10 year old Super Micro P4DCE+II Intel 860 Chipset and Windows 7

[spf2012]

Being pretty happy with finally making the jump to Windows 7 64 bit on my newer machine a few months ago, I'd now like to also upgrade my 10 year old dual Xeon workhorse from XP SP3 to Windows 7 32 bit.

It's a Super Micro P4DCE+II - Super Micro Computer, Inc. - Products | Motherboards | Xeon Boards | P4DCE+II

I'm wondering about the Intel 860 chipset drivers and Windows 7 compatibility, The drivers linked on Super Micro's site only list XP as the most recent OS supported and the same on Intel's site.

I've seen this page - intel drivers pour chipsets - is this what I want?

Would this be as easy as installing Windows 7 then installing a chipset package from station-drivers? If so, which version would be best?

 

[Maguscreed]

You might be able to get something working. It's possible there are vista drivers available that will give you some joy in win 7. The honest truth is that scenario is prone to crashes largely because of the vast difference between how vista and win 7 handle power management.

Honestly I would suggest keeping xp on that machine, as even vista drivers seem to be in short supply for your specific chipset (just basing that on a quick search though)

 

[Layback Bear]

I would recommend using this from Microsoft to see if your computer meets the standards.
Download: Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details

 

[spf2012]

Maguscreed - Thanks. Oh well, that's about what I expected to hear. Guess I was hoping for some kind of miracle since it's still quite a capable machine with dual 3ghz xeons and 2gb ram that I've used nearly every day for 10 years. I'll still be content and satisfied running XP on it.

But after seeing some incredible rendering performance increases on another older machine, a nforce 680i, after upgrading to Windows 7 64bit from XP, I was hoping for the same on the Intel 860.

Layback Bear - Thanks, I did run the upgrade advisor before I posted and there were no major problems found. But then again, I did read in another thread here that the advisor doesn't look at motherboard chipsets.