Presario C300, C306us SATA & SM Bus drivers?

gang I've been reconstructing a cpq C306us [c300] notebook and having issues.
supposedly [yet to prove] the chipset here is a i945gm, and the controller 82801gbm. however when I download from hp the designated "INtel matrix storage manager' driver, it fails saying "wrong hardware". also, I have a bang in Device Manager for the "SM Bus". I searched HP and Intel for the right SM Bus driver and so far come up short.
I'm stuck.

I've been here before with another system, where in order to get XP to install I switched in bios the hard drive type to 'compatibility' mode instead of SATA. in that case I was later able to find the right driver for sata, install after the fact, and switch bios sata mode 'on'.
the SM bus driver issue is new to me however [or newer].

one issue is this chipset thing. in intel's ddownload center I do not see i945gm specifically with that syntax. what's up with that?

 

Hello,
You can use the chipset utility from intel for the 9 series.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=20019&lang=eng&wapkw=(i945gm)

 

"Great Minds"...
I found this not long after posting and it worked [which surprised me since I STILL don't know for sure what's on this mboard... google searching is in vain on this one.].
So now, I have a real SATA controller showing up in Device Manager, but when I tried to shift the BIOS to SATA mode Windows still bails. how do I fix that??

Also, I still have one device with a !Bang on it, identified only as "unknown device" on the SM bus. how can this be if the chipset drivers were correct?

If I had had a valid license/COA for Win XP Pro [not MCE] I would have installed that instead and be done with it. As is, I gotta live with MCE's tortured patchwork.

 

one more:
isn't there a utility that will ACCURATELY identify the components on the motherboard [instead of the Belarc approach of reading the soft info...] ???

 

The safest way is to slipstream the drivers into an install disk first. Here is a way to do it after the install. Just make sure you have the correct drivers and know what controller you have.

http://mytechweblog.blogspot.com


For XP, Everest does a very good job of showing what is on the motherboard.

http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

Also try HWinfo

http://majorgeeks.com/HWiNFO32_d280.html

 

I didn't see anything on that page addressing this issue [though its an interesting blog ]

I got the presumably accurate hdwe info via SIW.
northbridge: intel i943/940GML rev 3
southbridge intel 82801GHM [ICH7-M/U] Rev A1

 

Sorry about that. Here is the correct link.

http://mytechweblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/enabling-sata-native-mode-after-xp.html