5720 Vista

I'm planning to try running Vista on a 5720. I plan to ghost my boot drive first in case I don't want to keep it and I can go back to my current XP Pro setup quickly if needed.

I am wondering what success people have had with this. It seems to me that while there are no drivers listed for the 5720 it shares mostly the same components as many of the newer models like the 5760 and the Vista drivers for those models would be fine. I did something similar to get Vista running on my desktop ULI based system by installing drivers intended for a similar system with the same components.

Update. I've installed Vista on my 5720 using mostly drivers from the 5760 downloaded from Sager's website. Everything is working as well as under XP and in some cases better.

I'm using NVidia Forceware 101.41 and so far it has been very smooth and reliable. Occasionally it has reported the driver crashed but recovered when waking from sleep and there is a quick flash of the screen like it's resetting itself after every wake but at least it comes on which is more than I can say of some of the Forceware versions under XP with this laptop. Gaming performance is good and so far seems a little smoother than under XP. You will need a modded INF file to install the latest NVidia drivers from laptopvideo2go.com or you can use the slightly older drivers listed on Sager's website for any of the NVidia based notebooks. Considering how steep the learning curve seems to be for NVidia and Vista drivers I figured I'd just go with the latest.

The latest Creative drivers work fine with the Audigy2ZS notebook PCMCIA card I'm using and I simply haven't tested the onboard audio system with Vista but the drivers from the 5760 should work fine.

I reformatted my HD and performed a clean install of Vista Ultimate. I used the Easy File Transfer feature built in to the Vista DVD to copy all my files and settings in XP to an external USB drive prior to formatting then after I got Vista up and running I transferred my settings back. It was as if I had my old XP install back but only the good parts that I needed. Most of my apps including my email and other items retained all the original settings. Some things I just manually copied over from backups but the installation was relatively painless and not as time consuming as I expected it to be getting back to where I wanted. It also offers the chance for some needed housecleaning.

I have not yet tried Notebook Hardware Control under Vista and I'm not sure if I'll bother. I don't really need it anymore. We will see.

Upgrading to Vista on any system isn't extremely difficult but I can see where novices will run into trouble pretty quickly. As long as you have a fair knowledge of finding and installing drivers and updating your existing software it can be done. I don't think the average home user upgrading an existing OEM PC should attempt installing Vista without the help of a computer savvy friend.

I have 2GB RAM installed on my 5720 and overall the experience with Vista is very positive. It boots much faster and responds considerably quicker in general computing tasks. If you don't have 2GB it may be worth using ready boost by picking up a cheap USB memory stick to improve performance. I was previously led to believe that dual core is almost a necessity with Vista but that's not the case. The responsiveness is as good as my dual core desktop and noticeably better than XP. It's a good way to extend the life of the older single core laptops and I highly recommend it.

Update....I don't know if anyone actually reads these threads anymore. But this would apply to pretty much any laptops similar to the 57XX.

Vista is still running fine, no real problems. I've updated the NVidia drivers again. I use Rightmark CPU to maintain an underclocked configuration on the CPU. Version 2.30 is out as of this month and seems to be the first version that works consistently well with Vista.

I use ATiTool to underclock the NVidia card at startup to about half speed. ATiTool can be configured to automatically set GPU clock speed back to normal when entering a 3D environment.