cliff; you can't go back. You might check the discussion from a week or two ago about operating systems and old hardware. If you are not wedded to the new video card, you might try an old card. I got an "XP only" Sony PC about a year ago, which the Best Buy folks said would work ONLY under XP. I tried putting Win98 on it, and it sort-of, barely worked - mostly because, like you, I couldn't get reasonable video. (I just swapped in a hard drive which had a complete Win98 system on it.) I finally put in a truly ancient PCI video card (STB Velocity 3D, borrowed from a Gateway PentiumPro), and it worked fine! These and similar video cards are available now on Ebay for basically the cost of shipping (under $10). If you don't need fancy graphics, they are fine. Typically, they have 2-4MB of video memory, and will drive a 1024x768 display in full color. Moral of the story: if you want to be retro in your software, you probably have to be retro in (at least some of) your hardware!

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