If you have been forced to 8.1, I don't see why you wouldn't also be "forced" to hardware that it is more compatible with it, but maybe that's not the problem.
Or, at least you can mention that, and the people that are doing the "forcing" can tell you to go back to XP.
Actually, what you are talking about sounds possible with a BIOS modification. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people that would be able to do this.