Dell Studio 17

Chipset would be easy enough to find from Intel. But as for your other hardware I really don't know of any way you're going to find drivers that work with everything in the system.

If you don't mind my asking, why so down on Vista?

Vista (SP1) is the best ram management OS that microsoft puts out currently. Leaks are usually coming from poor written apps

cheers ...

It is ok to prefer XP, but i dont get your statement/question on why Vista is slower, since Vista is not slow in my environment, and this is on an old beat up eMachines M6805.

Look/read around, there are tweaks that make vista more responsive, just like there are tweaks for xp. Update vista to sp1 if you have not done so and see.

cheers ...

Vista isn't slow on my end either. I've had Vista business on my desktop for several months and haven't noticed any noticable performance difference between it and Windows XP. All my desktop does is play games. What usually bogs down Vista are McAfee or Norton Antivirus.

If you're expecting a woweeee difference in your gaming performance switching back to XP I'm afraid you'll be sorely disappointed. The ATI 3650 in the Studio 17 isn't a terribly high-end graphics card. Not to mention the fact that the newer CPU's have power saving features to prolong your battery run-time that work best with Windows Vista.

There's a lot of bad information in several posts above.

Mostly it's a personal choice. I use both and there are advantages and disadvantages with XP and Vista depending on the environment and my needs.

Vista unfortunately had many problems on it's initial release. Many of which have been addressed and others that can be addressed by advanced users who know how to tweak their system. XP was very much the same way when it was released but has had a lot of time to mature. Performance variations depend heavily on the specific application but it is still more likely that applications will be faster in XP than in Vista and only in rare circumstances do you get better performance in Vista. This is especially true in games. I dual boot and have done many direct comparisons. There are also some valuable features in some versions of Vista that are simply lacking in XP.

There is no memory leak in Vista compared to XP. Vista is smart enough not to use that memory unless it's physically available. XP makes no consideration for how much RAM you have. I don't know what power management features in new CPUs MrEvil is referring to unless it's Nehalam's features. XP will make your notebook run more efficiently and provides marginally better battery life than Vista.

By the way qhn, I just realized you're running a m6805. I used to have one of those. Fantastic machine and a real screamer when it came out. I see you also run a new MacBook. Funny because my two notebooks are my new PC and a really old Powerbook.

^^ yep, the old eMachines still surprises many of the new ones out there. My Macbook is not new, it is a very first series putting out, I only upgraded the ram, stuck in a larger hard disk and swapped the optical drive myself

cheers ...

Woody, I get 45 more minutes out of my battery under Vista Ultimate than I do under XP Pro SP3. A friend of mine got 30 minutes out of his Celeron M equipped Inspiron 2200 with Vista Beta 2. Vista has better management of the low power states on mobile chips. What I think throws the monkey wrench in most instances is antivirus software running in the background.

My experience has been the opposite. It's not the power management of the chip, it's the fact that Vista utilizes a computer's resources more than XP and will use more power. It is probable that XP wasn't properly configured in the cases you described or current drivers weren't installed or available on the computers mentioned. XP can manage low power states of Core 2 Duos just as well as Vista, not better or worse, but a driver problem may cause a unique circumstance. Also consider that many notebook vendors, frustrated with Microsoft's lack of action on this, have created highly customized power management software modifications to Vista to work on their notebooks that aren't available on some computers or on the off the shelf version of Vista. In such a situation it's entirely possible that the OEM Vista install on a notebook or an upgrade with OEM provided drivers will offer improved battery life over the XP install on the same machine.

Windows 7 will solve all this bad press Vista has been getting in battery life with some fantastic power management features that will rival Apple's Mac OSX. I've been considering trying out the beta but I'm too lazy to spend the time right now.

Vista was simply not designed with notebook battery life as a priority.

Noticed even latest Vista SP1 doesn't run smooth on Vista Capable certified laptops. But guaranteed is designed to run on Santa Rosa or later platforms. Just looks amazing smooth on Aero and no down on gaming, what are you guys talking about "bad for gaming"?

True that Vista use alot system resources but AHEAD before we using it, is like silent prefetch. XP never prefetch anything so doesn't use much resources but downside on launching the apps doesn't work as fast as Vista. (Notable those apps are builded in Vista's only such as IE and WMP etc.)

I only have problem once with the OEM Vista bloated with junks but after a clean reinstall changed everything. Is been working so well that makes XP looks old and dirty :P I'm not much of a user taking my laptop around the street so battery power is not a problem. I tried to do my typing works in living room once and noticed the battery only lasted 2 and half hours with power saving mode. So i guess is still reasonable. I understand it doesn't works perfect for all laptops as my compaq laptop suffers occasional memory leak when on vista, nothing helps prevent but rather blame mainboard design's fault.

Please stay with OP's topic - needing help to find XP driver for the Dell Studio 17. Thanks. I know, i strayed myself a bit above.

cheers ...

I believe that request has been answered?

Haven't he visited www.dell.com? Is very easy to find drivers on dell's site.

You might have to go straight to the devices manufacturers and get the drivers from there, or find the drivers of a similar model

cheers ...

Is true, i checked Dell did not release XP driver. This might get a little freaky.

You could try install XP and and update from windows update. But like qhn said if your laptop is intel chipset you can get driver from there.

If best if you report laptop full specs here so i can find all possible XP drivers.

what video card?

what wifi card?


you need to find the makers of them and go to their site


if its an ATI 3650 or whatever.......then go to amd.com and get the mobile driver that fits your card

if you have a broadcom wifi card, go to their site and try to find it



IF however, the maker of the part doesnt make drivers, then just try www.driverguide.com

lots of custom drivers there