We got a couple of Philips Freevents 11NB5800 laptops at work this week, and they’re actually very nice. Of course, they come with Vista installed, so we had to remove that.
Problem #1
There are no XP drivers for the Freevents 11B5800. There’s nothing in the box (not even a Vista restore disc), and Philips have no mention of any of their laptops on their website. In fact, outside of PC World’s online store, the Freevents doesn’t appear to exist.
Thankfully, the 11NB5800 is actually just a re-badged Twinhead F11Y. It took me ages to figure that out, and it was only by searching for the SATA controller chip that I made the connection. Twinhead helpfully provide all the necessary drivers for XP (and ME and 2000, if you’re that way inclined).
Problem #2
Sadly, you can’t get as far as XP installing, as the XP Pro SP2 install disc doesn’t include the SATA driver necessary for the installer to see the laptop’s hard drive. Of course, this is often a problem, but you can usually solve it by putting the driver files on a floppy disk and pressing F6 when prompted during setup.
If only it were that easy. I had a USB floppy drive and managed to find Ye Olde Floppy Diskette, put the drivers on it, and pressed F6. XP Setup recognised the drivers, and I chose the Mobile variant of the Intel SATA chipset driver, and Setup continued. Unfortunately, Setup still couldn’t see the hard drive.
Problem #3
Then, after some more Googling and getting a hint from someone having similar problems with a HP laptop, I found this page. I tried the same thing, slipstreaming the SATA drivers into a copy of the XP Pro SP2 setup disc, creating a new disc in the process. Booting from this new disc and… success! I could see the hard drive, delete the Vista partition, and start XP Setup!
Problem #4
But then, disaster! The partition formatted, and the files needed for setup were copied to the hard drive, and then the machine rebooted as expected. But that was all – the laptop froze on the POST screen and refused to progress any further. I couldn’t get into the BIOS, I couldn’t boot from a CD, and removing the battery for a while before trying again was futile. Oops!
Luckily, I had another identical laptop. I decided to try the risky venture again, only with one small (and, it turned out, vitally important) difference. On the partitioning options during setup, I deleted both the Vista and the small System Restore partitions from the drive. This time, everything worked fine and after a (surprisingly quick) installation, I was at the XP desktop ready to install all the XP drivers previously downloaded from Twinhead’s website.
Of course, I still have one bricked laptop, but as soon as I figure out how to get the hard drive out, I’ll have that sorted by cloning the working one to it…
Sometimes there are things that just need to escape my head.
Hi Jules,
I think you might need to take it back. I presume you stuck with Vista in the end? The 11NB5800 does get pretty hot, so I suspect yours is probably overheating.
Thanks D – yes I did stick with Vista (although a couple of people have suggested I shouldn’t have!) – I also put Norton on it – but someone slapped my wrists took it off and put on AVG free! I feel quite proud though cos I did think it might be overheating – is the fan underneath? wouldn’t it have been sensible to design it with ‘feet’! Ah well – the joys of PC World await me – thanks again j
Hi, I have a 12NB5800 which came with vista! within a week i had it running XP because lets face it vista sucks. The laptop ran XP like a dream, fast and stable. Thing is, i’m now on a linux binge and have Ubuntu 8.04 working like a dream
yay. FYI, I brought the XP drivers from ebay. Msg here if you want the name of the seller.
I downloaded the file sata.exe which expanded to an extensive folder tree. – iata_cd-application-help-monitor-etc etc. However, I cannot see which files in all this are the actual driver files. What extension do they have etc. Many thanks, Errol
Errol:
If you’re using the nLite method of slipstreaming the drivers into the disc image, you don’t need to worry. Just try the folders you’ve expanded in turn (as you add the driver to the image), and it’ll find the driver files for you.
Thank you !!! I have XP working, BUT,
1. No sound. 2. When typing, the keys with blue symbols are the default. To get the normal letters, I have to press the blue Fn key. ie its function is reversed ! How do I fix this ? ie K gives a 2 unless I hold down Fn.
Hi there ! I have now downloaded the sound drivers from F11Y and the chipset drivers. Will try them, but there doesn’t seem to be a keyboard driver available. I have set all language and regional to UK (including keyboard) but no joy so far. Any help would be very welcome. Is there a keyboard code to set ? Many thanks, Errol
Errol:
You shouldn’t need a keyboard driver. The FN problem is almost certainly because numlock is on – turn it off. You may need to set in the BIOS whether numlock is on or off on boot up.
Can i ask what is the point of instaling xp? Seems like a step back to me. I think nowadays, it is just ‘cool’ to dislike vista, which is a real shame because it isn’t a bad operating system, people just don’t give it a chance.
A lot of people (when asked) haven’t got a clue why xp is ‘better’ they just say it is. If they have any sort of reasonable excuse it can usually be discredited, especially with the release of sp1 which has improved the OS greatly. Did anyone use xp before the service packs? it was riddled with errors and security issues. service packs are microsofts way of saying that they are listening, and no matter what anyone says, no operating system is perfect when it gets released.
A minor nuance that many people have is the UAC, and i do admit that it is very annoying, but it takes literally 2 minutes (including a google search on how to do it) to turn it off.
Rant over
Hi Joe,
There were several reasons to put XP on these machines:
1) The staff who are going to use them specifically wanted small, XP machines. They’d used Vista, and don’t like it.
2) We don’t support Vista on our network, and won’t until *all* our machines are capable of running it adequately. Past experience with mixed 2000/XP, 98/ME and ME/2000 networks have shown me that having more than one OS on the network causes support hell.
3) A lot of our software (mainly educational stuff) simply won’t run on Vista.
4) Our school management system is not supported if we run it on something other than XP or OS X, and the automatic updates don’t work if you use Vista.
5) The Freevents runs *much* quicker, and cooler (although it’s still pretty warm!), than it does with Vista. It boots in around 20 seconds, instead of over a minute.
hi
read andy’s report on 25 june reference upgrading the 1g ram to 2g on his x66 i’m thinking of doing the same, andy states he has the experience does he have any tips i have tried to locate the whereabouts of the ram thought via the web as there is no access port as on many other laptops and i can’t find any information or drawings on any site, i did try removing the keyboard but alas it wasn’t there.
hi andy, a couple of questions,
1; philips x66 duel 1.06 vista ultimate same laptop?
2; how did you solve the snag with taking it apart?
3; what memory did you get and how good is it running now?
frustrated owner wishing for no slow down!
In reply to the last 2 comments, i recently upgraded mine from 1gb to 2gb of ram.
after the upgrade it boots a lot quicker, but running there isn’t (or doesn’t seem to be much diffrence) but then I thought it was a quick machine anyway.
got the RAM it’s self from ebay, 2gb was ¬£35 delivered
How to install it…….Its a nightmare!
1, remove all the screws from the bottom, 13 in all. 3 under the battery, 3 under rubber bungs, and 1 under a warranty seal and the rest are visible
2, eject the CD (via powering up or the little pin hole to manually eject) remove the 2 screws now visible in on the lip of the CD tray.
3, now the hard bit, with the CD drive open GENTLY pull. What your trying to do here is unconnect the drive on the inside and slide it out of the laptop about 1cm, thats all it will come.
4, once the CD has been dissconnected you can then remove the bottom cover, for this your going to need some kind of plastic panal opener or the like as you will need to gently lever the cover over the VGA port, USB ports and audio ports.
5, the back cover will them come off and the CD drive will come with it.
The ram slot is then visible in the bottom right hand corner of the main board.
Putting it back together is the reverse.
Also worth noting it only has one slot, so buy a 2gb stick, not a 1gb hoping to end up with 2.
Thanks for the helpful comments, Mark!
Hi
I have a Twinhead H12Y (I think its also called a X55). When I first got it I was very pleased with the speed but it has noticeably slowed down over time. I have stopped all the crap that likes to live in the ststem tray. I have defragged it, cleaned it of spyware and adware etc but it is still slower than it should be. It runs XP media edition.
My question is how do I perform a full system recovery please. I know that I need to do it from the recovery partition but I do not know how and cannot find any instructions on the net.
It is my assumption that a full system recovery will get rid of everything except the default factory software. All my other software and data is backed up.
I am not a techie so please can I have instructions in idiotproof language. Thanks.
I have an X56 / H12Y which is total junk. PC world replaced the touchpad 4 times, and the keyboard twice. When it came back the last time no audio, no device found, and no screen backlight. At this point I got fed up and in the end PC world gave me my money back. They didn’t want the laptop back. I have now had the defective card , below the screen in the top, replaced and the screen now works however still haven’t found a fix for the audio problems.
Hi I have Philips 12NB5800 I have installed XP and everysingle driver but my camera doesn’t work the error says check device connection and make sure that any other application is not using this device at the moment. I have launched it under My Computer. P.S When I’ve installed XP the driver was already on can anyone tell me the model of the camera so I can download the proper driver?
My problem is trivial compared with trying to run XP over a Vista installation and other headaches. But I do have a problem. I have a Phillips Freevents X54 with XP, Microsoft Office and Outlook 2003 and sometimes I seem to lose control of my cursor. I can be typing an email and take my eyes off the screen momentarily and the cursor has skipped a line, (or a paragraph), and I find I am typing in the wrong place. Or suddenly the cursor, of its own accord moves to a sidebar and starts scrolling the page up or down.
I have never experienced this before with any other computer or laptop and do not know if it is peculiar to Phillips X54 or is it a quirk in the software installed? Can anyone help please?
Bob
I have 11NB5800 too. Is there any option to have XP on external-USB connected HD or on SD card and keep Vista on the internal HD and decide which OS to boot? That would be great for me because I am not a TechGuy:) – not able to struggle reinstallation and because I am leaving for Africa for few months and that gives me opportunity continue working while one system is bluescreened.
Can you recomend and guidline how to install XP to external HD and setup BIOS? My Vista doesn`t allow me to install XP at all, not even to the external HD or SD card. BIOS doesn`t show me option to boot from USB or SD card, just CD/DVD, HD or some Network:Realtek Boot Agent – what is that?
Thanks for any help
Oops. Oh boy, I really wish I’d read this before trying to install XP on my 5800……..
I now have a 2 month old machine that appears useless, completely locked up as per deKay’s orginal ‘problem 4′ and as far as I can see, irretrievable. Cannot even get into the BIOS to boot from an alternative device. Have rung the Techguys (not Philips) support and been told, wait for it, the installation of any other OS invalidates the warranty.
So, there doesn’t appear to be much point in sending it back to pay for them to sort it – I may as well try to do it myself. presumably by removing the HDD and reformatting in another machine as necessary. Would be very grateful for anyone who has a walkthrough on how to dismantle one of these babies
I think if you want to install XP on this laptop, just use VMWare or any Virtual Machine Utilities and THAT’S IT!!!
I think you’re missing the point. One reason for replacing Vista with XP is that the latter runs much quicker. Running XP in a VM under Vista is only going to be slower – not faster.
Hi Just read some of you blog.
I am looking for a recovery disk for the Philips x55.
Any idea where I could get one?
Thank
jar:
This any use?
Andy if you are still there. I have an X66 and tried to upgrade the memory. My touchpad too has stopped working on putting it back together for no reason that I can see. How did you get it working again? Many thanks.
Just thought I would let people know if they come across this blog and attempt this upgrade. It is not for the faint hearted. You have been warned! The act of opening the case puts strain on the ribbon cables that connect the touchpad and keyboard at the keyboard end. This is why the poblem is not immediately apparent from the inside. If you are unlucky, and I was, they will pull apart from the very flimsy connectors. If your keyboard or touchpad stops working the thing to do is lift the keboard off carefully. There is no need to even have the laptop case open to do this as it just lifts upwards after holding back some plastic clips at the back with a very small screwdriver. Underneath the keyboard you will immediately see the connectors that have been pulled out. One or the other may still be attached hence the be careful warning. It is tricky to get them back but a bit of patience and your panic will be over.
Just in time, I bought a Philips 11NB5800 with a non-working touchpad and it’s now alive again!!!!!!.
Thanks a lot, but I’ve to add a little comment: do not force the keyboard, there are two screws beneath the notebook protected by ribbon pads just in the middle. Unscrew them first and the rest of the operation is easier and don’t break anything as I almost did.
Hey my problem is not nearly as technical as any of yours the letter m on my x59 is not working its just stopped despite not actually being broken, i went into PC World and they said they’ll fix it for 230 squid i thought maybe i could buy a new one and fix it myself however i cant find any parts for what is apparently a twinhead h12y in god knows where freevents x59 that only exists in pc world and an averatec in america has anyone got any good advice for me before i throw it i cant copy and paste the letter m forever and i dont want to plug a keyboard into the laptop unless i have to
x
can anybody help me out, i cant find the SATA drivers for a H12Y anywhere, does anybody know where i can download them from as they are not in the Twinheads website
Cheers
Andy
Hi Andy
Is this any good http://www.twinhead.de/support.html I bookmarked this site for Twinhead Germany some time ago as it had an archive of drivers. I’ve had a quick look and it does seem to have SATA drivers for H12Y
Hope this helps. John
For the freevents 12NB5805 (12NB5800 is the same i think, the J12S) there is an option in bios for the hdd to run in IDE mode instead of ACHI, dont know if this applies to the other models mentioned here. Xp boot, found hdd and installed with no need for sata drivers (all partitions deleted like dekay seid (thanks!), now for the rest of them (drivers)…
Just for info. The drivers listed on twinhead site no longer seem to work with slipstream disks. For the X59 I downloaded the drivers from here : http://www.download.com/SATA-Driver-Intel-Ver-7-0-0-1020-zip/3000-2122_4-162224.html
I take back my last comment, it didn’t work. But the guide here did with a link to the German twinhead drivers did work!
http://www.zerostarter.net/4.html
I, or rather my wife has a wonderful Freevents X56.
A bit of tea was spilt on t’keyboard and as such a few keys do not work. We get by with a USB keyboard, but look a total tit on the train. Anyone had any experience of removing/replacing t’keyboard and the gubbings directly beneath due to a spillage – perhaps due to some one handed web surfing?
Other than that it runs sound on XP, we bought it with XP installed, but will never buy a laptop from WC-porld ever again and especially not one with a made up name by a company that swears it never released it.
X56 you look the muts nuts but you are the illegitimate son of WC-world
We have had it now for a long time and the silver has worn off around the mouse
If anyone is seeking drivers for the Philips laptops I am now shipping them on CD. You can message me via my page on Ebay with any questions, be glad to help.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=290293681464
thanks and hope this was useful!
in the original post dekay mentions deleting the system restore partition, but when i boot the disk it only comes up with the cd drive and vista partition. plus 2 unpartioned spaces. does this mean there is no system restore partition?
Hi Daz,
I think one of the unpartitioned spaces is actually the restore partition, it’s just Windows doesn’t recognise it.
ok, the unpartinioned spaces are 1mb and 2mb, but there is no option to delete them, only to create a partition. is it worth creating a partition then deleting it, just to make sure.
Hmm. If you delete all the partitions, you should end up with one single unpartitioned space. Is that not happening?
Hi,
I’m sure I’m missing it but I’m going to create an XP disk to downgrade to XP on my 11NB8400 but I can’t find a SATA driver for it anywhere. The hard drive is a Hitachi HTS541616J9SA00, am I being stupid or does a driver not exist? Any help would be appreciated as when I try to reinstall vista in gets to the end of the setup and tells it cannot configure a component and asks to restart setup–which is waste of time. Pleeease a link to a drvier would be great!
Frasbo,
download the latest BIOS from twinhead and you have the option in the BIOS to enable IDE
You can then just install XP from standard CD
DeKay.. you just saved my life. i had the same numlock problem as Errol and couldn’t figure out what the hell i’d aciidently pressed.. thanks!
Found this, perfect for the h12 slipstream
http://www.thgmbh.de/models/H12Y/driver/XP/
Hi,
I have a Philips Freevent X59 and the fan sotopped working. I tried to remove it but it looks hat if is fixed to the motherboard. Any idea how to remove it?
Thanks.
Hi,…I think I’ve made a big mistake on my Philips Freevents 11NB5800,…I got a copy of Windows 7 and decided to go for a clean install,… thus formatting vista away and installing on the freshly formatted drive,….. now I have a problem,… when I power up, it gets stuck on the Philips screen,.. and my only option seems to be pressing delete, which takes me to a bios screen with very few option f12 to boot from network & f11 for BBS popup,.. neither of which seem to do anything,.. any help is gratefully received. Danny
hi all after reading through all of this im still having some major issues can anyone tell me which drivers im looking for on twinheads for a freevents x54 only this one is driving me mad
thanks
Danny
I have just done the same as you, installing Windows 7 RC1 and now I get the same BIOS options as you.
Have you managed to find a solution to this?
Thanks
My 11NB5800 had 3 days left on the warrenty when I had my issue with Windows 7 so I took it in to them. They sent it away and replaced the HDD, it is now as good as new. I have since installed Windows 7 without issue so I wonder if a batch of these had faulty HDD and this is only seen when repartitioning and formatting. It seems we’ve all had similar issues… My advice, just replace the drive and it should be fine. Hope this helps someone.
Cheers
Ian
Hi everyone,
I have a philips freevents X71.I want to find the drivers for XP.I know that they exist on the internet because I once found them by luck in a German site which had only for 2 models the drivers, mine and another.I read fron many people that the freevents series is actually Twinhead. Can someone help??
Cheers
Thanos
Hey Ian,…In the end I removed the hard drive and fomatted it ,..then re-installed the original vista & instead of a clean Install, I did an upgrade to windows 7 which worked perfectly
Anyone Know which Twinhead Bios is the correct one for the Philips 11nb5800
Cheers Danny