Updating BIOS for Windows 7 install

ignatzatsonic said:

Hardware details most wanted would be:

Uncle's: motherboard model, probably beginning with GA; CPU model

Yours: Dell model number, CPU model.

BIOS updates MIGHT help, but it's a random shot in the dark and you have NO evidence it will help. Hope is not enough other than as a very last resort. You aren't there yet. And you can't get a new BIOS downloaded unless you can get a known accurate Gigabyte model number. All I have ever seen begin with GA.

DXdiag stuff might help if you have nothing else.

Speccy is pretty good.

You can't really proceed without more hardware detail.

Someone else may have more ideas regarding getting the keyboard going on uncle's PC, but I'd get a list of hardware details first.

ignatzatsonic said:

GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket AM2 - GA-MA69GM-S2H (rev. 1.0)

It appears to be an AMD motherboard and you'll have an AMD processor in it. I know little about them.

If you can get an AMD processor model number, I can give you an estimate of its horsepower and compare that to your Dell---if you can ID the processor in the Dell (your machine).

Does DXdiag identify what BIOS is now in uncle's machine? There are updates at Gigabyte site, most recent is from 2009. But no evidence you have BIOS problem.

After I eat I'll upload a full dxdiag of both machines so we can get this going smooth.

It displays "Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG" as the BIOS

Taccun said:

It displays "Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG" as the BIOS

Gigabyte BIOSes are typically named in this fashion:

F4, F5, F6, etc.

"v6.00" may mean F6 or maybe not. Do you show a date for the BIOS? F6 is dated 12/28/08. The only newer BIOS is F7E, which is a beta BIOS, with no indication it solves any keyboard issues. F7E is dated 11/18/09.

Was uncle's PC bought from an OEM such as Dell or HP? Does it have a sticker on it containing a 25 character Product Key in this format:

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

Uncle's PC probably shipped with Windows XP or Vista. Did it ever have Windows 7 on it?

ignatzatsonic said:

Taccun said:

It displays "Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG" as the BIOS

Gigabyte BIOSes are typically named in this fashion:

F4, F5, F6, etc.

"v6.00" may mean F6 or maybe not. Do you show a date for the BIOS? F6 is dated 12/28/08. The only newer BIOS is F7E, which is a beta BIOS, with no indication it solves any keyboard issues. F7E is dated 11/18/09.

Was uncle's PC bought from an OEM such as Dell or HP? Does it have a sticker on it containing a 25 character Product Key in this format:

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

Uncle's PC probably shipped with Windows XP or Vista. Did it ever have Windows 7 on it?

msinfo displays "Award SOftware International, Inc. F5, 3/3/2008"

I'm pretty sure his computer he built himself. It had no product key or anything. He did have Windows 7 on it at one point..not sure what he had previously.

OK. It's F5 BIOS. F6 and F7E are newer.

Are you absolutely unable to get his Windows 7 Product Key?

Do you know for a fact Windows 7 is not on it right now, in some other partition?

Get the CPU info on both machines.

ignatzatsonic said:

OK. It's F5 BIOS. F6 and F7E are newer.

Are you absolutely unable to get his Windows 7 Product Key?

Do you know for a fact Windows 7 is not on it right now, in some other partition?

Get the CPU info on both machines.

I can't say FOR SURE because I can't do anything outside of the default OS.

CPU on uncles is AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+, 3000 M

I'll get the info on mine in a second.

Actually, I can just give you the service tag right? It's an OEM from Dell. An inspiron 530. All factory hardware but for the added graphics card and added 2gb of RAM.

Taccun said:

Actually, I can just give you the service tag right? It's an OEM from Dell. An inspiron 530. All factory hardware but for the added graphics card and added 2gb of RAM.

You might be able to enter the service tag at Dell site and get CPU info.

Better yet use DXdiag, Speccy, or whatever you used on uncle's PC.

Inspiron 530s may have come with a variety of CPUs. We need to know about your specific machine.

Inspiron 530 is probably an Intel Core 2 Duo, circa 2006 or 2007 and will likely blow the doors off uncle's AMD.

But need to confirm CPU in your specific machine. I know some Inspiron 530s had quad-core E6600 processors.

ignatzatsonic said:

Taccun said:

Actually, I can just give you the service tag right? It's an OEM from Dell. An inspiron 530. All factory hardware but for the added graphics card and added 2gb of RAM.

You might be able to enter the service tag at Dell site and get CPU info.

Better yet use DXdiag, Speccy, or whatever you used on uncle's PC.

Inspiron 530s may have come with a variety of CPUs. We need to know about your specific machine.

OKay I'm doing in now. The problem I'm having that makes this such a problem is that for some reason for me to switch this monitor, the computer needs t be restarted for the monitor to recognize an input. If you just switch the vga over it says it can't find a signal.

Processor for my computer is a "Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E4500 @ 2.20GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.2GHz