I love technology

[Badger]

Let me tell you a story


This story starts at ?pm in the afternoon on monday night. I'm on my laptop (Dell XPS-12, this will be important later) and decide I'm bored of Windows 10. Twitch often lags and I'm not a massive fan of the interface. So I decide to install a linux distro.


First problem, this laptop has no CD drive. No problem though, I have a USB CD drive. Plug it in, burn a Lubuntu iso on (because Ubuntu is too mainstream amirite), reboot, mash F12, install Lubuntu. So after the lubuntu install completes without a hitch (full install, not dual-boot. Not enough room on this 120GB SSD), I load up Lubuntu. First problem, my earphones have a horrid, horrid static hissing noice whenever they're plugged in. Just loud enough that I genuinely can't ignore it and it gives me a headache after a couple hours. This is extremely odd as it appears to be dodgy hardware causing interference, but this never happened on my Windows install, so it can't be a hardware issue. So of course I go hunting online for solutions.


5 hours later, no solution. And one of the 'fixes' I had attempted had made all headphone audio come out of the speakers, even though everything was indicating that the sound was being sent through the headphone jack. I backtracked every attempted fix and reverted all my changes, but I couldn't fix this problem I caused for myself. At this point I knew I wasn't going to get this mess fixed, so I decided to burn Linux Mint onto the single 4.7GB DVD-RW that I had on hand and install that.


The issue persisted. I really enjoyed my short time with Linux Mint, I loved the desktop environment, everything was faster than Windows 10, from booting to loading programs to the number of tabs I can comfortably have open to the customisation. Unfortunately the headphone hissing wasn't something I was willing to compromise on, so it was back to Windows.


Now, I don't have a Windows 10 disc, nor a Windows 8 disc (which is what came pre-installed on this laptop. Eew.). However, I do have a Windows 7 disc. Now this disc is special or something, since I've used it for over 10 installs of W7 no problemo, and they always activate with Windows Genuine Advantage. However, the product code does NOT activate a Windows 10 install. The only way to get to a legit Windows 10 install is to upgrade from a W7 install. So I install W7, and here's where my real problems start.


First, W7 just didn't want to install. The setup kept asking for optical drive drivers, even though the setup program was loaded from an optical drive. All the solutions online suggested plugging in the USB you had the installation media on into another USB port. But I was using a USB-CD drive, and switching ports didn't fix it. I honestly can't remember how I fixed this, but it took me a while to figure out. Then, once Windows 7 was installed, the true horrors began.


You see, there are hardly any Windows 7 drivers available for this laptop, since it was released well into W8's lifecycle. So when I booted up, I had no wifi, no touchscreen, no brightness control and the 2 USB ports on the side of the laptop wouldn't work. So first thing I do is try to get the WiFi working. From there I can google and download my way out of the problem. So I find the wifi card model of the laptop via google and download the driver install for that onto my phone, and transfer them onto the PC via USB.. Except the USB ports don't work anymore.


So I go into device manager, and the touchscreen isn't even listed, there are warning signs next to half the devices and a ton of unknown devices. After about an hour of fruitless googling and messing around, I manage to convince W7 to use a generic driver for USB hubs on the USB controller. This allowed me to transfer files from my phone to the computer, thus install the drivers for my network card, giving me wifi. So, onto the USB ports.


I find out what model USB controller the laptop's motherboard uses, and go to download them from intel's website. Except when I try to run the driver, it gives me an error saying that my laptop doesn't meet the minimum requirements. What. I fiddle around with various things but cannot get these bloody drivers to install. At this point I should mention that I actually wanted to keep W7 if I could solve all these issues, since it booted in about half the time even the linux distros booted and I prefer the interface to W10. But at this point I resigned myself to defeat and decided to upgrade to Windows 10. That's when I realised that Windows Update had sh** itself.


Windows update had installed 2 updates and refused to find any more. It just infinitely searched for updates. The several methods of upgrading to Windows 10 I tried got stuck at 99% on one stage or another. Since upgrading directly from W7 wouldn't work, I went out and bought an 8GB USB drive (since all mine are 2GB) and used it as an installation drive. This got stuck too, but after a couple hours more fiddling, I managed to get it to work by disabling the network card and choosing to not install updates in the W10 setup.


So, 2 days later, I finally get back to W10. Such is life. **** intel/Dell for not releasing W7 compatible drivers for this laptop's hardware, I'm stuck with W8 or W10. Oh well, could be worse. I sincerely hope you didn't read this entire wall of text.

[Silverfish]

Oh well, could be worse. I sincerely hope you didn't read this entire wall of text.

I did. <3

[Sircreepalot2]

but did the hissing, static noise go away?

[cephalopod]

^ WE NEED TO KNOW

[Badger]

Yup, it only appears on Linux installs, not on Windows.

[Badger]

Update: I just tried installing puush (great piece of software), but the installer requires the .net 3.5 framework. I already have 4.6 but screw backwards compatibility I guess. So I download the .net 3.5 framework installer from Microsoft's website. I run it. I get an error: "This software requires .net 3.5 to function properly"

...

[Avalanche]

Update: I just tried installing puush (great piece of software), but the installer requires the .net 3.5 framework. I already have 4.6 but screw backwards compatibility I guess. So I download the .net 3.5 framework installer from Microsoft's website. I run it. I get an error: "This software requires .net 3.5 to function properly"

...

OPERATION MIND****!

[The Red Blur]

#****Intel

[Badger]

Nah intel are cool, their cpus are great and they're pretty pro-consumer compared to other tech companies, they do a lot of community stuff. Shame that AMD can't put anything out to really challenge intel tho

[goose]

puush replacement for linux: http://shutter-project.org/

[Badger]

puush replacement for linux: http://shutter-project.org/

Yeah I got that running after googling puush Linux alternatives. I actually preferred it for screenshots, it's a great little program, but it lacks the features, simplicity and immediacy of puush. I liked it enough to try and re-install it when I got back on Windows, but it's Linux only =/

[goose]

for windows use sharex, its the best one out there, imo.

[DeadGenocide]

I actually read all of that. and I regret it