Windows 7: Need suggestions on new Motherboards to run Windows 7

Deacon,
It feels like you are picking apart my every post which isn't helpful at all. Bottom line is my computer ran windows XP and windows vista perfectly. I did a lot of work before I replaced this board. I went through a lot of headache trying to find the right drivers, and nothing worked. And I wasn't the only one who had problems with this board as you can see in thread I linked above from PC help forum. 2 people with the exact same problem with the exact same board who came to the exact same solution. Let's just be happy that I have a working computer now and that hopefully someone facing the same dilemma as me and the person in the PC help forum thread can avoid a lot of headaches.

You are misunderstanding my points. I am not picking apart everything you post. I'm correcting things, so going forward, you and others reading will have the correct info. Instead of taking it as a personal attack, see it as someone passing on information based on years and years of experience.

As we already discussed there have been many examples of people running a system perfectly fine with Vista, only to find out after trying to run Windows 7 that their memory is bad. That is why drivers exist for each OS, because each OS interacts with your hardware in different ways. I understand you did some troubleshooting before replacing the board. Sometimes, it does come down to spending money on new hardware.

You seem to think I am telling you that you made a mistake. I am not. I'm trying to get you to understand the difference between unsupported and incompatible, for future reference. We have a saying in the business world that throwing money at a problem is always the best solution. I'm posting my comments so you know the difference when a manufacturer tells you that a board is unspported...it has nothing at all to do with compatibility. I'm sure I could find someone online running your board with Windows 7. That doesn't mean anything one way or another, because of the sheer number of variables that go into a system.

I think we are missing each others points. So there is no point in discussing this further.

However, I would love for you to find someone running windows 7 with my board so I can talk with them.

I understand your point clearly. I am not saying you gave up too soon or made any mistakes in your troubleshooting steps. I was correcting the semantics of the discussions for future reference.

NOTE: I did some searching online and did read the thread you linked to...with someone else having a similar issue. The dmp files that he was getting referred to a memory issue. That basically means it is one of three things:

1. Bad memory
2. Bad motherboard
3. Incorrect timings/voltage etc for that specific memory in the BIOS

Points 2 and 3 could easily be "resolved" by getting a new motherboard, even though it might not have been necessary. I know he did in the end, but as I've been trying to say, there are things that weren't suggested in that thread that he could have checked first. I didn't see any discussions from that Jordan66 guy to say how he had his memory configured. It's very possible the board didn't pick up the settings from the SPD chips on the memory, and required them to be set manually, which he probably didn't know how to do.

Again, I am not trying to say you made a mistake. My "job" is to make sure factual information is posted so anyone reading this thread understands. There's a person in another subforum trying to upgrade a Gigabyte board to Windows 7 and is asking about drivers, since Gigabyte lists it is unsupported. Since that is an Intel-based board, he'll have no problems.

I will agree that there's little room to discuss anything because you have a new board, and from what I can read, it is running very well for you. That is a good thing, and does solve the problem.

Not to open a new can of worms, but that's one of the several reasons why I only use Intel processors and chipsets. Much better OS support!

Rompedor, try running a Memory Diagnostics Tool

If it passes, flash to latest bios release http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.la...=N61P-S&o=BIOS

Then load bios defaults and perform a clean windows install, sure thing is, windows DOES NOT need any driver for that chipset.

Rompedor I have to agree with Deacon, he's not picking on you rather trying to explain some basic things.

In reality the AsRock n61p-s could have developed some problem with Windows 7 installed. Windows 7 is nearly driver complete and can load generic ones for a load of hard ware and configurations. The only ones it won't do are for USB 3.0 and LAN which I have always had to install manually from a download or a board driver disk.

I have installed Windows 7 Ult 32bit on a Compaq made in 2005 before Vista was even released, it sure wasn't compatible but it ran just fine. Problems arise with peripheral harware, printers, scanners, cams, etc made for the XP era which may not have Windows 7 drivers.