Thinkpads Forum

Greetings Group!

I have a stack of SL510 units that have to be taken down from Win7 to XPSP3. My usual approach is configure a lead machine, then ghost to the remainders in the group.

I am having a heck of a time making the PCIe GBE controller behave! Success up to this point is deletion of W7 partition, setting SATA to compat, install XP, bring up to SP3, install all device drivers. Intel wireless plays fine, Realtek APPEARS to install properly, lists as working in Device Manager, but will not light up, or recognize CAT5 plug in, constantly saying "Network Cable Unplugged" in the tray...

I have ransacked various driver versions from various sites, from v 5.742 up through v 5.794. This controller is supposed to be the 8168 rev 3 chip. Even going straight to Realtek site has not provided a working driver.

I am hoping for suggestions. Grasping at straws now, like flashing the machine BIOS from the original as-shipped v1.40 up to v1.51, and just about every other trick I can find on the Lenovo support/driver site.

So what do you think? Can this machine even run XPSP3?

Any hints/tips are GREATLY appreciated! Thanx All!
~Brian, befuddled SysAdmin

Hello and welcome to the forum

The SL510 will run XP SP3. The ThinkVantage Access Help user's guide might have instructions on how to install XP. It should be installed on the notebooks that still run Windows 7. You can also download it from Lenovo's support site. For the OS to recognize all components, i suppose it's important to install the Intel Chipset Device Software at the right stage in the installation process. Lenovo calls it Intel Chipset Support.

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... D=DS003941

The Access Help user's guide should have instructions on at what stage to install the Intel Chipset Device Software. If you can't find instructions there, here's what Intel themselves say (items 2 and 7 in System Requirements):

http://downloadmirror.intel.com/18494/eng/readme.txt

I suppose it's a good idea to install the Lenovo System Interface driver at an early stage, but after the Intel Chipset Device Software. The System Interface Driver is part of a driver package called Hotkey Features Integration.

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... D=DS014985

Personally, i wouldn't hesitate to update the BIOS to the current version.

Good luck!

Thank you for your reply!

After trying these and several other suggestions, without success, I began to suspect that maybe this unit had a defective NIC, right out of the box.

Moved my multi-driver attempted hard disk to a sister chassis, and it worked just fine!!

Feel kinda stupid for fighting software for so long when it was a hardware issue!