More drivers for the Schenker XMG P702 notebook

A few months ago, I bought a Schenker XMG P702 laptop, which I chose because of the highly (for a laptop, at least) configurable build. They also provide a nice download area for drivers and tools, at least if a bit of German here and there doesn’t scare you. But some of the downloads are not updated very regularly, so here are some links to manfacturer-provided downloads

• Intel® Chipset Device Software formerly Chipset Software Installation Utility, current version 9.4.0.1017.
• USB 3.0 Driver: Intel® USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller Driver, current version 1.0.7.248. WARNING: version 1.0.10.255 currently offered for download didn’t work for me and BSoD my Windows permanently
• Intel® HD Graphics Driver for Windows 7 and Windows 8 64, current version 15.31.17.64.3257. Previous versions 15.31.9.64.3165, 15.28.12.64.2932.
• Synaptics TouchPad drivers, current version 16.3.8.8

Also links to ATI Mobility Radeon drivers obtainer via URL manipulation (last time I tried, the AMD downloader wouldn’t let me download the drivers, claiming they don’t support my laptop, although they do):
13-1_mobility_vista_win7_win8_64_dd_ccc_whql.exe (Mobility Catalyst 13.1 for Windows Vista/7/8)
13-4_mobility_vista_win7_win8_64_dd_ccc_whql.exe (Mobility Catalyst 13.9 for Windows Vista/7/8) (NB: version 13.2 and 13.3 never left beta and those I tried did NOT work with the 7970M)
Update: version 13.9 of Catalyst. It looks like they dropped support for Vista with this one:
13-9_mobility_win7_win8_64_dd_ccc_whql.exe (Mobility Catalyst 13.4 for Windows 7/8)

Last but not least, if you want to update your BIOS, you’ll need to create a DOS boot USB stick. Fortunately, Schenker provides a package (with English instructions, don’t worry ;)) to create such a stick: on the download page go to _Sonstiges → Tools → Bootstick.zip. As usual, you’ll need an empty USB key to use it (it’s all pretty small, so any very old 32+ MiB key should do the trick).
I flashed my BIOS recently using this tool (and the BIOS files provided in the appropriate P702 folder). Make sure you do read all the instructions and follow them to the letter. Compared to all the BIOS flashes I had performed before, this one is much, much weirder, involving a lot of (automated/forced) reboots and a tool messing up the CPU fan settings (I think it ran at 100% during the whole procedure – only at the last reboot it went back to normal). Plan about 15 minutes for all the operations (that’s about the time it took me from when I left my Windows desktop to when I was able to load it again).