At 03:19 PM 7/30/99 , Ian Newman wrote:
>Greetings from Holland
>I have a friend here that bought a Packard Bell 333 a while back which
>he thought was great but he now hates the way Packard Bell takes over
>the puter with screens everywhere. I believe this is his whinge. He has
>reformatted several times but as he cant find the drivers for his
>hardware anywhere else but on the boot CD provided, he has to install
>their drivers everytime. ie: he has a Yamaha s/card but the yamaha site
>doesnt list it at all & when I asked him to tell me the properties of
>the display adapter it wouldn't show the memory size, etc. As
>sound/video cards are not expensive will they fit in these brand cases
>if he replaces them or can we retrieve the drivers off the Boot CD
>without installing any other manufacturers details?? Thanks Ian

You need to understand there are two different issues here.   The CD
does contain the drivers required for the sound card and video card.
They are also available for download on Packard Bell's web site, the
problem might that you do not recognize the drivers they list based on
your identification of the cards.   They  have a limited number of cards
used in these systems and all the drivers are on their web site.   Goto:
     http://support.packardbell.com/    and click on Downloads

If you are unable to find the right driver, you may need to contact their
tech support with the model and serial number of the system.  They
will then tell you which drivers files to download.  But, your drivers are on
the CD that accompanied the computer.

The other issue is all the Packard Bell pop-up screens...  they do not need
to exist.  You can load a standard version of Windows95/98 on the system
and it will not have these screens.  The Packard Bell systems, (Compaq
as well),  come with a modified version of Windows that loads all the extra
screens in an attempt to make it easier to use...  I have never found that the
case, they only make the system ladened with memory robbing graphics.

The CD probably has a Win9x directory.  Try running the setup.exe file in
that directory load Windows without Packard Bell's additions.   If that will
not work, you will need a standard OEM copy of WIndows.  It has been
quite a while since I did one of these strip downs on a proprietary version
for either a Packard Bell or Compaq, but I know it can be done.  You may
need to experiment a bit to load Windows without Packard Bells proprietary
additions.



                 Bob Wright
        The NOSPIN Group, Inc
http://nospin.com - http://nospin.org

            Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to
                    Digest mode - visit our web site:
                    http://nospin.com/pc/pcbuild.html