Asus Q400A - Converting from Windows 8 to Windows 7

Asus Q400A – Upgrade from Windows 8 to Windows 7




I ordered a refurbished Asus Q400A online. The one I found at the time only came with Windows 8, and I had already decided that I had no desire to use 8. Doing a quick bit of searching revealed that others had done such a conversion, so I knew it was possible. But I couldn't find any details about it, either, so here is my write up on what I went through converting my Q400A to Windows 7.


I am including a few things that did NOT work as well, in case you may be of a mind to try the same things yourself.


I should note that this product came with a note inside the box that the recovery partition had been fully wiped as part of the refurbishment process, in order to ensure that no prior customer data was on the drive. This is somewhat problematic, conceptually at least, because you can't order Windows 8 recovery media for this product! However, this was of no particular concern to me, since I was going to make a full disk backup with my own software anyway.


These are the steps that I went through in getting my Asus Q400A up and running on Windows 7.

1. Change boot settings in BIOS. Disable secure boot. Enable CSM.
2. Boot, pressing 'ESC' to access boot menu and select USB flash drive with my backup software
3. Perform full disk backup (I happen to use Paragon Drive Manager, have had good luck with it)
4. Boot machine, pressing 'ESC' to access boot menu and select the CD
5. Ran Windows 7 Pro SP1 64-Bit install CD
6. Note: I deleted all partitions and created MBR partition of smaller size to accommodate dual-boot scenario with Linux. With a 750G drive I figured I could easily spare the room.
7. Rebooted computer following initial installation
8. Initial bootup went fine
9. I found that I had no network connectivity, not even generic drivers. I used another computer to download all the Windows 8 drivers from the ASUS support site, and transfer them with a USB key. The following seemed to run and install just fine in Windows 7:

• LAN (Atheros)
• USB Charger Plus (Asus)
• Audio (Realtek)
• Card Reader (Alcor)
• Intel Chipset Driver

1. I ran the Intel Wireless driver installer for Windows 7 64-Bit, found link elsewhere:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Det...Windows%207%20

1. Rebooted. Device manager shows 2 devices as unknown:

• PCI Simple Communications Controller
• USB Controller (read elsewhere this does not actually prevent anything from working)

1. Installed Chrome, Java
2. Ran nVidia automatic driver scanner/installer – failed to identify any devices
3. Ran Asus downloaded Windows 8 driver for nVidia, could not find compatible graphics hardware
4. Found that Device manager using generic VGA driver from 2006
5. Did search for Intel HD 4000 driver, found download link at Intel.com, selected my OS, downloaded driver. Installer said system did not meet minimum requirements and exited. Looked closer, said it was for 2000/3000. I must have picked the wrong thing somehow.
6. Researched and found link @ intel to automatically detect and update drivers and software:

Intel® Driver Update Utility for graphics drivers

1. Got an unresponsive alert on website, let it run, finally noticed window pending for administrative privileges to continue. I granted approval.
2. That process ran so long that I decided while I was waiting, that I'd re-research drivers for the HD 4000.
3. I found another driver (at Intel) and downloaded it. (The other process was STILL running.) The file that I downloaded this time was Version 15.31.17.64.3257, date 8/2/2013, filename: Win64_153117
4. I ran this new driver file, which ran without error and finished normally
5. The previous autoscan was STILL running, so I just rebooted
6. Graphics now detected as Intel HD 4000
7. Remaining issues: PCI, USB (above)
8. Ran windows experience index program. Results:

Overall 5.9
Processor 7.5
RAM 7.6
Graphics 6.6
Gaming 6.6
Hard disk 5.9


System seems to be fully functional at this point, with the exception that I have the following apparent driver issues still to be resolved:

• PCI Simple Communications Controller
• USB Controller (read elsewhere this does not actually prevent anything from working)

I have read elsewhere that someone else who did a Windows 7 conversation was having the same USB Controller issue but that all of his ports and devices are working without any error, and my experience is the same at this point. My system appears to be fully functional on Windows 7 SP1 64-Bit.


Thanks for reading; I hope this is helpful to someone!

Were you unaware that Win7 is the first driver-complete OS? Any drivers not provided by installer are quickly updated when you get online via wireless or ethernet to enable Automatically deliver drivers via Windows Update (Step 3) then run all rounds of Important and Optional Windows Updates, with repeated requested reboots, until there are no more.

While you're doing that look over the steps to get and keep a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 based on helping with tens of thousands of Win7 installs here. You may want to do it over, or make some changes.

Report back after all Updates are installed. Hopefully you didn't override any drivers Win7 wanted in the first place.

Hi Greg, I didn't install any additional drivers manually after that first batch, or post- any Windows Updates, so hopefully I'm fine. I will take a look at that link - thanks!

I have successfully converted from Windows 8 to Windows7 on my Asus Q400a. However, I have some issues. Can someone please advise how to fix?
1. The sensitivity on my touchpad is way too sensitive. I would like to disable it. Usually on an Asus, you can toggle between activitating and not activating using the function keys. But I have two problems. The first is I can't seem to deactivate it even by going into control panel/mouse. There are no options available to deactivate. Second, switching to windows 7, the function keys don't seem to work now.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

Did you follow the steps to do a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.
If not I would do it over.

Make sure you have the latest touchpad driver from the Asus Support Downloads webpage for your model. But first make sure you followed the steps in the tutorial for how drivers are best handled in Win7.

You can also look at choices to change sensitivity and disable touchpad in the software package installed with the driver, which may be found on a tab at Control Panel>Mouse. For example on my laptop there is a choice to disable touchpad whenever a USB mouse is plugged in. Then I only need to see that the touchpad software starts with Windows in msconfig>Startup.