The Medion P6624 on Windows 8.1 Pro. How to make the bastard work.

The Aldi Medion P6624 is a circa 28/10/2010 laptop that was had for $900 in Australia. Quite well specced with a 640gb HDD, Intel Core i3-370M processor (2.4 GHz, 3 MB Intel® Smart Cache, Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology), 15" screen, USB3, an Nvidia Geforce 425M, DVD burner, Wireless N, Ethernet, HDMI out, VGA out. It weighs a ton.

I recently decided my Medion P6624 needed a new breath of fresh air. The two things the Medion P6624 is suffering from at this day and age in June 2015, are a slow HDD and a lack of breathing space on the RAM front. So I changed the stock Samsung 640Gb 2.5" HDD (Model# HM641JI) and the 2x 2Gb Hynix DDR3 SODIMMs (Model# HMT325S6BFR8C-H9) over. I opted for a Samsung 850 EVO 250Gb SSD on the hard drive front, and some Corsair CMSA8GX3M2A1066C7 1.5V SODIMMS as a 2x4Gb (8 Gb kit). Apparently that Corsair RAM kit is "mac memory", but that's bollocks. RAM is RAM is RAM. The CMSA8GX3M2A1066C7 kit is just certified to work on MACs, but as of me writing this, I can also certify that it works on the Medion P6624.

With the new hardware, I figured "why not upgrade to something fresh on the OS front?". I've previously posted my public thoughts on Windows 8. I think its desktop rocks. With the right software in there, a Desktop-Only Windows 8.1 Pro experience can be had, and it's *awesome*. The Win8 desktop is vastly improved over the Windows 7 desktop.

Installation of Windows 8.1Pro from a USB stick was simple. Getting the install working from a USB thumb drive is easy as Microsoft does it for you these days.

BUT.

Freeze! This would be an accurate screenshot
of my Medion P6624 after a restart. Those little circles
get log jammed and don't move. Haaaang.

During installation, I quickly found that the Medion P6624 would always hang during bootup after a restart.

If starting from a shutdown, no problems, but just don't try to restart. The boot screen would start, and the little spinny dots spin around, and then get stuck. And sit there. For hours, if I let it.

Ok, so that is Problem #1.





Problem #2.

Even with the most recent drivers, this innocent window would
throw errors on a Medion P6624 on Windows 8.1 Pro, 64bit.

I had installed NVidia Geforce 353.06 drivers, just the bare essentials, none of the "Geforce Experience" guff that the installer wants to install by default. Less bloat on the boat, I say. Anyway, every time I tried to use 3D, everything that should invoke a 3D session (either full screen or windowed) would just cause an immediate error. This included trying to run Diablo3, or even opening up the NVidia control panel (in the "Adjust Image Settings With Preview" window). Direct X was clearly having some sort of problem. DXDIAG.EXE is useless in this case because it only seems to diagnose display adapter 1, which is the Intel HD Graphics adapter. Of course, that isn't the graphics adapter that's failing. Awesome. Fix this in Windows 10/DirectX 12 please Microsoft.

So, 2 problems.
Problem 1 - restart causes a hang.
Problem 2 - 3D (Direct X at least) is fucked.

The solution, what to do
The default USB3 controller driver that Windows 8.1 Pro uses is the cause of the restart hang. That needs to be replaced. The Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller needs to be running driver version 2.1.28.1. I found USB3.0_allOS_2.1.28.1_PV.exe from Intel's website, you can download it here. Just unpack the exe, and run "setup.exe", it's pretty simple.

The NVidia Geforce drivers need to be rolled back to 344.65 because everything since that seems to screw DX in Windows 8.1 Pro on the Geforce GT425M on the Medion P6624. I tried 353.06 , 352.86
and I found that only NVidia Geforce drivers 344.65 were the only ones to work. There are 8 increments between 344.65 and 352.86, but I don't have the patience to check every single one and 344.65 are good enough for me.

So in summary, to get an Aldi Medion P6624 working normally in Windows 8.1 Pro after doing a stock installation:

• install this USB3 driver from Intel.
• install these NVidia drivers.