[Quick Review] Compaq Presario F755US Laptop + XP Driver Package Download!
Please see the following update regarding when the latest driver package will be available and what precautions you should take PRIOR to installing this package.
I bought this laptop essentially on a whim. My primary PC died in a BIOS upgrade and I needed something to do my work on. (Don’t ask. My MoBo is in route to Newegg for a replacement.) I got the F755us on special at $599 from CircuitCity which isn’t bad considering the specs. The lack of PCMCIA was a little disappointing, but not much considering all the other built-in functionality.
After waiting nearly an hour for HP’s proprietary installer to finish ‘customizing’ Vista, I finally got on and started digging around. I could only stomach about an hour with Vista on this machine. It ran slower than XP does on a PIII with 256MB of RAM. Painful! I promptly inserted my XP Pro install disk and wiped Vista Home Premium off the HDD, to never be seen or suffered through again!
Fair warning!!! You will have a very hard time finding drivers for XP for this laptop. Google is your friend and don’t expect any love from HP. (However, I’m feeling nice… see below 
) They make it quite clear that they only support Vista on this machine. I have successfully found XP replacements for all drivers, but the audio driver doesn’t work 100%. The sound and volume work OK, but when you plug in headphones, the on-board speakers remain on, essentially nullifying the whole point of a headphone jack. A downer to be certain, but a small setback that can be tolerated for the superior performance and support of XP Pro. (UPDATE: If you mute the audio in XP and plug your headphones in after adjusting your audio properties, the headphones will work without the on-board speakers playing. Odd yes, but it works, good enough for me.)
If you’re not comfortable administering an XP Pro system, don’t try this at home. HP does not send you reinstall CDs with the computer, so if you wipe off Vista and put XP on this box, make sure you have the drivers beforehand unless you have a second computer with Internet Access nearby.
With all the work needed to get XP Pro to run on this laptop, it was all worth it. It’s rather gratifying when a student walks up with a new mega-powerful laptop with eye-candy Vista Ultimate installed and cannot even access the campus WiFi and then I pull up my nicely customized XP Pro that immediately connects and runs circles around their more powerful system.
Summary… If you intend to run XP on this machine, then it is a fantastic deal. If you intend to run the preinstalled Vista Home Premium, then don’t expect much. It’s not the computer’s fault. It runs great with a good OS.
BONUS:
After showing off this laptop to the A+ class I teach at the college, I promised my class that I would bundle up the drivers needed to set this laptop up with XP Pro SP2. As promised, here is an installer with all the basic drivers to get this system to run on XP. If you have any problems with these drivers, leave a comment and I’ll help where I can.
Download: Compaq Presario F755US XP Pro SP2 32-Bit Hardware Drivers
You have read my two cents. Now have your say!
Compaq or Comcrap?
Upgrade from Vista to XP or Bust?
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Are you serious ? You’ve managed to buy new laptop with xp on it? I couldn’t find any with other system than this shi**y vista
The laptop came with Vista Home Premium. Sorry if I wasn’t clear on that. I had XP Pro SP2 laying around from a previous computer. And yeah, I tend to agree on Vista being sh***y. I call it ME 2.0.
It took a few hours of digging around on HP forums and various other tech forums to find all the suitable XP compatible drivers for this laptop, but once I got everything up and running, this thing has been running great. Definitely a good desktop replacement with the right OS installed.
You can still get new laptops with XP, but not at a good deal. Most units that come with XP are direct sold to corporate environments where the machines are bought in bulk.
Oh, I see now. I hate vista for eating 30-40% of my processor and RAM (1.46 dual core, 2 GB ram).
Thanks for clarification.
Yeah, this Compaq is a dual core AMD Turion (1.9GHz) with 2GB of RAM and it ran like an old POS before “upgrading” to XP, even with most of the eye candy turned off.
I’ve yet to find anything about Vista I’ve liked that couldn’t have been ported to the better performing XP Kernel. I’ve read arguments that the new DirectX is suppose to be great for gaming. I’d hate to see the hardware you’d have to run to get any kind of decent performance out of it.
Perfect for email, web browsing, basic photos, basic videos, music, and word processing. Probably not powerful enough for high end graphics, video editing, or gaming. But, plenty capabale for everyday computing. I’ve used it to edit and create a home video DVD and it worked very well. What else can I say? For under $500 (home deopot) this is a great value. The screen looks great and feature set is the best I’ve seen for the price.
Great assessment. I’ve done some low-end gaming (THPS2) on this machine with no problem, but anything serious would not be well suited. Movies play quite well and the HiDef audio sounds great.
I haven’t dug in and found out what kind of expansion possibilities are available for this machine. So far, I haven’t had a need to. For business and home use, this laptop has been a very capable desktop replacement.
Totally off-topic, but good to see you’re still alive. :p
Glad to be alive and likewise to you! Seems like we’ve both had a very busy year so far.
yah nice review…i also bought the same laptop and did all the digging for the drivers, but have been too scared to switch back to xp just yet in case im missing something. that driver package that you put up, is it any good for windows xp media center? i’d think they’d be pretty similar to the xp pro’s. anxious to see how well it does with xp running instead of vistaafter reading these. thanks again!!
Thanks for stopping by fr3shn3ss.
The way XP Pro, Home, and Media Center interface with hardware is the same. The same basic hardware abstraction layer (HAL) is shared by the 3. The primary differences in the 3 are in the graphical interface. Pro has more system’s administration functionality, but again, that wouldn’t effect drivers.
If you really want to make sure you’ve got an easy return path if you find things don’t work as well for you as they did for me, you could make a full backup of your hard drive with a utility that allows bare metal restoration. You could use products like Acronis Migrate Easy or True Image (Personal Favorite), Symantec Ghost, or if you know your way around linux, DD is a good free solution.
Acronis is pretty affordable and it does a fantastic job. I’ve bought it for home and we have server licenses for it at the college I work at. If you like to tinker a lot with your home system, it’s indispensable.
Good luck. If you decide to take the plunge, stop back back and let me know how the driver package works for you.
thanks for the information. I just bought a f755 and will try out the steps in the weekend
MR. Morris,
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I have the 750us presario with amd athalon duo-64 and
2gig mem ; bought with vista….Hate it.
I have xp pro sp2, to use.
Will these drivers suit my laptop?
I will have a professional swap the OS, because I do not
Have your ’savy’ for it. Can you give me a rough
road- map in terms of your comment:
” was a lot of work “. Thank you again….
Fuzz,
Some of the drivers in this package come from the 750, but not all. A lot will depend on the hardware installed on your unit. However, when I was searching for drivers for my unit, I saw a lot of people looking for the 750 drivers and there were several solutions available for it.
Basically, all this driver package does is save time reading over the HP Business support forums. If the professional who swaps the OS for you is reasonably competent, they can find the information needed to migrate your system in a few hours.
All said and told, It took roughly 4 working hours to find all the drivers and test them out on this system. That does not include all the time I spent digging into the audio controller issue or the actual base install of XP. That just includes finding and installing the basic drivers to get video, LAN and system bus components working properly. I seem to recall there were a lot less problems finding a suitable driver for the audio chipset on the 750 model.
You or your tech would be best to start with this thread on the HP Business support forums and follow through with the following Google Search.
So, in summary, with Googling, reading, and testing, you’re looking at 4-8 hours (roughly) of time investment to migrate to XP. If you or your tech are fast readers, you can probably trim that down a bit, but plan your budget for the upper end, just in case.
Hope that helps!
P.S. We’re casual around here. No need for the “Mr.”
You are an Absolute life saver, thank you so much…
No problem. Glad it helped!
James,
I basically am a “computer virgin”. I have never purchased a computer and am looking to buy this Compaq Presario F755US laptop for my personal use (e-mailing my brother who will be stationed in the Middle East). So, I have no clue as far as specs, quality, etc. but I did enjoy your review very much, promising except for the Vista O.S. comments. Should I keep away from Vista O.S. entirely or will it be sufficient for my purposes? Thank you in advance for your advice.
Hello Maria! Thanks for stopping by.
I’ve mentioned elswhere that Vista in and of itself is OK for the average home user.
Given your experience level and the functionality that you require, I would say that you would be better off to go ahead and leave Vista on the laptop and use it as is. If you’ve never used Vista, you’ll have a bit of a learning curve in order to get use to it. However, for what you are wanting to do, it should do the job just fine.
However, if you have a tech-savvy person in your family (or a friend) who is willing to do the conversion to XP for you, you will find that this laptop performs infinitely better with XP installed on it. With Vista, it does OK, but as with all OEM installs, it’s bogged down with trial software and proprietary customizations that will most likely get on your nerves.
Still, for casual personal use, out of the box, this system is perfectly suitable for most average home users. For those of us users who demand a bit more from our computers, XP is the way to go on this system.
Hope that answers your question. Stop by anytime.
Muchas Gracias Me salvaste la vida ..
Eres bienvenido
Thanks for the drivers!
No problem Jun. Glad to help.
Dear Mr. Morris,
I hope we never meet because in which case I may kiss you! However, I truly dont want the beating. Everything works wonderfully…except the audio?? I have re-installed that portion of the driver setup with no luck. Any suggestions??
Thank You So Much For Your Time And Effort!!!!
It’s not a problem. I’m glad to try to help.
What kind of issues are you having with the audio? Is it that the Device Manager is showing a failed driver? OR Is it that Device Manager shows the driver to be installed, but the sound is not functioning?
In the first instance, I suppose it could be possible that you would have a different audio chipset, but not very likely. That might take some more digging into to figure out.
In the second instance, the audio is really strange on this system. For example, I have to mute the volume in Windows then plug in my headphones or speakers for them to work. If I adjust the audio properties in Windows at all while my headphones or speakers are plugged in, they will stop working. If I deselect mute in Windows, the on-board speakers will play regardless of whether there is anything plugged into the headphone jack.
Are you able to get any sound at all through either the built-in speakers or through the headphone jack?
Hi Again,
Well it seems to be the driver issue, I agree that the likelyhood of a different chipset is low.. but the driver will not install. Being a former IT guy myself I did research and found a couple of the drivers (after many failed attempts) I did however find an "atheros" wireless and an "nvidia" chipset driver that worked, Then I came across your blog. (a godsend indeed) I installed your driver set and the only things left not working were the "wired" ethernet port and the audio, the "nvidia" driver I had took care of the ethernet issue, but I am at a loss for the audio? I have tried many different versions of the "conexant hd" drivers with no success.Â
 I managed Novell networks back in the 3.x days and when we got our first NT box we joked that the NT acronym was actually Not Today LoL But I hate Vista even worse!!
Ending on a positive note, I am currently sending this post from the very laptop IÂ dumped "Vista" from this afternoon and I have to say that I think it has been given an injection of amphetimines!!
Thank You Again For Your Time And Effort!!
Ah, good! It's sometimes tough to troubleshoot these things when your not sure what skill set you're dealing with.
I think I figured out the problem. I had forgotten to mention that you have to install the Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for HD Audio before installing the Conexant Audio Driver or the Audio won't work.
Download: Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for HD Audio (Approx. 35.3 MB)
Instructions
If that doesn't work, let me know and we'll dig in further and try to get this figured out.
Hello Again,
Well I have tried all the above with no success, I was able to manually install a driver, but even though it says the device is working properly When I go into sounds in the CP it says no audio device?? Im not sure where to go from here?
Thanks For Your Help
Tom
At this point, I'd say we'd have to compare what's installed on our machines. With mine, using the same drivers, it works. The headphone jack is flaky, but it works. The microphone jack doesn't work at all.
If you download SIW, you can generate a report of the hardware installed on your system. Download the following zip file containing the audio device report from my laptop. Compare the two and see if there are any differences. If you want, you can also email me the report from your system and I'll look over it as well. You can email it to jrmorris77 [at] gmail [dot] com.
My suspicion is that your computer is caching, or persistently associating a different driver for the audio controller on your machine. I may take uninstalling the device completely in Device Manager and manually removing the old driver files to get the install to work.
There is also a thread on the HP Business Support Forums that covers this machine. It might be a good idea to track progress as well.
Something else you'll want to do is take a look at the driver details for your audio devices. The following screenshots show what is installed in my audio devices and the device driver details for my Conexant HD Audio. If yours doesn't match, then that's where the problem is.
Hey it's me again
Well, This worked for me I did some searching and found this:
From a comment:
FYI- For any of you downgraging a Copaq Presario C700T CTO to Windows XP, this solved my audio driver problem. I can now control the volume settings and my headphones work correctly as well.
Conexant SmartAudio 221:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dg0cmmkm4y4
Use this for audio.Unzip to a folder.Run installer.if it errors use device Manager
From Device Manager,right click "Audio Device on HD",choose Update driver,
No to connect,
Install from a list or specific location,
Don't search I will choose the driver to install,
In the list of common hardware types, scroll down and select Sound, Video, and Game controllers.
Remove the check from "Show Compatible Hardware" and click on "Have Disk".
Next…browse to the unzipped folder and choose the "WiSVHe5.inf".Ignore XP when it complains.
Reboot.
Excellent! Thanks for sharing your solution MuchHappier! I'm sure it will make many others much happier as well.
To ensure there is availability of the driver package you’ve linked to, I’ve mirrored the file here.
Thanks again!
I'm considering buying this laptop for school and work for this coming fall. I will be doing webpages and some graphic design on it if it can handle the programs. I'm actually learning how to do webpages from a friend and will be working for him p/t while going to school.
Will this laptop handle the following programs very well: Visual Studio 2008, Adobe Illustrator CS2, Photoshop CS3, and Indesign CS2.
I will be one of those people that will clone the drive with WinVista on it in case I screw up puting WinXP Pro on the computer. And I'm sure I'll be using your download for drivers.
But if you let me know if the laptop could handle those programs, that'd be great information for me. I don't want a laptop that would run them sluggishly.
will this laptop handle programs like Adobe Illustrator & Indesign CS2 and Photoshop CS3 along with Visual Studio 2008?
Veeridian,
Yes, this laptop can handle such programs. I'm running Macromedia Studio MX 2004 on it daily as well as Adobe Acrobat. Neither bog down and I can manipulate pretty large graphics without much impact on processor performance. The Dual Core Turion processor is quite capable and the 2GB of RAM is more than sufficient for a wide range of tasks.
The only bottleneck I've found in the system so far is that it has a 5400rpm hard drive. Upgrading that to a 7200rpm drive with 8MB of cache and then converting the original 5400rpm unit into an external secondary drive would be good.
Having worked with Adobe in the paste and having a very good idea of how processor intensive it is, I would say this would be a good laptop for the job IF you run XP on it. Now, in all fairness, it won't be as fast as a desktop, so don't expect those kinds of speeds. It's the nature of the form factor. Nevertheless, this laptop is fast enough that it has become a full desktop replacement for me. Given that I do similar work, it should work well for you too.
Hope that helps.
That helps me make my decision of buying it. Sorry for the 2 posts, I wasn't sure if the first one was posted, so I thought I'd make sure.
I figured it would run as fast as a desktop, but I don't want it to take a min between screens or saves when working in those programs.
I probably won't upgrade the HD right away, but I'll keep it in mind. I will be upgrading the RAM to 3gb's as soon as I get it though.
Veeridian,
The Akismet spam filtering system on this site is very sensitive for some reason. That's why you don't see your posts right away. Sorry for the confusion.
If you're going to upgrade to 3GB of RAM right away, then you'll definitely do well with this laptop. Just keep in mind that the drivers are for the 32-bit edition of Windows XP which has a 4GB Memory Limit. Also, Karl from AskTheAdmin.com recently discovered that there is a bug in XP 32-bit edition where you cannot put your computer into Hibernate with over 2GB of RAM. Fortunately, there is a patch for this mentioned on his site.
If you feel so inclined, please stop back by after you've had the laptop for a little while and let us know how it does for you. I'm sure you'll like it, but it's good to have more than one opinion.
Thanks for that. I actually just ordered it by phone and will be picking it up tonight. I'll play with it for a week or so and then let you know what I think of it. As far as Hibernate goes, I've never really used that feature. So it may not be such a bad bug in my opinion.
Thanks for the help on this and again, I'll let you know my thoughts on the laptop.
is this compaq f755au driver same as compaq f762au driver…
because im still looking for the xp drver for my latop..
tq
After doing a bit of searching around, it appears as both units use the same motherboard and chipset. Specifically, the Quanta 30EA motherboard. From what I'm able to find, all the F700 series boards share this platform. So, in a nutshell, this driver package *should* work for any Presario F700 laptop with the Quanta 30EA motherboard and the following hardware.
Mainboard : Quanta 30EA
Chipset : nVidia nForce 560
Processor : AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile TL-58 @ 1900 MHz
Video Card : Nvidia Corp GeForce 7000M (rev a2)
Network Card : Nvidia Corp MCP67 Ethernet
Network Card : Atheros Communications Inc AR5006 family 802.11abg Wireless NIC
The big difference in versions seems to be the installed RAM, hard drive size, optical drive and the presence or absence of the multi-card reader. There may be differences in the audio controller as well, but I have not found any information on that part.
I would say take a full backup of the factory installed OS then give XP a shot with the drivers listed in the post as well as the ones mentioned in the comments. Most likely it will work, but you may find that you have a device installed that I do not, so it may not be a 100% solution.
Good luck! Let us know how it turns out.
Hey:
CC has this on sale now 4-18-08, you can also get a free printer after rebates
Great Granny
Thanks for the tip!
Hey JMorris,
   I just bought this F755US and I am thinking to switch to XP. But first I will do the recovery discs for Vista just in case. If I have trouble with all the drivers for XP I guess I can switch back to Vista right?
Absolutely! If you use a disk imaging utility to make a bit-by-bit backup of the hard drive, you can burn that backup to DVD and store it for safe keeping. I'm particularly fond of Acronis TrueImage and Norton Ghost.
Good luck with XP! I've been using it for well over a month now without issue. Just make sure you read through the comments here thoroughly as there are some important points you won't want to miss.
Thanks a lot. Your info about XP on Compaq F755US is absolutely great. I am sure you are helping a lot of people. Thanks again.
No problem. Glad to help.
HI,
I bought a compaq laptop and i installed Xp but my audio driver is not proper and my mic is not working,wat the problem u faced same problem i also facing, if u have any good supporting audio driver means plz send to me
Unfortunately, I haven't had any luck with the microphone. The headphone jack is working, sort of, but not 100%.
I'm pretty slammed with finishing up the semester, but this summer, I want to revisit this in more detail and try to come up with a more comprehensive solution with more details on the hardware. Partially because of the problems mentioned in this discussion and partially because I don't like not knowing in great detail what is in my computer. That, and the damn headphone jack annoys me.
I know that isn't much help at the moment, and I apologize for that, but I'll do my best to test out the microphone jack as soon as I have time and see if I can find even a temporary solution for it. For now, you may want to take a look at some of the previous comments as they reference more information on the audio drivers.
YES! Holy cow, this was a mind numbing experience for me until I got to this page. I had gotten my wireless card working and my video card working, but other than that, it was like beating my head against the wall. Everything worked for me except the audio, and that finally worked when I used the driver supplied by MuchHappier. This was brilliant. Thank you so much.
Hi JMorris,
Seems like no one has the microphone working. I was going trough other forums and they have problems. I am setting up this laptop for my parents and they will Skype and I want to make sure they can use the microphone and web cam.Does your microphone work?
Unfortunately, no my microphone does not work. I really hope to dig into that further in the very near future, but it's going to be at least 3 weeks while I finish up the semester.
I plan to physically open the case and get the numbers off the chip sets directly so I can find the best drivers for them. Hopefully, that will flush out any remaining bugs we've encountered.
Well do you think that an USB microphone will work???
In theory, as long as you have any needed drivers, then yes, it should work just fine. The problem with this laptop is definitely related to the audio controller driver. Bypassing that controller by using a USB microphone should do fine.
Hi JMorris,
I just installed the XP.Everything is fine, I got the sound working with MuchHappier instructions. I haven't tested the mic yet,but I will do that. I have a problem with the ethernet network controller, I can not install it. When I run your driver file, it says that is missing the nvefdxp.sys file,which I download but still having problems.The device is not working. Any suggestions?
You could try the following Nvidia drivers MuchHappier found available here. I’ve installed them on my laptop and they seem to work just fine. After installing them, I found the file you mentioned.
Thank you so much for the article. I do have a presario f700 as well and was wondering how to get usb 2.0 working on it. The laptop when it came with vista had usb 2.0 (high-speed) but I haven't been able to find the drivers. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks a ton.
Since the F700 series all share the same motherboard and chipset, I'd say that the USB 2.0 drivers for the F755us should work on your system.
I recommend using the package listed here to only update your USB drivers, if that's all you need. You could also try the NVIDIA chipset I mentioned. If that doesn't work, try Windows Update. If you're still getting no joy, let us know and we'll try digging into it further.
Thank you so much for the reply, I think it worked. When I go to Device Manager, I see the following under Universal Serial Bus controllers, does this mean I have usb 2.0 now?:
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
USB Root HUB
USB Root HUB
USB Root HUB
USB Root HUB
That's what mine shows and I have USB 2.o, so I'd say you're good to go. Enjoy!
Bought a new notebook compaq presario f733au…everything is working fine except microphone…speakers r working fine..i think i am not getting the right audio driver…please help me out…
Garima,
Please see this comment. At this point, there isn't a reliable solution for the microphone. I'm going to work on that as soon as classes end.
Check back in a few weeks and hopefully I'll have that part figured out.
Ok, I finally decided it was time to put WinXP pro on the laptop. I'm still installing Windows Updates and haven't gotten to SP2 just yet, that'll probably take me a couple more hours. But after installing the drivers, most everything seems to be working just fine. The only thing I'm wondering about is the Wireless. I notice that whether I have it set to on or off, it still shows the orange light instead of a green light for when it's on. Is this something that'll change when SP2 is on here? or will I need to live with that?
Ok, WinXP SP2 is now installed and it still shows orange. Is yours doing this also? It seems to be working fine otherwise though.
alright, back one more time until someone else comments… I think anyway
.
I still need to figure out a couple of issues though. If you have any thoughts on these, please let me know:1) InDevice manager, I have a yellow exclamation mark in IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers that reads: 'Base System Device' I don't know what that is…2) Network Adapters: another exclamation mark next to: 'Ethernet Network Controller'. It wants a driver but hasn't found one yet for it. It didn't seem to find it in the bundle you have for download here.That seems to be about it. So, any help with those 2 issues and I'll be set.Thanks a bunch for everything so far.
What do you mean by "it still shows orange"? Are you meaning that there are unrecognized devices in Device Manager? If so, go through the comments here and there some additional drivers that should take care of that. The microphone and speakers may not work correctly, though. I'll be digging into that further once the semester is over.
Hmm… 2 of my posts never posted.
Well, the indicator light on the switch for the wireless is supposed to show orange/red when off and green when on. Mine only shows orange/red whether it is on or off. But it works just fine other than that.
All I have to do now is get that site for the ethernet driver to work. It seems to be down or something. I'll try it again later.
sound drivers didn't work, still looking for this driver.
Well, I'm posting this message from the laptop with XP on it now. Everything seems to be running just fine now. I haven't needed the mic at all as of yet, so I'll wait until you figure out how to get them working.
I've noticed probably 3 of my posts didn't post on here. We'll see if this one does or not.
What I meant by the orange light: When you have the WiFi off the orange/red indicator shows. When it's on it's supposed to be green. But when mine is on it's still orange/red. But it's all good as it does work. So no worries there.
Laptop is wonderful. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Thanks for all the help in getting this thing up and running.
Hi J!
Firstly, thank you so much!
I'm sure it was helpful to many of you guys out there but me:(
Anyway, my mashine:
Compaq AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core TK-57 1.9GHz Laptop (F764CA)Â
My problem is audio driver…(Conexant High Definition Audio Chip 221)
After endless hours, I got to the point that the driver is installed,
however I'm showing: This device cannot start. (Code 10)
If anyone out there have any ideas that would highly appreciated!
Thank you in advance…
Cheers!
Bart_montreal
do you know where I can get drivers for the Compaq F767NR?
hey,
what a pain…
I have tried everything above (not once, like few times).
Thank you very much for sharing all this info.
I've recently purchased:
 Compaq AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core TK-57 1.9GHz Laptop (F764CA)
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10100170&catid=25315&logon=&langid=EN
Finally everything works on XP(32bit)
but Sound Card( Conexant HD Audio)
Any ideas guys? Thank you so much!
Have a good day,
Regards,
Bart_Mtl
hey,
what a pain…
I have tried everything above (not once, like few times).
Thank you very much for sharing all this info.
I've recently purchased:
 Compaq AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core TK-57 1.9GHz Laptop (F764CA)
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10100170&catid=25315&logon=&langid=ENFinally everything works on XP(32bit)
but Sound Card( Conexant HD Audio)
Any ideas guys? Thank you so much!
Have a good day,
Regards,
Bart_Mtl
JMorris,
Do you know any places to buy a cheep copy of Windows XP pro? Thanks for the review, really helpful. I am thinking of buying the laptop this week for the sole purpose of running autocadd on it (2d only). Seems like a fine machine but I have never used vista and never heard anything good about it.
JMorris,
 Thanks for the easy to follow thread & instructions. I have a 2 week old f700US & never have I seen an OS as screwed up as Vista. Using the driver packet you supplied & a little time, you were right: these are very capable little computers with the right system on board. Also, it may be that different models have slightly different hardware configurations, because I have none of the speaker issues you mentioned. Plug them in, & the speakers turn off. Volume, mute, everything is dandy. Veeridian's comment about still showing orange may refer to the switch on the front of the unit to turn on & off the wireless would go orange in the off position, but turn blue when the switch was turned on. For me, it still turns on & off the wireless, but the indicator stays orange all the time. No biggy for me, as I can still tell the difference between left and right………
Again, thanks for your willingness to help so many, myself among them.
First THANX for the package JMorris !!
Second, after installing the package the atheros worked , but the wireless light never becomes blue. Just orange, even it works the light continuos orange. Do you know why ?
Thank you again
hey I just wanted to give a big thaaaaaaanks to you and all the people who commented on this. I ordered this laptop just today, it got good reviews everywhere else. I'm definitely planning on "downgrading" to XP and have already downloaded all the drivers to a USB flash drive, so I'll be ready to go.
Dear Morris,
I am from Missouri. I have installed all the drivers for XP Pro, Service Pack 2, except one, and that was the audio driver for the high definition audio bus. There is still a yellow question mark over the driver in the device manager. I am shipping this laptop to a friend of mine who is a solder in Kirkuk, Iraq. Can anyone assist? Thank you. Have a Nice Day!
Sincerely,
Bob
Baje tus drives de xp para la portatil F755 y lo tratare de instalar porque me agrada mas que el Vista ,ya que viene con el basico y es un problema para mi que siempre te interrumpe y no sabes que hacer ,te agradesco desdeaqui y espero me sirva ,Muchas Gracias
i just installed my laptop compaq, no sound what we i do?
Great site. I just went through the same experience (Presario
F767nr) and the difference between XP and Vista are incredible (I am now booting up from a cold start in about 25 sec.). I only wish I found your site before spending two days hunting down the drivers one at a time. It's a shame that Compaq helps so little, considering that there is such a demand for this "Upgrade".Â
HEY MORRIS! great review and advise on your Presario F 755 I got a compaq presario f 700 it came with a mobile AMD Sempron Procesor 3600+ Max. speed 2 Ghz, Bios f.05 (HP.), cache: L1 64 L2 256, came with 80 GB. hard drive IDE 5400 RPM SATA and 512 MB 667 Mhz DDR2 which I upgraded to 1 GB all these on a: 30 EA 86.09 Quanta Motherboard and guess what OS it comes with: vista starter, I know disapointing right well, what i would like to know is if can do what you did to your F755 I am experiencing a lot of problems with the vista starter, almost everytime now everything on the screen starts to disappear and wherever you move the pointer it opens little fragments of what is behind, it looked to me like a virus that took over my laptop but I have norton and everything shows clean even after the event, nothing I do can make it work, parts of the page i was on shows in fragments, on and off the screen, all i can do is turn it off by pressing the power button. any tip or advise on this would be really appreciated. thanx JPL.
i baught the same computer not so long ago for $579.00Â good deal everything works fine, and yes vista takes everything and leaves nothing, but besides that i have no problems, what i would like to know is the maximum capacity for ram and witch ram should i get 667mhz 533mhz? email me please
hey JM,
so…i find myself coming back to your site after installing XP pro from a foriegn country, where up until today I was using my laptop to skype my mom and sister in the states. The microphone problem is anything but good in my situation. I'm mad that my f755US came with vista in the first place, but i'm really annoyed (not at you) that I didn't know sooner about the microphone problem because when i wrote here last time there was never any mention of it here or anywhere else i looked online.I didn't find out about it until post install when i was tripping over the audio driver install a little. Of all the comments on the audio driver, MuchHappier's worked GREAT btw.
So now i have a few options,
1:the USB microphone(if i can get one)
2:wait for a mic workaround or find oneif it exists (crosses fingers) OR
3: get a pirated Vista and use my legit serial while hoping there's nothing shady bundled with it. (maybe my only option if i want to call home for free still.)
please help with the microphone problem if you know of anything
I DONT WANT TO GO BACK TO VISTA this PC is too awesome when it's tape-worm OS isn't running the show.
hi! I have some problems with my OS… it is a vista ultimate… and my pc is a compaq C760ES and a compaq F735ES and i want to change my OS with a windows xp professional but i cannot find any drivers for this windows xp…. will u help me please to find the drivers 4 these 2 laptops?
I can't use anymore vista ultimate or another windows vista because it is impossible to view movies, i have a lot of incompatibility software problems and i don't want vista. So please help me find these drivers. Thank you first!!!!!!!!! Sarah
hi!Â
I have some problems with my OS… it is a vista ultimate… and my pc is a compaq C760ES and a compaq F735ES and i want to change my OS with a windows xp professional but i cannot find any drivers for this windows xp…. will u help me please to find the drivers 4 these 2 laptops?
I can't use anymore vista ultimate or another windows vista because it is impossible to view movies with .avi , i also have a lot of incompatibility software problems and i don't want vista anymore.
So please help me find these drivers.
                                                                Thank you first!!!!!!!!! Sarah
Amm is this drivers compatable with F756NR ?!
Hey Morris, I bought a compaq-presario-F755LA, and i installed WINDOWS XP, I have a problem with the Atheros AR5006X Wireless Network Adapter an Ethernet network controller.
I need your help.
JUAN CARLOS DELGADO
hello most your drivers did the trick but there is still a yellow question mark on ethernet network controller, and USB audio device so if you can help thanks you've already helped a lot
I have roughly the same pc, little less on the spec, but it has the same chassy etc, i complete agree about the pcmcia part. and i also got mine with xp after a big struggle
Audio and Mike is working for me on , please use this
Conexant SmartAudio 221:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dg0cmmkm4y4
I like the Compaq F700, but not the sound. Even up 100%, it's still muffled.
i still can't get the audio to work this is crazy…
picture the UAA won't work? i use the f755us with windows pro home.
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s64/mustanggtlover/u.jpg
Conexant SmartAudio 221 works well for me too.
The microphone works. The same about the headphone.
thanks to all you guys
good day,.,,.
i tried installing Windows XP SP2 64-bit on my f755us,. the drivers dont seem to work,.., i really would like to see this laptop running on its full Potential. as its a 64-bit Machine,. it should also run on a 64-bit Software.,., do you have any suggestions on how we can make this laptop work on windows 64bit?
thanks,.
i already installed it,. the video and audio doesnt work
nesesito los controladores de el portatil f754la compaq presario para instalar windows xp gracias
Has anyone figured out the light for the wireless? After installing all of the drivers (and they all work) the wireless light never turns blue, stays amber even when turned on and connected. Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks in Advance, Jeff
hai sir thanx for help
I just bought a V3618AU Compaq Presario notebook and had downgraded the OS to Windows XP. Everything is ok except that there is no sound. I have a feeling that the graphic card driver is also not installed.. Help pls…
i use F762AU and i have problem with ethernet controller..at the device manager it still yellow..can someone help me
help me to solve my problem with my laptop compaq presario f700 sound driver..i can’t update my driver..
Bro, you think these drivers will work on Compaq Presario F767NR?
I really need some XP drivers on Compaq Presario F767NR.
VISTA is full of SH*T
Can this be done on a Compaq C513WM as well? I purchased a cd with Universal XP Drivers on it. But, when XP loads, it tells me that my hard drive has no drivers. If Vista is still on the laptop, wouldn't the drivers be there?  This is way new to me.  Also, do I install these drivers before I install XP?
I have a Compaq Presario C581WM laptop with Vista Basic on it. I purchased a copy Of Xp with SP2 to change it. It keeps telling me I have no hard drive. Am I supposed to install the drivers first before installing XP?
Jinjong, these drivers will do most of what you need to run a 767NR with xp. Use the last link in the comments for the sound driver (after installing the UAA) and this
http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_630a_winxp2k_14.10.html for the main chip and networking. I'm pretty sure the file the main author here posted plus those two are all I used. Just run the file from the original poster, then install UAA, then the sound driver, then the chipset driver there. It should work fine. However, I suggest you look up a site for dual booting vista and xp and make a partition and dual boot so you can play around with xp until you know all the drivers are working right.Â
I ran World of Warcraft at bottom of the line graphics in Vista on my F767NR and it was laggy as could be. Under xp, I run it with decent graphics and it's almost as smooth as on my desktop with xp.
having problem with my usb any time i connect to my pc it always tells me to connect it 2.0 high seep can some one help me .
Hello. This method will fix the wireless led which stays orange after you downgraded to xp.
This worked for me. I have a F767NR.
I just added the
two REG_DWORDs to my Atheros control.
 Here is where I added the two REG_DWORDS:
My Computer/HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Class/
{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002bE10318}/0010
Note: You have to add two new REG_DWORDS the first is
gpioPinFunc0
Set the value to 3
The Second is
gpioFunc0ActHi
Set this value to 0
Disable your network card and reenable it and your blue light should come on.
For me F755US didn't worked the two REG_DWORDS.
Anyone have some other tip ??
Thanks
Sadoo,
I have added these comments and nothing! There is not a specific place to add these comments other than 0010 after the string, correct? The first thing in the line is the gpiopinFunc0, and then the value of 3 is added afterwards to the third spot in line. I am just asking to be sure. I appreciate the help. BUT, i still have an amber light.  Thank you, Jeff
I still have the AMBER light too. Didn´t work for me.
Someone have another tip ?
Thanks
Fabiano
I also tried the fix for the orange wireless light to no avail. Maybe we missed something. This is the only thing left for me to get my laptop entirely working, all thanks to Morris and this awesome site !!
> Fabiano,
Following up on Sadoo's fix, I tried something like below to make F767NR's WLAN working. The point is that numeric part (e.g. 0011 or 0008 or 0010) depends on your environment.
Cited from: http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/680226/+20
> Search under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control for "Atheros"
> or
> right click the folder {4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002bE10318} and choose "Find" then key in "Atheros"
>
> Now this will most likely vary on your machine. I found it in the "0011" folder
Thank you so much for this info. I just got this laptop (f755us) a few hours ago and I have XP pro up and working. I had to use the other guys file for the nvidia graphics, network, and audio though. Now all I can't get to work is something called "base system device" under IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers. It can't find any drivers for it and the drivers file from here doesn't install that. Any help?Â
hello:
first i wanted to thank you- The driver's pack worked nicely, thanks to your effors getting rid of vista it's a very simple task.
but i got a problem, and aparently a very common one. the sound driver it simply wont install. it says that the needed software can't be found. i tried using the hardware manager and manually that did not work either. i check the internet and aparently is the right driver and i'm doing the right process but it simply wont work. i got experience with computers but i ran out of ideas. so i would really apreciate any help you can give me.
Hey Everything seems to be working fine
but…the video card driver
I play wow on my labtop or at least try to…I know my video card can handle it…because i could on vista but just a 32 FPs
It worked better on vista then is does on xp…I get 4-10 FPs on it now ?!?!?!
I have tried updating the driver and the sound driver because it said that It maybe the sound driver that is not making it run smoothly ?!?!?!
so what should I do ??
Yo he bajado los drivers de aqui pero todo no funciono en primer instante ,hasta que aprendi con ayuda de internet buscando y me funciona todo en mi compaq presario F755LA ,pero lo unico que no prende es la luz verde del wiffi ,si necesitan drives se los mando por internet ,no se como hacerlo desde aqui ,Gracias JMORRIS y todos los que medejaron bajar los drives
I apologize for the lack of responses on my part. Time for blogging is something I have not had lately.
RE: Green WiFi light…
Mine doesn't either and neither does the hardware switch. Since the Wifi card can be disabled with a right click in Windows, it never bothered me and I have not looked for any solution. With hack jobs like this, some missing, minor functionality is acceptable.
RE: Different model numbers…
As mentioned above, according to my research, the Compaq/HP F700 series all use the same basic components. The primary difference being add-ons such as the Rico media card reader. Therefore, theoretically the drivers in this package should, at least, partially work.
RE: Sound card…
I still don't have a fully functioning sound card. I still have to unplug and replug my headphone jack every time I make a volume adjustment. However, I have not tried the above mentioned tips either. I will give those steps a try before I publish version 2.0 of this driver package. If it works, I will document any necessary manual hacks.
I can make no guaranteees as to the suitability of this package for your particular computer. I'm simply offering here what worked for me.
As soon as I have time to get back to this, I will. I'm also planning on testing Ubuntu and CentOS on this particular laptop. I've already made the full conversion to CentOS on my desktop. If successful, I will publish more information on that installation as well.
To all who have provided tips and tricks to help fellow Presario F7xx users out, thank you very much. Your efforts are appreciated.
I just got the 755us last week and wanted to note that the sound drivers included in a comment above worked great for me, headphones work as they should, I don't have to mess with anything to get them too, mic also works perfect. I tried using Morris's package first but the sound didn't work at all on my f755us with his.
Thanks for these drivers. I’ve tested on Presario F731AU, all can cover the devices except for Audio.
J. Your review here has become an astounding resource, and I think I speak for many when I say thank you for all the effort. I just bought the f755us soley with the intention of yoinking vista and loading xp64.
My question of course is does this driver set work with 64bit xp? I could go with 32, but it seems such a waste when I have a perfectly good copy of 64 wasting it’s life on my old single core hp desktop.
Thanks in advance!
I recently got a Compaq Presario F767NR running Vista SP1. After I reinstalled Vista, all my drivers disappeared and I can’t seem to find them again. I tried installing all the drivers on the official HP page, but am still missing drivers for my Ethernet and Coprocessor, among others. How can I fix my computer?
Thank You
Y si existen los drivers para XP SP2 dónde los encuentro.
Gracias
Thank you very much. I can’t express in words how happy i am to get my laptop working with windows XP. Following the instructions on this page i got windows working at 85%(without LAN port working) in less than a couple hours. Thanks alot.
Thanx , your drivers work wonderfull in my f750 with a terrific vista home , but i change it to xp sp2 that i buy in mexico , again thx alot keep the hard work
thanks a lot.i can’t express my feelings.all the drivers have been installed.than you so much………
LOl win xp pro.
no0bs
Guess you werent around in the days of win xp pro prior to sp1. Win 2000 pro to xp pro (more eyecandy)was a nightmare as well, now what were you saying about vista? once all the kinhs are out of vista you will forget about the memory hog xp
I own a presarioF700, how can i make Wifi and LAN works? where can i find the right drivers for these devices? do i need to change my OS from vista to xp like you did?
I tried all the abover for my F767NR. The wireless card work, but the network card and audio card still not work. Please help.
The message is ” Driver Installation Failed: Could not find the MEDIA device for this driver”
I try to go to Device Manager by using Run – devmgmt.msc, then install driver. It still faile due to not finding the hardware.
Many thanks for your help
Thai Nguyen
I have downloaded your Drivers for XP, but i have a question. If this driver will work with a compaq F756NR? what do you think? I am afraid to install Windows XP and then i will not be able to find the right drivers for This PC. Before hands THANK YOU!
Thanks a lot! Mabuhay ka!
Thanks a TON for the windows XP driver package that you put together.
Ive been scouring the net all day looking for XP drivers, after throwing my only copy of Vista at Bill Gates.
Dear Mr Morris:
I really fucked up when I decided to get rid of vista and install Windows Xp on my Compaq Presario F755LA.
I downloaded and installed the Compaq_F755us_Drivers_XP32-bit.zip archive on my machine and it worked, with the exception of two drivers which I’m still missing:
1. Ethernet controller
2. Audio Device on high definition audio bus
My laptop still won’t connect to the internet
Can you help, PLEASE !!!
THANKS A LOT
!UPDATE!
By now, I’m certain that many of you have either concluded that I’ve given up on you, or simply don’t care. Neither is the case. In fact, it has been a great frustration of mine for the last few months that I have not been able to publish anything about these drivers, but it was not for a lack of effort, more a lack of a good time to tear down my laptop again and walk through, step-by-step, the process needed to get this blasted thing working with XP.
First, let me explain the lack of updates.
Now, to address a few things brought up here that I simply cannot answer at this time because I do not have the time or resources to dig into them.
Now, I want to reiterate, I’m not trying to be a jerk here. I’m a full-time blogger now, not an IT guy. I walked away from that field because I was burnt out on it. I posted this package here to try to help and I will continue to try to help, but I cannot guarantee what worked for me will work for you. It could be that you didn’t chant the ritualistic IT Geek chant properly or that you didn’t sacrifice a big enough chicken. Who knows. I’ll do what I can, but use the information I give you AT YOUR OWN RISK!
With that rant out of the way, I’m still finishing up moving and I’m in the process of relaunching my online business. I’m estimating that by mid-October I’ll my Desktop/Server back up and I will have time to tear my laptop back down and rebuild it step by step. It needs it anyways, it’s been flaky for 9 months now (lots of software and driver experimentation
). As soon as I have more info on this box and some updated drivers for you, I will post it here. Your best bet is to subscribe to the comments of this post, either by RSS or E-mail so you know as soon as I post an update.
Sorry for the rant, but a person can only take so many “You broke my new computer!” emails. >(
Hi Morris,
Thanks for your information provided in your site.
It is very informative.
For all the folks out there who are trying to download drivers after downgrading from Vista to XP. You may want to follow wat I have done.See below :
I believe most of have alot of frustration when downgrading to XP, the HP helpdesk is not helping much at all !
Wat I have done is to go to the HP website, find your drivers for Vista (NOT XP !). Copy it and do a google with the name you have copied and add XP behind it.
Eg
Intel Chipset Installation Utility for ICH8 XP
Using the above method, I have found almost all the drivers I wanted.
Just want to share with you all..
By the way Morris or anyone,
I got a funny situation, there are some XP CDs which work for my laptop but so could not. Is it due to SATA hard-disk ?
Also, I tried to clone my beautiful XP using Ghost 8.0 but it has an error msg ” Source volume cannot be locked 640″.
Anyone got any soln ?
Thanks in advance.
HI i downgraded my compaq presario f754la to xp pro and i can’t find any drivers for my audio can u please help me???
I have the compaq presario f755us, and am able to get everything but the audio drivers working. I have tried the various options, and still get the same result, which is no audio. I have tried just installing your zip file hd audio and same thing. I have uninstalled, the re-installed, and no difference. Appreciate any suggestions
Eureka! I was able to install the Audio drivers on XP for the Compaq f755US. This is what I did:1) I followed the above procedures without success:
See the following post from
a) JMorris posted the following on April 3, 2008 at 11:15 pm.
b) JMorris posted the following on April 5, 2008 at 10:41 am.
2) reboot and then Go to the Device Manager and select the HD Audio Sound Device that is displaying with the error and click on “Update Driver”
3) Select the following from the dialogue:
a) No Not at this time [Next]
b) Install from a list or specific location (Advanced) [Next]
c) Don’t Search. I will choose the driver to install [Next]
d) Select the Manufacturer: “Conexant” and then select Model: “Conexant High Definition Audio” and then click on [Have Disk]
e) click [Browse] and then navigate to the folder for the sp34386 (previously installed from HP SP34386
and select the file “wis30B5a.inf” and then click the [Open] button.
That did it!!!!! Good luck I hope this helps
Scott, If that does the job, I’m going to have to kiss you! Well, not really. That would be cruel and unusual punishment.
Seriously though, I’ve had Vista Business on this laptop now for a few weeks because work situations have not afforded me the time to do a fresh install and walk through this process again. I’d love to revisit this and get a final driver package uploaded to make things easier for us all!
Talk about your group projects! Microsoft should take notice.
Thanks for posting your experiences!
this good but still sound card don’t work
Morris you have been a great help. I think you are not a human, you are a robot that is programmed to help
Audio and ethernet is still an issue for me.
Scott….your step 3(d)Select the Manufacturer: “Conexant” and then select Model: “Conexant High Definition Audio” and then click on [Have Disk]
the Model: “Conexant High Definition Audio” does not appear at my F755. There were different models but not the one you mentioned.
This worked perfect for me. Please do not the “0″ in the words are ZERO, not lettter O
Note: You have to add two new REG_DWORDS the first is
gpioPinFunc0
Set the value to 3
The Second is
gpioFunc0ActHi
Set this value to 0
Disable your network card and reenable it and your blue light should come on.
Also had to restart once. Thanks so much all!
I went through the grewling process again, and experienced the same audio challenges, and I believe the pre-requisite is to update to Service Pack 2. and it works like a champ!
Scott,
Thank you for the heads up. I’ve been stuck on this !@#$%^& Vista now forever because work demands are keeping me to busy to put XP back on this thing.
For my fellow Linux fans, I have found that with the exception of the Mic and default video drivers, Ubuntu 8.10 Live CD fires right up and recognizes all the hardware. Since it recognizes all the audio, I’m pretty sure the Mic and Video issues can be sorted out pretty easily.
Quite honestly, I don’t know if I’ll go with XP on the next format or put Ubuntu on here and run XP in a Virtual Machine. Quite honestly, I think that would perform quite well for what little I need XP for anymore. For those that can’t get this to work with XP, running Ubuntu with XP in a VM might just be the solution.
Careful if you flash the bios on your Compaq F700 Series Laptop….lots of them out there with dead motherboards (mine included). Otherwise a pretty decent machine though. If I can figure out a way to replace the bios chip, I will.
It worked in a F767nr! Thanks a lot
Hi,
Please help me. My presario F700, with specification, board Quanta 30 EA, amd turion x2 1.9Ghz, chipset Nvidia MCP67, sound chip, MCP67 High definition Audio. My problem no active mixer available. I was download driver conexant HD audio 221_xp. and install it. but error no active mixer show when open audio properties.
Thanks.
thanks so much been looking for these drivers for a long time your the best thanks again i have it back on the net so cool thanks again
Hey,
Well the auto update from MS crashed the machine again. I was not able to recover from the discs that HP gave to VISTA, figuring I would give it a try after a year of xp running like a champ on it, but all was able to do was get XP to do a full NTFS reformat and install XP again from scratch, and just used your handy tool, with a couple tweeks for the audio again, and shazam. I did come accross a fix for the little blue light on the WIFI indicator, which required manually editing the REGEDIT values manually in a couple fields, however have not found that fix here, so I will locate and publish if I remember. Otherwise, should be able to search the boards for a fix where it is in the regedit for the specific area and changing like 3 or 4 entries.
found the registry solution right above, search on dword and you have to search in the sub folders for the proper value of sub folder and then add the two new dwords as defined above. closed the registry and then disabled and then enables the wireless, made the connection and Shazam, BLUE. All set again. This time I save the instructions in a txt document. As previously stated, the glamerous gui aint worth the hassle of instability.
Has anyone tried Windows7 on this beast ?
compaq presario F755US
those drivers apply or can be use in compaq presario F767NR?