Has anyone successfully installed Wifi 6 (802.11ax) drivers for W7?

Hi all,

I have a new laptop (Lenovo ideapad 15ARE05, AMD 4800U, Toshibia NVMe SSD, Wi-fi 6 2x2 AX)
I successfully installed Windows 7 by slipstreaming drivers on the installation media following this thread by SIW2 (Update your Win 7 installation media)

Everything is working perfectly except for two things: the trackpad and the integrated wi-fi chip.

The trackpad I can do without as the connected mouse works. I can connect to the internet using a wi-fi dongle but I would prefer to use the integrated chip.

Has anyone managed to install drivers on a Windows 7 system for Wi-fi 6? Alternatively, I have windows 10 drivers but the computer says no when I try to install. Is there any way to force the install of drivers?

Regards,

B

Hello,

Depends on which chipset you are using to enable WiFi 6. If you are using Intel WiFI 6 AX200, then there is only support for Windows 10 environments. If you could find the chipset details, then I could look up compatibility for you.

iko22 said:

Hello,

Depends on which chipset you are using to enable WiFi 6. If you are using Intel WiFI 6 AX200, then there is only support for Windows 10 environments. If you could find the chipset details, then I could look up compatibility for you.

I was afraid you would say that. This is all the information i have:



I think it is Intel. It is the AX variant listed in the spec sheet. I regret not choosing the older option now... I guess I shouldn't future proof the hardware if I'm going to install legacy operating systems

SIW2 said:

You can find the PNP device IDs.

msinfo32.exe >components>problem devices

For the trackpad, you could also check if there a bios setting that might say Touchpad > basic, or similar.

If it isn't possible to find a suitable driver using the pnp id, another possibility is to replace the internal wifi card. Plenty of videos for that kind of thing:
YouTube

Yes, I bought the ac variant wifi card for about £11 yesterday and made sure the correct drivers were there first... I just hope it's not welded onto the motherboard.

I simply can't find the touchpad on the system! I think it's coming up as one of the "Unknown devices" in device manager. I couldn't identify it with msinfo32.exe either. Surely there is some kind of driver online. But then how does one assign a driver to a component that the computer doesn't know is there??

bfa1509 said:

Yes, I bought the ac variant wifi card for about £11 yesterday and made sure the correct drivers were there first... I just hope it's not welded onto the motherboard.

I simply can't find the touchpad on the system! I think it's coming up as one of the "Unknown devices" in device manager. I couldn't identify it with msinfo32.exe either. Surely there is some kind of driver online. But then how does one assign a driver to a component that the computer doesn't know is there??

Touchpads are kinda annoying to say the least...
I suggest disabling it and get a standard USB optical scroll mouse if you don't already have one...

Melchior said:

Touchpads are kinda annoying to say the least...
I suggest disabling it and get a standard USB optical scroll mouse if you don't already have one...

I agree. I always use a mouse. But there are those times when you are squeezed into a train station or somewhere and you just want to check something quickly. Getting the mouse out is just never convenient at those times.

I haven't given up yet, I just haven't had the time to look into it. I will not rest until I have a fully functional sparkling new, lightning fast Windows 7 laptop!

I have come across a major bump in the road with this laptop. Everything was going so well - got Windows 7 installed, got 95% of the drivers installed, got a compatible wifi chip to let me access the internet... But it has all come to an abrupt stop in the form of graphics drivers... AMD are actively preventing people from installing proper graphics drivers on the embedded graphics of the Ryzen 7 chip. So I think this is it. I think I have reached a point where I can no longer happily continue with Windows 7... It's been a good 10 years but all good things must come to an end.

What are the chances that compatible graphics drivers will surface for Windows 7 if AMD no longer support it?

SIW2 said:

@bfa1509


Win-7-Ryzen-APU-Video-driver

Thanks @SIW2 for the link. It gives me some hope that there will be a solution in the near future. Unfortunately I couldn't get any of the drivers linked in that thread to work.

I get this error when I try to install Adrenalin:



And I get this error when I try to install the drivers directly through device manager. I tried all of the ones linked:



I've never seen this line before "The driver selected for this device does not support this version of Windows". It's like AMD are proactively trying to prevent people installing drivers on older operating systems. Bad form.