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P-6831FX - Conversion to 64bit Vista

post #1 of 8
2/18/08 at 9:34pm
Thread Starter 
This is intended to be a running thread discussing my attempts to convert over to 64bit Vista Home Premium on my 6831FX. Suggestions and discussion are encouraged. Flaming or "OMGzorz why wuld U run 64bit Vista" will be cheerfully ignored, and possibly ridiculed.

First up - Retain the ultra-cool, don't-have-to-activate OEM Vista.

Important note - I am not doing anything that I believe to be against the License Terms of Microsoft's Vista. As far as I know, if you are licensed for a version of Vista, you are additionally licensed for the 64bit flavor of that version. You cannot run both at the same time (i.e. running 64bit Home Premium on your laptop and using the same license to run 32bit on another system). I will not assist anyone in violating Microsoft's licensing . I also assume no liability if your computer stops working, or starts ejecting toasted human hands from the DVD drive. Oh yeah - back up your data first. You're gonna wipe it before we're done here!

Required:
  • Your original Gateway Vista DVD.
  • A copy of 64bit Vista (I used my Technet subscription)
  • A 4GB flash drive of some kind

Steps:
  1. Create a folder on your system called "New Gateway Vista".
  2. Copy EVERYTHING from the root of your 64bit Vista DVD into the folder created in step 1.
  3. Copy \sources\pid.txt from your original Gateway Vista DVD to \Sources in the folder created in step 1.
  4. Copy the entire folder \sources\$OEM$ from your original Gateway Vista DVD to \Sources in the folder created in step 1.
  5. Insert your flash drive into your system and follow these steps (from Kurt Shintaku's blog posting):

    Run CMD.EXE and type the following. (Note: This set of commands assumes that the USB flash drive is addressed as "disk 1". you should double check that by doing a list of the disks (type "list disk") before cleaning it. If you have multiple hard drives, like an SDFlash drive or a Multibay drive, you could end up wiping your second drive using this command.)

    1. diskpart
    2. select disk 1
    3. clean
    4. create partition primary
    5. select partition 1
    6. active
    7. format fs=fat32
    8. assign
    9. exit

  6. Copy everything from the folder created in step 1 to the root onto your flash drive.
  7. Boot from your flash drive and Vista will install happily (and quite speedily).

Once you get through this procedure, you'll have a base install of Windows Vista Home Premium, 64bit. Congrats - now you can start dealing with the drivers.
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post #2 of 8
2/18/08 at 9:48pm
Thread Starter 
Drivers:

This was actually a lot easier than I thought if you're just looking for a quick "out of the box" working solution.

Virtually every driver on the recovery disc is 64 bit aware. So, you can install your drivers almost as easily as if you were just running 32bit. Load up the disc and start installing.

There are two notable exceptions:

1. The nVidia driver on both Gateway's site (yes, even when you pull up the 64bit drivers) and on the disc is 32bit only. I'm running the 169.09 laptopvideotogo drivers from here as my GPU driver.

2. The modem. This was a pain in the...well, you know what it was a pain in. Once again, Gateway says the driver is 64bit aware, but a cursory examination of the directory shows that there isn't even a 64bit dll in the mix. You're gonna have to roll your own.

Here's how:
  • Go here and download the 64bit driver. Thanks Lenovo!
  • Extract the files into a new folder.
  • Edit the file agrmdv64.inf with your favorite text editor.
  • In the [Agere_Modems.NTamd64] section, add the following line at the bottom of the section:

    %AGERE6% = AGERE_HDA, HDAUDIO\FUNC_02&VEN_11C1&DEV_1040&SUBSYS_107B0690

  • Save the file
  • Under Device Manager, select the "Unknown Device" or "Modem Device on HD Audio Bus" (whichever you have), right click, and select "Update Driver Software"
  • Select "Browse My Computer for Driver Software"
  • Point it to the directory you created when you extracted the Lenovo driver.
  • Ignore the unsigned driver warning. Install anyway. It's probably safe, seeing as it's from Lenovo
  • Vista will update the driver, and your modem will work.

It's easier to just disable the damn thing, but I'm WAY too OCD with my systems to do that.

You can actually go out to the various manufacturers and pull down the drivers, but everything seems to be working for now, so I'm going to run for a week or so and see how it goes.

I will report more as I encounter problems or issues.
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post #3 of 8
2/18/08 at 10:21pm
Thread Starter 
Benchmarks:

Windows Experience Index
Processor - 4.7
RAM - 4.5
Graphics - 5.9
Gaming Graphics - 5.8
Primary hard disk - 5.9

I should add that I've replaced the 250GB stock drive with 2 7200RPM 100GB drives.

3dMark06 - 6926
HDTune - TBD
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post #4 of 8
2/19/08 at 3:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by knewman View Post
Benchmarks:

Windows Experience Index
Processor - 4.7
RAM - 4.5
Graphics - 5.9
Gaming Graphics - 5.8
Primary hard disk - 5.9

I should add that I've replaced the 250GB stock drive with 2 7200RPM 100GB drives.

3dMark06 - 6926
HDTune - TBD
cool & informative - we have a Benchmark section, would u mind updating the section under
. P-6831FX, 64Bits Vista

i m sure that we all appreciate it

cheers ...
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post #5 of 8
2/19/08 at 8:10pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by qhn View Post
cool & informative - we have a Benchmark section, would u mind updating the section under
. P-6831FX, 64Bits Vista

i m sure that we all appreciate it

cheers ...
Cerainly, after I have something more concrete to post. I have a t7700 on the way, along with 2 new drives and 4GB of RAM. I will do some before/after comparisons and create a new thread.

I've run into some issues with some programs, which leads me to suspect that some of the drivers may not be optimal for this system. I'll cherry-pick some drivers and update this thread as well as I continue my conversion.
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post #6 of 8
2/20/08 at 1:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by knewman View Post
Cerainly, after I have something more concrete to post. I have a t7700 on the way, along with 2 new drives and 4GB of RAM. I will do some before/after comparisons and create a new thread....
thx, u might note that we have a new link on the right side of the page where one can submit a benchmark, pls review and use that tool when possible

cant wait to read ur scores

cheers ...
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post #7 of 8
3/15/08 at 3:26pm
Thread Starter 
So far, the only issue I've found with the 64bit setup is the audio driver.

With the Gateway driver installed, the mic port on the side will never accept input. The device doesn't even appear in the recording devices tab until you plug it in.

I've opened a ticket with Gateway, so I guess I'll find out how responsive they are.
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post #8 of 8
4/19/08 at 2:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by knewman View Post
So far, the only issue I've found with the 64bit setup is the audio driver.

With the Gateway driver installed, the mic port on the side will never accept input. The device doesn't even appear in the recording devices tab until you plug it in.

I've opened a ticket with Gateway, so I guess I'll find out how responsive they are.
I had the same issue since day one, even with 32 bit Vista. While the customer support is good, they never were able to help me out. The driver is actually old IMO, and seems like they are in no hurry to release an updated version with a fix for this. But I figured out a little trick on my own to get it to work.

You have to go to the control panel and select "addition options", and then IDT control panel. Once the IDT control panel is up, select the "Jack Input" icon. To the far right it will have a picture of the 2 jacks. Select the "line-in/mic" jack and set it to mic. Seems I have to do this everytime I reboot in order to use the mic, but at least I can use the mic.

PS, thanks for the USB x64 method. Worked like a charm.
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