Windows XP drivers for HP Compaq dx2450 PC desktop (Update 2)

. Wednesday, July 2, 2008

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My company recently switched from HP dx2250 desktops to dx2450 for a simple reason the prior were no longer available on the vendor site.
Since newer desktop came with Microsoft Vista Basic/OEM license only, without an option to downgrade it. 
I had to install our site licensed Microsoft Windows XP Pro and manually search for drivers for it since HP didn't provide application/drivers restore cd like it used to with previous models, which btw is a step into the wrong direction for them. This type of machine I'd expect oriented towards business should allow more flexibility for the IT team and technology integrators.
And now to the juicy part – search for drivers for Windows XP:
Drivers' search on hp.com failed to provide correct windows XP drivers for the network card.
It really bugs me actually - I go through the trouble specifying the exact model number and they give a list of 4 NIC drivers from 4 different manufacturers :( Shouldn't they know exactly which one the motherboard has installed??? How come to DELL and Lenovo just give one driver based on the serial number and it just works! In any case, neither of them was correct one...
As my boss always says, “Then in trouble - forums are your best friends” and this one wasn't an exception to this rule: looking up markings on the motherboard - M2N68-LA I found this document where it found this crucial piece of info: It is based on NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 chipset.
  1. Motherboard, Video, Lan and Usb drivers all part of standard Nforce drivers package - here is the updated one, but if the link expires use this link and choose:
    Product Series: nForce 6 Series and Product: nForce 630i/Geforce 7150
  2. Sound "card" is Realtek ALC888 hp support page has the drivers - if they don't work try ones from here
But the biggest challenge was to find drivers for Parallel and Serial posts located on dedicated PCI Card. So again I began to rigid search with buddy Google.
Device Manager shows - PCI\VEN_1415&DEV_9523 - Maker is eventually identified as Oxford Semiconductors and bit more search I found the HP name - KD062AA Serial & Parallel PCI Card and it's driver on this page
  1. Serial & Parallel PCI driver
On this note, I'm glad to tell you - my holy grail search for drivers was a success! Hope this will help a person a two and help you :)

P.S: My company uses Volume license Key for most Microsoft products so no need to look around for Windows XP Professional License and I installed it without any issues.
Related:
Windows XP Articles
How-To guides
More Drivers related Articles

33 comments:

Triona Guidry said...

Thank you for posting this. I just had a client with a new HP dx2450 run into this exact problem, but your tip about the nVidia LAN drivers pointed me in the right direction.

You were better off not getting the downgrade, it doesn't work. The machine we purchased didn't come with a valid XP serial number, and HP said it would take two weeks (!) to ship new downgrade CDs that wouldn't ask for a serial. After digging up an old XP serial from a dead machine, I discovered that none of the three included driver CDs contained the correct drivers for the NIC.

Really useless!

BoredSysAdmin said...

I'm sorry, I forgot to mention it before, as in my company owns a volume licensing for Microsoft products, I didn't need to search s/n for windows XP "downgrade", but used the VLK key which works fine of course.

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much!

-Systems admin from Finland

Unknown said...

God bless You :D thx verrry verrry much :D from PL /zielu

Anonymous said...

WOW!!! All worked fine, thanks by Luca (ITA)

Anonymous said...

You rock!

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much!
-Systems admin from Croatia!!!

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much, I own the same HP at home, but I still cant find a video driver for it.

Anonymous said...

Wow you are a life saver, I was minutes away from throwing all 40 of these workstations out of a 6th floor window.

-Thankful MIS Coord.

John said...

I just bought a dx2450 for our company and it came with XP pre-installed. Obviously I didn't want the HP image full of bloatware so formatted and reinstalled. The Vista key on the side of the machine didn't work so I rang HP and the lady gave me a working product key over the phone, all installed and ok, just trying to get the right nforce drivers in now.

Unknown said...

Thanks a lot, to begin with.
Same problems, solved using Volume lic., but chipset/video driver was an issue. I see some other poor souls are still searching. I found a working set of drivers on another page on nVidia's site:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_178.24_whql.html

Installed, working OK.

It covers 6150SE nForce 430 i.e. dx2450

Good luck!

D.S. Toronto

BoredSysAdmin said...

Hey Dusan Stupar,
Thanks for Heads-up. The link I gave for nForce drivers got expired, but the one you gave is incorrect. Please use the updated one in article.

Tarsi said...

Thanks, i had a big trouble with network drivers.

Unknown said...

Like my boss would say: "Thank you. Bend over!"

Anonymous said...

Many, many thanks. HP led me on a nice little unpleasant goose-chase with this same issue. The links worked like a charm.

Danke from Pennsylvania

Dan said...

Thank you VERY much. HP tech support site was completely useless at diagnosing and fixing this. Almost none of the drivers on their site worked at all -- the ones you linked to did the trick.

Janne/Finland said...

Thanks for the help!

My parents will be swashbuckling the Internetian seas again with no fear of the horrors of Vista!

nick said...

thanks, thanks and thanks
I've been puzzling over this for a few hour - in the end just had to load the nVidia and Realtek drivers
what are HP playing at??

Chris Snape said...

Thanks for the update.

Got everthing working apart from Sound.

Also have 2 x 'PCI Device' not installed on Device Manager. Anyone else had these?

Cheers for the rest though!

BoredSysAdmin said...

Hey Chris, Check out my new post about identifying PCI devices

Unknown said...

legend - Thank you so much for taking the time to post this.

Anonymous said...

Gracias desde Mexico ¡¡¡

Thank you

Eric said...

Do you use any type of hard drive mirroring to setup multiple machines? My company has me ordering these same systems about 10 every couple of months and lots of time goes into configuring them with all of our company software.

Another note, I order from CDW and they come downgraded to Windows XP Pro without the hassle. I only ran into this problem when having to replace a hard drive in one of them.

BoredSysAdmin said...

Hey Eric, Yes - we use ghost enterprise to mirror these boxes and I got somewhere on my blog article how to ghost these boxes.
After uni-cast disk restore I typically run NewSid and then join new machine to domain.
Btw: We also get our company stuff from CDW, but I guess I haven't look hard enough for XP versions or they charged extra for Xp... can't remember.

narian said...

BoredSysAdmin, thank you very much for taking the time to help another SysAd. I've just spent a day figuring this all out but to no avail, then poof I found your blog. Have a great day wherever you live. :)

Troy said...

Jason I have 2 dx2450s with xp pro that randomly lock up and show and odd repeating image (and the pattern varies in color and in design). Did you figure out a solution? I have tried various video drivers from hp and nvidia, newest bios 5.62 and no joy yet.

Thanks

Unknown said...

Muchas gracias fue de gran Ayuda.

Saludes desde Colombia! :D

Anonymous said...

any chance you could host/send me the serial/parallel port drivers? the link is dead and this is the only place i've seen anything helpful. my email is chris_pops13@hotmail.com

BoredSysAdmin said...

Actually I believe HP finally posted them online, check HP support page, and if they aren't there also check under Win XP drivers for dx2400

James W said...

Thanks for taking the time to give me the needed graphics drivers i couldn;t get from HP.

Its so mad and crazy that HP give you all those choices.

What makes it worse is that one of the driver downloads on the HP website says "Integrated Graphics Drivers".

Given that the mobo in the dx2450 is integrated i downloaded that package... but no! this is NOT the package that actually contains the right drivers.

Thats why i hate HP and try never to buy from them.

Anonymous said...

You're a lifesaver! I've spent hours looking for a NIC driver for an HP Pavillion a6683w, and I just happened to come across this post. The driver you linked to worked like a charm!

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much! really saved my ass!

Unknown said...

IF talking about the hp Network driver as we know the quality of hp almost very good and very much reliability is their. .Ethernet drivers for the Broadcom or Intel NICs in the supported notebook models running a supported Microsoft Windows XP Operating System.