310 chipset question

teckneeculler · 05 Jul 2019

While trying to find new hardware that supports W7, I came across some BIOSTAR motherboards that have 310 chipsets, which, apparently, allow one to install and run W7.

I actually bought one board - an H310MHC2 - from a retailer in the UK. (I'm in NZ). Haven't tried it yet.

This exercise got me thinking about chipsets - something I've never really done before.

So I have a question: There are lots of motherboards with 310 chipsets, but I'm assuming that not all of them necessarily support W7. Which would seem to imply that individual motherboard makers - like Biostar - must either customize their chipsets as required, or have Intel, say, do that for them.

Anyone know?

file3456 · 05 Jul 2019

I think it's really just a driver thing. I'm not sure. I wanted the latest CPU, but I needed a 300 series MOBO and then I saw that the board manufacture didn't have Win 7 drivers for that board. So I imagine it's because Win 10 is the latest OS and as such the MOBO maker will just stick to Win 10 drivers and not be backwards compatible.

That's just my theory on it.

teckneeculler · 05 Jul 2019

So you think it's solely a driver thing, not the chipset?
BTW, here's a link to one of the Biostar pages.
file:///S:/DOWNLOAD/BIOSTAR%20mobo%20downloads/wp/Windows%20tool.htm

ooops! Sorry, that's a page I saved locally, I'll try and find the real link...

Windows tool - better

Paul Black · 05 Jul 2019

Hi teckneeculler,

To get Win 7 to install and run with newer MB's you need the correct drivers. There are numerous posts on this forum that discuss this along with the links and downloads for the drivers that can either be integrated into the install.wim [boot] or installed on the live OS.

I hope this helps!

iko22 · 05 Jul 2019

Im inclined to think it is actually mainly a CPU thing. Microsoft announced that they were not going to support 7th and 8th generation processors for their operating systems. They had not announced that they were not going to support H310 chipsets, or whichever.

Motherboard manufacturers therefore seem to determine the compatibility of their devices based on which CPUs they support.

A motherboard still needs the correct device driver to interface an OS with the hardware. But it might be that the same device driver can be used for several OS editions/ flavours.

There could be other factors, like how much RAM the OS supports, or whether computer supports Safe Boot and GPT - UEFI boot partitions. In which case there may be different drivers for each OS edition / flavour. There again, in spite of these differences, a motherboard manufacturer may not implement all of the chipset features on particular motherboards in their product line.

That is my take on the question.

---Edit---
Reference: Microsoft says new processors will only work with Windows 10

Paul Black · 05 Jul 2019

Hi teckneeculler,

You might find this useful => Update your Win 7 installation media.

I hope this helps!

dsperber · 05 Jul 2019

Consider getting whatever modern hardware you want, enable Intel Virtualization, installing Win10 as your VM host, install VMWare Workstation Player (free for personal use) or Hyper-V, create Win7 VM guest, and run Win7 forever that way (supported on any hardware by VM), along with Win10 as your primary OS or simply as your VM host to support Win7 VM guest.

You still will have no MS updates for Win7 after January 2020, but you will be able to run Win7 VM gueston any new hardware forever, thanks to VM.

Paul Black · 05 Jul 2019

dsperber said:

Consider getting whatever modern hardware you want, enable Intel Virtualization, installing Win10 as your VM host, install VMWare Workstation Player (free for personal use) or Hyper-V, create Win7 VM guest, and run Win7 forever that way (supported on any hardware by VM), along with Win10 as your primary OS or simply as your VM host to support Win7 VM guest.

You still will have no MS updates for Win7 after January 2020, but you will be able to run Win7 VM gueston any new hardware forever, thanks to VM.

file3456 · 05 Jul 2019

iko22 said:

Im inclined to think it is actually mainly a CPU thing. Microsoft announced that they were not going to support 7th and 8th generation processors for their operating systems.

This is not true. You can run a Kaby or Coffee Lake with Windows 7 perfectly fine. Perhaps there may be a few CPU instructions you'll miss out on, but you can still use 7. The only caveat that I know of with running Win 7 on a Kaby or Coffee Lake is that M$ in their infinite wisdom decided not to allow you to use updates in Win 7 if you use those two CPU architectures. So to get around that, someone at Github created a program that will re-enable you to download updates with a Kaby or Coffee Lake CPU.

Paul Black · 05 Jul 2019

Hi F22 Simpilot,

F22 Simpilot said:

The only caveat that I know of with running Win 7 on a Kaby or Coffee Lake is that M$ in their infinite wisdom decided not to allow you to use updates in Win 7 if you use those two CPU architectures. So to get around that, someone at Github created a program that will re-enable you to download updates with a Kaby or Coffee Lake CPU.

That is correct, it disables the Unsupported Hardware message in WU, and allows you to continue installing WU's on Win 7 systems with Intel Kaby Lake, AMD Ryzen, or other unsupported processors.

See here => wufuc.

I hope this helps!