The good news is that Windows 7 can be installed on the S5200N without major problems! The system boots and behaves quicker with the upgraded memory to 1GB, with the stock 512MB module it was a little slow.
The functions keys (volume up/down, brightness, etc) all work as spected.
The only big problem I’ve found so far is that the Graphics Card from Intel is not compatible with Aero. In fact Intel didn’t even provided a Driver for it in vista and they say no such driver will be ever made… So bad luck! Anyway and appart from this “minor” glitch, the basic driver works ok and you can set it to work at 1024×800 without problems. UPDATED 17/09/09: After some research, I’ve found a way of enabling the Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME video card (Thanks to these two posts):
- Run MSConfig and check “OS boot information” on the “Boot” tab. You will loose the starting animation on boot (showing text instead), but it prevents the system from a BSOD
- Now, boot in Safe Mode (press F8 key at boot) and replace the standard VGA card and the unidentified VGA compatible card and change the drivers with the ones that can be downloaded here
- Now follow these instructions:
- Create a shortcut on the desktop to cmd.exe (In the location box type cmd /k)
- Right-click on the shortcut and select Run as administrator
- When the command window opens, type the following and press ENTER after each:
bcdedit /set nointegritychecks ON
bcdedit /set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS
bcdedit /set testsigning no
- And Voilá! now it’s working! You only loose that pretty animation at system startup but, who cares?
Touchpad also works right, but the software provided for Asus won’t install unless you set compatibility mode to XP. I think a more recent driver will make it work, but again I haven’t found another one…
Another glitch is that Power4Gear utility can be installed but not works at all, so the system is at full power all the time, something a don’t like very much.
Updated 7/12/2009: On this Intel page you can download the Power4Gear, ATK Hotkey Utility and ATK0100 ACPI Driver that will enable ALL the function keys and the processor speed key. In fact this computer seems to belong to the same famuly that the S5N and most of the drivers for vista DO work on the S5N
The card reader is found and a driver loaded. It even “senses” a new card has been inserted, but cannot read/write to it. I’m looking for another driver…
The modem it’s not recognized and I haven’t found a situable driver for it.
WIFI works using this driver from Intel. It’s the Vista driver, but works on 7 just right.
If someone knows better drivers to support this hardware, please, let me know!
Updated 14/06/10: Sound can be better controlled thanks to this Realtek AC97 Sound driver provided by Cybernet, thank you!
After many caveats and not sure about its compatibility, I finally ordered a 2GHz Processor, concretely a Mobile CPU Intel Pentium M 755 2.0GHz 2MB 400MHz SL7EM, which is now happily installed on my S5200N.
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