Windows 8 RTM Install Fail on Touchsmart 600 (-1050)

[treblent]

Has anyone else had much luck installing Windows 8 RTM on a Touchsmart 600? My installation starts ok but after the first reset it just sits there with the logo and the swirl going around. I checked out the boot record and I have a suspicion that it can't find Windows to boot after the reset.

Anyone else facing this?

[erico]

Are you performing an install from a USB thumbdrive or a DVD disk?

 I had far better success yesterday with two notebooks with a thumbdrive installation. 

[treblent]

I've been trying DVDs, but I can try a USB thumbdrive. I was also going to try changing the SATA host AHCI mode to IDE as I've seen other people have had some success with that.

[frrw]

Hello treblent:

           Please stop it with Windows 8 insulation. Windows 8 will not work on HP Touchsmart period if you continue on your computer will not work because Windows 8 wipes out systems drivers and they are not recoverable . Please read this forum. Just type in forum search box above in this section Windows 8. You can see how much troubles  customers are having just in restoring their Touchsmarts back to Windows 7.

  HP has not developed drivers or operating systems to run Windows 8  software yet.

[Transient]

That's ridiculous. I'm fairly positive the reason 600-1050 doesn't work with Windows 8 is solely nVidia releasing new WHQL drivers that simply do not work with 600-1050. Unless HP creates a special version of Windows 8 for 600-1050 users (or anyone with the G200 display adapter I suspect), there's nothing HP can do to fix the problem.

I ran Windows 8 Consumer Preview on my 600-1050 just fine. The kernel version for Windows 8 is 6.2, in other words, most all Windows 7 drivers will work and I tested it, and they do. I installed the touchscreen driver just fine. The 600-1050 has a sunken display, so it's extremely difficult to swipe from the sides and access charms. That's the main touch problem and drivers won't fix that.

Now, the problem is, since nVidia released new drivers included with Windows 8 that do not work with 600-1050, how do you change that driver to either Microsoft generic VGA or slipstream the Windows 7 driver? You can't boot into safemode on your first boot and you can't complete the inital setup without a display. If someone doesn't come up with a slipstreamed version or figure out how to change the driver, we will not be able to install on the 600-1050 with RTM. Maybe in SP1 nVidia will have a working driver, but as it stands now, the installation media itself is what is screwed up making it very difficult to fix.

May I'll try memorizing the keystrokes required to complete an installation heh.

[treblent]

Yeah, it does work ok. I had to change the SATA host mode in bios from AHCI and IDE and it went straight through. I updated the drivers to the latest listed on the HP support website for 600-1050 which improved the touchscreen a little but I've never experienced any blacking out of the display. The drivers from the support website do an OS check and refuse to install when they find Windows 8 but if you just get the driver files from a folder in C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Low\Temp then you can just install them manually.

The bevel does make it harder to access the side of the screen but it's not impossible and you do get used to it; I would never say that it doesn't work though, I think it works fine.

The one remaining issue I have to resolve, and I think this is related to the initial SATA host mode change to IDE from AHCI, is a random freezing. My suspicion is that it's the nVidia chipset driver, because I've had this same symptom on other PCs where updating/replacing the chipset driver was the cure. I found another post on here someone had this same issue in a beta Windows 8 build and someone provided an updated chipset driver package which cured it for them. Unfortunately I tried that updated package and found that it was the same one that comes with Windows 8 which now seems to not be working. I'll post the details of the chipset driver package later as they're on another PC to the one I'm using, but the drivers I'm using are something like versions 1.167 and 1.171.

Funnily enough if the only thing I ever do was use Spotify then the whole Windows 8 installation works perfectly. But if I use other things, it seems to about a total system wide freeze; no BSOD, no debug logs, nothing to identify the guilty driver. I also ran the PC in safe mode and it worked fine, so I know it's a driver that's causing it. I'll report back later.

[mreuss]

The most likely culprit is the graphics driver. Check out the various beta drivers available with Win 8 compatibility.

HP's own support website often does not list the newest drivers.

[treblent]

I tried all sorts of drivers, even the basic graphics display driver from Microsoft and the same thing happened so I'm happy the graphics driver isn't the cause. I've also found a few more chipset drivers and tried them and it still happens. My current thinking is that it's related to using the SATA IDE mode in Windows 8 that's the cause and I'm trying to change it to AHCI. The Touchsmart PC came with Windows 7 installed and was set to AHCI mode so I've no idea what setup was done by HP to get the AHCI working but I know that in that mode Windows 7 worked fine. In Windows 8 I'm now using IDE and it's not working, so I'm going to try change it back to AHCI and see how things go with that.

[jaadu]

Hi,

i have a similar 600 series TS pc, i suggest you to use set BIOS to default options and install 64 Bit version, as the same worked properly for me, whiel i faced the same problem as you mentioned with 32 bit verison.

[treblent]

Thanks very much for the suggestion. Unfortunately I've been trying the 64-bit version since the beginning (though I tried 32-bit once to see if there was a difference without any luck) and I updated the firmware of the BIOS which caused it to reset to defaults. The only thing I changed was the SATA mode to IDE from AHCI. Nevertheles I'll try specifically resetting to BIOS defaults and trying again, maybe I'm missing something.

Thanks again.