Abit AX78 MB and Windows 7 64 bits Upgrade

Good evening everyone,

I'm new in here and this is my first post...so here it goes :

This weekend I'm planning on upgrading from Windows XP 32 bits to Windows 7 64 Bits and before I do, I would like to clear up a few questions.

My motherboard is an Abit AX78 and I would like to know where to get the drivers for Windows 7 64 bits.

It seems, as I have read on a few forums, that some people have had issues with drivers when they install Windows 7.

Can someone please tell me if the drivers can be found within Windows 7 (since it seems that there is a large database of drivers in this version of windows) or can you please tell me what drivers I will need and where I mind get them.

I also tried searching in the AMD website for the AMD 770 / SB600 Chipset drivers and was not able to get them or rather could not find them (AMD website is very confusing)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanking you all in advance,

MadMax1963

Welcome to SF!

Maybe this will help you. Download and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.

That will tell you what you need to know.

Hope this helps,

~JK

Man you guys are fast in here...lol.

Thank you for your quick reply Jonathan....I did run the upgrade advisor and this was the status on the Devises :

ATI IDE CONTROLLER- Compatible
ATI Radeon X1550 Series-Compatible (This repeats twice since I have a secondary PCIE slot)
Generic Marvell Yukon 88E8056 Based Ethernet Controller-Compatible (the Marvell website has the driver anyway)
Realtek High definition Audio- Compatible

The only known issues are with secondary utilities that I use and they aren't that important or I can get them in windows 7 compatible versions.

The only thing is that the report does not give any info regarding the chipset, that's the part that really worries me.

Also, if the report says that my devises are compatible, does it mean that windows 7 has the drivers built into the OS or that the manufacturer has an updated driver?

And thanks again for your quick answer.

Kind regards,

MadMax1963

MadMax1963,

If I may offer a suggestion...please try the Abit site for drivers before going directly to AMD. Why? Because a LOT of the Mboard Manufacturers "customize" the drivers a bit to use with special features of their boards.

Now this is AFTER you follow Jonathan's suggestion...

All My Best,

Michael

That means you are all good to go.

Windows 7 has most of the drivers you will ever need built-in; there may be a few times you need to go online to get them.

I can virtually guarantee you that it will work.

mkensinger said:

MadMax1963,

If I may offer a suggestion...please try the Abit site for drivers before going directly to AMD. Why? Because a LOT of the Mboard Manufacturers "customize" the drivers a bit to use with special features of their boards.

Now this is AFTER you follow Jonathan's suggestion...

All My Best,

Michael

Click to expand...

Good evening Michael, thank you for your suggestion but unfortunately Abit closed it's operations about a year or two ago; nonetheless I did check the Abit site and the only drivers there are for Vista.

But you are absolutely correct, I much rather use the manufacturers drivers since they are modified to run more efficiently on their respective MB.

Regards,

MadMax1963

Jonathan_King said:

That means you are all good to go.

Windows 7 has most of the drivers you will ever need built-in; there may be a few times you need to go online to get them.

I can virtually guarantee you that it will work.

Click to expand...

Ok Jonathan, I'm gonna take your word for it and just close my eyes and take a leap of faith...in case you don't see me on the forums for long time...then you can guess what happened...lol..lol

This weekend I'll let you know how it turned out...too bad Abit closed...used to love their Motherboards.

Again, thanks so much for your help..I'm now more confident with my endeavor...like I said..you guys are fast in here...never posted in a forum and had people answer back so quickly...keep up the great work guys and congrats..really impressed.

Regards,

Madmax1963

You're welcome, that's one advantage of a forum with a lot of members.

Good luck with your install!

MadMax1963 said:

mkensinger said:

MadMax1963,

If I may offer a suggestion...please try the Abit site for drivers before going directly to AMD. Why? Because a LOT of the Mboard Manufacturers "customize" the drivers a bit to use with special features of their boards.

Now this is AFTER you follow Jonathan's suggestion...

All My Best,

Michael

Click to expand...

Good evening Michael, thank you for your suggestion but unfortunately Abit closed it's operations about a year or two ago; nonetheless I did check the Abit site and the only drivers there are for Vista.

But you are absolutely correct, I much rather use the manufacturers drivers since they are modified to run more efficiently on their respective MB.

Regards,

MadMax1963

Click to expand...

MadMax1963,

Wow, I am blown away to hear they closed up shop. I've used Abit boards (they were always one of my first picks) for years...thanks for letting me know....

My Best,

Michael

mkensinger said:

MadMax1963 said:

mkensinger said:

MadMax1963,

If I may offer a suggestion...please try the Abit site for drivers before going directly to AMD. Why? Because a LOT of the Mboard Manufacturers "customize" the drivers a bit to use with special features of their boards.

Now this is AFTER you follow Jonathan's suggestion...

All My Best,

Michael

Click to expand...

Good evening Michael, thank you for your suggestion but unfortunately Abit closed it's operations about a year or two ago; nonetheless I did check the Abit site and the only drivers there are for Vista.

But you are absolutely correct, I much rather use the manufacturers drivers since they are modified to run more efficiently on their respective MB.

Regards,

MadMax1963

Click to expand...

MadMax1963,

Wow, I am blown away to hear they closed up shop. I've used Abit boards (they were always one of my first picks) for years...thanks for letting me know....

My Best,

Michael

Click to expand...

Good evening Michael,

I know the feeling, I was the same as you when I found out..I just could not believe it.

I have been using Abit for a long time and I really loved their boards plus I learned, from experience, how to configure and fine tune them...It still makes me sad when I think about it.

I currently have 3 more desktops at home, 2 of those have Abit boards and the other one has a a Gigabyte board installed..all of them where built by me.


From hands on experience I can tell you nothing but good things about the Gigabyte board, never had any problems at all and the only reason I open the pc case is to clean out the dust.

Also I have some experience using MSI boards and ASUS, and they are also good boards.

From now on, when I need to buy a new board I'm gonna have at the top of my list Asus and Gigabyte and then MSI.

These manufacturers make solid stable boards, at least that has been my experience.

BTW....decided to do my upgrade NOWWWWWW ...lol..so I might be out for a bit.

Have a great evening Michael,

Madmax1963

And a good evening to you MadMax1963!!,

I share your feelings on the Gigabyte boards...I am running my "main" pc w/ all Gigabyte (motherboard and video card) parts. It has been running non-stop and trouble free since I first fired it up. (see my system specs for the lowdown )

I have also had great luck w/ Asus as well. My son's desktop is a 930D Intel based system. Good processor, but runs VERY HOT and drinks power! I bought it w/ a Biostar MB from Tiger direct for cheap, but the MB couldn't take the CPU for long. Picked up the current Asus MB and we now have it running great (we did have to water cool the thing though...way too hot w/ fans).

Good luck w/ the upgrade!!

All My Best!!

Michael

Good evening guys,

I'm back and running Windows 7 64 Bits with no problem or conflicts.

I really wanted to thank you guys...Jonathan_k and Mkensinger....for taking the time to answer my post and helping me out...you guys gave me confidence and peace of mind I needed to go on with my installation..so..THANK YOU BOTH.

The installation was very straight forward and most of the drivers needed where included in the Win 7 disk, I did have a few issues with the realtek High Definition Audio but that was solved after I installed the drivers from realtek and re-connected my speakers. It seems that the default drivers installed by windows uses the digital autput channel to send audio to my speakers and since I had my speakers connected to the analog plugs in the back I could not hear anything.

But that was about it, the rest was really easy to setup..the only reason I did not post earlier was because before I got on line I wanted to have all my antivirus, antispyware and AntiMalware (all of the usual Anti's) installed before I started surfing again and that took me a few days since work was taking too much of my time.

So to sum this up, Installing Windows 7 64 bit on a Abit AX78 board is very straight forward, no need to be afraid that Abit doesn't have the drivers for Win 7 because they closed shop; Windows 7 has all the drivers needed for an easy installation. And if you find yourself that after installing Win 7 you have no audio, just go to the realtek website and download the Realtek High definition drivers for Win 7 , unplug your speakers and plug them back; this causes the realtek application to sense your speakers and adjust accordingly.

Or you can Google for a solution since this seems to be an issue with all boards using the Realtek High Definition Adio chip.

MK and JK..again, thanks guys and you all have a great weekend.

Regards,

MadMax1963

mkensinger said:

And a good evening to you MadMax1963!!,

I share your feelings on the Gigabyte boards...I am running my "main" pc w/ all Gigabyte (motherboard and video card) parts. It has been running non-stop and trouble free since I first fired it up. (see my system specs for the lowdown )

I have also had great luck w/ Asus as well. My son's desktop is a 930D Intel based system. Good processor, but runs VERY HOT and drinks power! I bought it w/ a Biostar MB from Tiger direct for cheap, but the MB couldn't take the CPU for long. Picked up the current Asus MB and we now have it running great (we did have to water cool the thing though...way too hot w/ fans).

Good luck w/ the upgrade!!

All My Best!!

Michael

Click to expand...

Hey Asus was no surprise to me, since a few years ago they where considered the best board on the market, but Gigabyte really was a shocker; when I bought the board I had no idea they where that good.

Another board that I used to love was Soyo..remember those guys? wonder whatever happened to them.

Eventhough I have never worked on a Biostar I have a few friends that use them and they are happy..I think as a stream line or mid-range board, Biostar is good; it's like those PCchips boards, really inexpensive and as long as you use them for surfing the net or using Office they are ok..but once you get into things that demand heavy resources..then you might get into trouble.

Heck, In the past years I must have built over 20 or 25 computers using PCchips boards, even with the SIS Chipset, but those machines where for people that just wanted something to surf, chat, read email or work with office, nothing demanding like heavy gaming, graphics design or heavy engineering applications.

Now that you mention water cooling, that is one thing I have yet to try...still gives me the jitters to know that I have water running on the inside of my computer..lol..what can I say..I'm really old school..my first pc was a Commodore Vic 20 with a cassette deck to save my programs..lol.loll

LOL from that Vic 20 I graduated to a commodore 64..lol...actually and now that I think about...my first pc was not a Vic20..that was my second PC..my first pc was a Timex Sinclair..lol...OH GOD...I'M OLDDDDDDDDDDDDD !

Hope to hear from you soon MK.

MadMax1963

Vic 20 eh? LOL Oh yes...I remember all of that stuff...heck I had a Coleco ADAM with the tape drives...what a joke! I got my first true blue IBM PC with a 10mb disk drive, a 360K 5-1/4" floppy drive and a green screen at work for only $5,000.00 as a spare part for a system because the OEM wanted $20,000.00 for the same thing!

I used to play with the old Zilog Z80 based microprocessor boards to automate certain operations...All that processing power on a single board...

So see MadMax1963, you're not so old after all...

All My Best,

Michael

MadMax , I have same problems , do you still manage to change it to win 7 64 bit without problems , with regards
ensarho