- Mar 21, 2004
- 13,576
- 6
- 76
Back in the day I bought an HP Pavilion zv6000 laptop. I figured I would keep it with 32bit windows until more programs would be available for 64bit. And then upgrade. However when windows XP 64bit arrived they declared that it will never be supported. And when vista arrived they declared it will never be supported. They recommended owners of these computers should upgrade to their newer models... This was quite annoying since the whole reason I chose this laptop at the time is the expectancy of gaining a performance upgrade when using 64bit applications a year down the road.
I searched high and low and could not find a single success story of a person who managed to install a 64bit OS on the HP Pavilion zv6000 notebook (but plenty of frustrated users begging for help). But I didn't give up, and after a couple of days I have reaped success.
In retrospect I should have shared the discovery immediately as it was fresh in my mind. However I did not do so.
The time has now come for me to reinstall vista, a certain patch Microsoft released a few months ago caused 4 out of the 5 vista computers I was using to corrupt the OS (networking doesn't work at all, running IE7, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc just leaves it as "loading", until I try to close them and then the program crashes). However reinstalling the RTM vista and patching again seems to cause no issues. This laptop was lying in storage during that period and I only recently started using it again and noticed the problem (it being the 4th computer).
Since I will be reinstalling the OS I decided to this time document my process so that others who are trying to get a 64bit OS onto that laptop.
The first thing to note is that I could not get it to work with 64bit XP. It just does not have the drivers. Vista64bit on the other hand comes with a plethora of drivers preinstalled. Making your job a lot smoother.
Install process:
First Step
The first hurdle I had was that for some reason the built in DVD drive would not boot a DVD-R it did not burn itself. I do not know if this specific one is defective or weather its some firmware issue (in the DVD drive I mean not in bios). The solution was to burn a copy of vista using the DVD drive in the laptop.
Second Step
First thing to install is the chipset drivers. Those are easily downloaded from the AMD website. You want the "Radeon Xpress 200M integrated/motherboard drivers"
It can be found here:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/driv...a64/integrated-vista64
Note: At the bottom it also includes a southbridge driver, I installed it as well but it didn't seem to do anything. (it might be a requirement to the next step that I missed... someone please tell me if it works without it on your attempt)
Third Step
Next comes the toughest part, the audio. Unlike the dial up modem and the multi card reader this one is absolutely necessary. And the toughest one to get working. As it turns out the zv6000 uses a "Conexant link" for its SB400 southbridge; don't ask me what they mean by that. There are various crude solutions which require modifying the way windows worked (make it work in test mode with unsigned beta drivers etc)... They are also all unreliable. There is a simple installer you can use. Through some digging I found out that HP has used the exact same southbridge/audio scheme in a newer laptop for which they HAVE released a proper driver. This driver works without a hitch with the zv6000.
It is called SP35558, its very hard to find on goolge (but possible if you search for "SP35558.exe"). It is easiest to find on the HP website by searching for this exact phrase "SP35558", here is a direct link that currently works:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizs...&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
Simply finding the driver is not good enough though. when you try to install it it will FAIL. There are three setup files in there and all of them fail. However it CAN be installed manually.
1. Right click on my computer, select properties.
2. Click on "device manager" (top left).
3. Select the "Multimedia Audio Device" found under "other devices" it would be noted as unrecognized.
4. Right click on it. Select "update driver software"
5. Select "browse my computer for driver software" (at the bottom with a green arrow)
6. Select "let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer" (at the bottom with a green arrow)
7. Click the "have disk" button.
8. Go to the directory into which SP35558 extracted, select the only file that shows in there (a .inf file)
9. Select the only option you have, "Conexant AC-Link Audio".
10. It will warn you that it cannot verify if this will actually work with your software, tell it to install anyways.
11. Great success, you have managed to get the audio working. Thank HP for telling you it is impossible.
Fourth Step
Run windows update, look at the optional updates, and install the Synaptics Touchpad Driver.
NOTE: At this point you have a functional computer, the only things you are missing are the dial up modem and the "digital media card reader".
This is as far as I got my first time around.
Fifth Step
Getting the Digital media card reader working... I think I did it before, but if so I could not replicate it. While non essential it could be useful.
According to the HP documentation for the XP driver it is called: "Texas Instruments PCI (TI-PCI) 6xx1/7xx1 Cardbus (Media Card Reader)"
I have read claims that the acer Aspire 3020 and 5020 have a media card reader driver that will work with this. However the links were all dead, and the current drivers hosted on the acer website do not seem to work with this media card reader.
Sixth Step
Getting the dial up modem working... not essential, I don't think it is possible, and you could easily use a PCCard with a dial up modem if you really needed it (unlike the audio which is not easily replaced).
According to the windows problem solver it is called: "CPT4370m, SoftV92 Data Fax Modem with SmartCP"
I searched high and low and could not find a single success story of a person who managed to install a 64bit OS on the HP Pavilion zv6000 notebook (but plenty of frustrated users begging for help). But I didn't give up, and after a couple of days I have reaped success.
In retrospect I should have shared the discovery immediately as it was fresh in my mind. However I did not do so.
The time has now come for me to reinstall vista, a certain patch Microsoft released a few months ago caused 4 out of the 5 vista computers I was using to corrupt the OS (networking doesn't work at all, running IE7, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc just leaves it as "loading", until I try to close them and then the program crashes). However reinstalling the RTM vista and patching again seems to cause no issues. This laptop was lying in storage during that period and I only recently started using it again and noticed the problem (it being the 4th computer).
Since I will be reinstalling the OS I decided to this time document my process so that others who are trying to get a 64bit OS onto that laptop.
The first thing to note is that I could not get it to work with 64bit XP. It just does not have the drivers. Vista64bit on the other hand comes with a plethora of drivers preinstalled. Making your job a lot smoother.
Install process:
First Step
The first hurdle I had was that for some reason the built in DVD drive would not boot a DVD-R it did not burn itself. I do not know if this specific one is defective or weather its some firmware issue (in the DVD drive I mean not in bios). The solution was to burn a copy of vista using the DVD drive in the laptop.
Second Step
First thing to install is the chipset drivers. Those are easily downloaded from the AMD website. You want the "Radeon Xpress 200M integrated/motherboard drivers"
It can be found here:
http://game.amd.com/us-en/driv...a64/integrated-vista64
Note: At the bottom it also includes a southbridge driver, I installed it as well but it didn't seem to do anything. (it might be a requirement to the next step that I missed... someone please tell me if it works without it on your attempt)
Third Step
Next comes the toughest part, the audio. Unlike the dial up modem and the multi card reader this one is absolutely necessary. And the toughest one to get working. As it turns out the zv6000 uses a "Conexant link" for its SB400 southbridge; don't ask me what they mean by that. There are various crude solutions which require modifying the way windows worked (make it work in test mode with unsigned beta drivers etc)... They are also all unreliable. There is a simple installer you can use. Through some digging I found out that HP has used the exact same southbridge/audio scheme in a newer laptop for which they HAVE released a proper driver. This driver works without a hitch with the zv6000.
It is called SP35558, its very hard to find on goolge (but possible if you search for "SP35558.exe"). It is easiest to find on the HP website by searching for this exact phrase "SP35558", here is a direct link that currently works:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizs...&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
Simply finding the driver is not good enough though. when you try to install it it will FAIL. There are three setup files in there and all of them fail. However it CAN be installed manually.
1. Right click on my computer, select properties.
2. Click on "device manager" (top left).
3. Select the "Multimedia Audio Device" found under "other devices" it would be noted as unrecognized.
4. Right click on it. Select "update driver software"
5. Select "browse my computer for driver software" (at the bottom with a green arrow)
6. Select "let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer" (at the bottom with a green arrow)
7. Click the "have disk" button.
8. Go to the directory into which SP35558 extracted, select the only file that shows in there (a .inf file)
9. Select the only option you have, "Conexant AC-Link Audio".
10. It will warn you that it cannot verify if this will actually work with your software, tell it to install anyways.
11. Great success, you have managed to get the audio working. Thank HP for telling you it is impossible.
Fourth Step
Run windows update, look at the optional updates, and install the Synaptics Touchpad Driver.
NOTE: At this point you have a functional computer, the only things you are missing are the dial up modem and the "digital media card reader".
This is as far as I got my first time around.
Fifth Step
Getting the Digital media card reader working... I think I did it before, but if so I could not replicate it. While non essential it could be useful.
According to the HP documentation for the XP driver it is called: "Texas Instruments PCI (TI-PCI) 6xx1/7xx1 Cardbus (Media Card Reader)"
I have read claims that the acer Aspire 3020 and 5020 have a media card reader driver that will work with this. However the links were all dead, and the current drivers hosted on the acer website do not seem to work with this media card reader.
Sixth Step
Getting the dial up modem working... not essential, I don't think it is possible, and you could easily use a PCCard with a dial up modem if you really needed it (unlike the audio which is not easily replaced).
According to the windows problem solver it is called: "CPT4370m, SoftV92 Data Fax Modem with SmartCP"
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