Need some help with installing Windows XP on my crappy netbook

How old is the netbook? Yeah that Jackly toolkit has the right bit for opening these tiny Phillips screw.

But do exercise caution - some netbooks/notebooks require you to pry open the keyboard to access its innards. Classic example - the Asus EEE PC 1015CX. We tried opening this one to upgrade the RAM but couldn't because it requires one to open the keyboard panel which we weren't very confident of since there are some fine ribbon cables that connect the touchpad with the mainboard. So watch out for this part.
 
That is quite a good suggestion by @Gannu . Definitely do that if you can.

And I will also advise not to go with the slimmed down version from anywhere else. Download the Windows 7 ISO for yourself, and you can slim it down, using RTSe7enLite : http://www.rt7lite.com/

I think it works similar to nlite. You can strip out components, and even ones of your own, like service packs etc.

About installation from USB, it will definitely be slower, because USB disks have slow speeds, specially USB 2.0, which is what I think the notebook will be supporting. So, you will have to show some patience for the install to complete.
 
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Finally success. Installed Windows XP yesterday after like 3 Hours. The pen drive seems to be POS slow. Took more minutes than percentage to copy all files to the HDD. About 2 Hours. And then the GUI based installation took another 1 Hour.
First couple of attempts were futile as the netbook would shutdown after it got super hot. So opened the base which was easy to remove. And then started it back, exposing the fan and the vents in open so it does not heat that much. In that way only i was able to install the OS.
I closed the back again and downloaded the drivers and all and started installing when the netbook gave up again by shutting down due to heat. Will be installing the drivers today.
Is there any solution to this super heat which comes from bottom. It is impossible to keep the laptop on lap with the heat. I tried cleaning by blowing air but probably does not help much.
So as of now the situation is that the netbook will power on fine when cool and may work for 1-1.5 Hr (depends) and will shutdown abruptly if gets heated more. Then fails to start until it is cooled again.
 
Did you clean the heatsink fins? There should be one near the vents which expels all the heat from the chips. Remove the screws of the heatsink, clean the old dried up thermal paste and apply some fresh thermal paste. This should ease the temperatures by a bit. Monitor the temps. using the RealTemp utility.
 
Gannu said:
Did you clean the heatsink fins? There should be one near the vents which expels all the heat from the chips. Remove the screws of the heatsink, clean the old dried up thermal paste and apply some fresh thermal paste. This should ease the temperatures by a bit. Monitor the temps. using the RealTemp utility.
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You talking about removing the fan from the motherboard. I will check that today. I just blew some air hoping dust would come out. Also there is some sort of copper flat pipe type thing going from fan to somewhere middle of the motherboard (when seen from bottom).
I will try to take pictures and see. Should have done that yesterday. I am not really good at all these laptop opening thing still will try.
However stupid it sounds, i even thought about cutting the plastic base (where the fan is) which is around the vents area to dissipate the air.
You all gurus might get better idea when i post the pics. Probably at night.

Btw how do i exactly clean it ? Anything possible with something i might have in house ?
 
There are no special tools required for this Rakshit. I recall when I had opened my netbook after a year or so, the heatsink fins were clogged with a cake (no kidding! It was literally a cake) of dust, hair and other debris. As a result, the fan was not able to push any air through the blocked vents.

Even the centrifugal fan was rotating extremely slowly and sometimes would pause rotation randomly. Fortunately, the impeller (blade assembly) came off when I pulled it out which left exposed the armature part which was again filled with dust. Cleaned it using a cotton bud and poured a few drops of some oil. Replaced the impeller back in the casing and the fan started spinning properly! I was glad it did because at one stage I thought I had damaged the fan entirely by pulling the impeller off!

Look at the sample image of a heatsink arrangement in the attachment. The fins are on the right side where the copper tubes lead to. The flat copper tubes are coming from the heatsinks of the CPU and the Northbridge. The fins should be cleaned using a blower to ensure that the air can pass through without any blockage obstructing the flow.

Lastly, like I mentioned before if you can buy/borrow/steal a tube of thermal paste (Prime ABGB?), you should remove this heatsink assembly and clean the old dried up paste from the heatsink bases and the chip surfaces using iso-propyl alcohol (available from chemists; a small bottle costs somewhere like Rs. 30~40). Once this is done, apply some thermal paste from the tube (don't spread the paste; the heatsink bases will spread the paste to the chip by itself) and screw back the assembly. Monitor the temperatures now. It should have dropped by a good margin.
 

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Some nifty DIY there. Will surely dismantle my laptop tonight and see what all i can discover. All this is new to me. And this is the perfect crap netbook to try on.
 
@raksrules , congrats on installing XP successfully :). Your patience paid off.

It does seem like your laptop needs cleaning of the fan. It has to be done at some point or the other for laptops and notebooks, and seems like it has to be done for your notebook now.

You can search on YouTube for videos, for your particular notebook model, for how to open the notebook for cleaning, or how to clean the fan, and most probably videos will show up where they will show you how to open the notebook and also how to clean it. Will definitely help.

That flat copper wire will definitely lead to the sink and fan, so follow it, and open the notebook there.

My brother has a Dell laptop, and it started to get very hot too. So, we found videos on YouTube and after watching that, we opened the laptop. Like @Gannu , we too found a whole lot of dust inside which was clogging the sink and the fan. After that was cleaned, the laptop ran much better, and heated a lot less.

You might need screwdriver set for opening the notebook. I hope you have that. Also, be careful while opening the notebook, and don't apply too much pressure on parts which don't open, as it might damage or break it. That's why watching a video does help. It also helps in getting to know the exact location of things, otherwise there are a whole lot of screws to open.

Your notebook definitely needs cleaning though... surely there will be whole lot of dust inside.

After you have cleaned it, it should run fine, but if you still feel it a bit hot, you can go for the cooling pads, or cooling stands that are available for laptops nowadays. Take a look on Flipkart:

http://www.flipkart.com/laptop-acce...,59n&ref=5030156b-ac2c-43d2-a5c1-ae1ebf1a79ba

Good luck :)
 
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Thanks @Gannu and @CapriAnupam for the cleaning tips. I finally managed to clean the vents.
Check the attached images for the vents andd also the processor. There was indeed a CAKE there, you can see in the pic.
Now the netbook is lot cooler. It still gets hot but the heat is like less than 20% of what it used to be.
 

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Wow! The last pic shows how much dust there was in the notebook, and it was definitely clogging the vents... and the fan had whole lot of dust too. No wonder the notebook became hot and shut down. I think now the notebook won't become hot a lot, and definitely wont shutdown from the heat. Good job done :).

If you still feel it runs hot, you can try the cooling pads.

I hope the drivers for XP install well, and XP works fine on the notebook :)
 
Now that is what I call a CAKE! :cool:

Glad that you did the cleaning. Now the netbook should run a lot more cooler. Download RealTemp utility and see the results for yourself. Btw what about the thermal paste? Did you apply some new paste after removing the old dried one?
 
Nah did not touch the thermal paste part. I will see the results as of now with this cleaning and then decide later whether i need to do the thermal paste application or not.
And yes XP installed fine, drivers installed fine. Working tip top now. At one point i was literally going to trash this netbook, not even donate as i did not want anyone else to face the frustration. Installed essential software like Office, VLC Player, 7ZIP etc.
This will go back to my younger brother who has been constantly complaining that he does not have a laptop.
 
The old stuff like desktop PCs, laptops, even mobiles, are definitely worth keeping... they come in use sometime or the other. I have my desktop PC from 2000 still lying around, and it still works fine. It's my backup PC, and it has helped me on numerous occasions. Last year, the desktop PC I had been using since 2005, got fried, and I was in search of configuration for a new one. It took almost a year for me to get proper configuration. In the meantime, this old PC came to my rescue. It has P-III, 512MB SDRAM(now 256 though), mere 8 GB HDD... so it's quite old and runs slow, but atleast it kept me connected to internet, and I could do my work on it.

If you know how to format and install OS on the computers, it's worth keeping an old one around. You never know when you might need it. You can also use it to test out stuff, like I do. I try out software for reviews, or testing on the old PC, without affecting my working one.

You can install Windows on it, or even Linux, and experiment around. So many things you can do with a spare computer.

And of course, like you would be doing, you can give it to others, so that they can have something atleast, and it will help them. So, these stuff are worth keeping.

Same about my old mobiles... I still have Nokia 2100, and 6600 lying around. Always come in handy, when my present mobile gives trouble... mine recently did.

It's great you got the notebook working :).
 
Yeah we have already given 2 desktops to our relatives who had small kids and those people had no idea about buying desktops and all so we just gave them to use. It still works fine for them.

Now i need to do the same cleaning thing to my Dad's netbook (14" one) but i will need to take all backup and everything beforehand so as not to screw up anything with his machine. I cannot afford to lose his work data. Also that netbook too gets hot and he complains about abrupt shutdowns.
Although i can just remove his HDD, keep aside and start cleaning the netbook but i am paranoid about his data getting corrupted so i will first backup too.
 
Careful though, if that back panel does not pry open properly revealing the motherboard, then you may have to remove the keyboard which is a big pain! Don't attempt that. Give the laptop to a service centre instead.
 
Oh, that's great :). Yes, something is better than nothing. Also, it saves them money.

Yes, backups are quite important. I too take special care to first backup their data, if I am taking care of their computer, or re-installing OS, etc. In case of wanting to format a laptop, and installing a different OS, or re-installing OS after formatting... apart from taking backup manually to another hard drive, or pen drive, or external HDD... I also make an image of their system partition.. so that in case, the re-installed, or new OS does not work as desired, because of any problems, I can always go back and install the image, and have the system in previous condition. This also helps in retaining the recovery partition of laptops... because nowadays, laptops do not come with OS CDs.. rather, they put the stuff in recovery partition, and if you have to re-install OS, you just start the factory recovery process, in which case, it formats the laptop, and re-installs stuff from the recovery partition. Not something I like.

I recently installed Windows 7 on the old laptop of my cousin, which had Windows Vista on it. I backed up the data, and also made an image. Before that, I had checked with Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, to make sure that Windows 7 could be installed on the laptop. That's important. I also downloaded the drivers for the laptop for Windows 7 from the laptop's official site beforehand, and kept them ready. Good thing with Windows is that, for older hardware, it already has the drivers. Also, with Windows 7, I observed that even for laptop specific drivers, it finds the updates on its own, and offers them for download via Windows Update, which is great!

When I had installed XP on my older PC, I did not had to install drivers separately at all... it just recognized and installed all drivers by itself!

Netbook of your dad needs cleaning too, definitely. Do follow the advice of searching for videos on how to open particular models... it really makes the job easy, and safe. Good luck :).
 
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