New
#11
There are two reasons why intel 3xx motherboards do not work out-of-the-box on win7: usb3 and integrated graphics.
BUT, the intel 3xx chipset and usb drivers for Windows 10 DO WORK on windows 7. Integrating them into a win7 install iso was first outlined in an anandtech thread that I can't find right now, but its out there and is 18 months old. So what biostar may have done is simply written a program that does the same thing, adding those win10 drivers into your win7 installation media. This was not groundbreaking but IS a great idea since it makes it so much easier for users, and I hope it sells a lot of boards for them.
BUT, to my knowledge there is NO win7 driver that supports coffee lake integrated graphics. Further, I just looked at the biostar download page for your motherboard and am not seeing ANY graphics drivers at all listed there for win7. They do have graphics drivers for win8/10 though. H-m-m.
By all means, load up your new board using their win7 tool then post back with the "driver date and driver version" details for the display adapter driver in your device manager. If you have a coffee lake cpu, it will be very interesting to see the graphics driver details.
As a general rule motherboard makers write bios control programs but do not write OS drivers, they just grab them from other sources. And if you find a driver on one motherboard site xyz for a baord with a certain chipset that is the same chipset you have on your board even though your board is made by company abc, odds are high that the xyz driver will work on your board.
I'm saying that if you can get both the usb3 and coffee lake integrated graphics on your new biostar 3xx win7 system working using their tool, their tool is a huge win for everyone who wants an easy way to install win7 on a 3xx chipset board no matter who makes the board.
Side point - the method outlined in the anandtech thread for getting usb3 working on 3xx was really just for a 370 chipset, and apparently it does not work for 390. So I should perhaps not be using 3xx above, but rather just 310. Hopefully someone with a 370 board can try the biostar tool and report back to us if it works.
One more thing - you will still need to use use the wufuc tool by zeffy in order to use windows update
Last edited by johnhoh; 05 Jul 2019 at 08:42.