Windows 7 & Nforce2?

[pp05]

My main rig is running on an old Abit AN7 nforce2 based motherboard. I did download win7 beta a while back but it wouldn't get past asking me for drivers for silicon image controller (sata). I tried usb/cd route but it would only want floppy, even then it wouldn't accept so left it.

Has anyone managed to get windows 7 running on an Nforce2 based board? what issues if any have you had with it? Do the drivers work fine for win7?

Will it have less problems running off an IDE drive?

[Barry]

I just installed win 7 pro (RTM) on a old MSI nForce2 and it picked everything up ok

[pp05]

Originally Posted by Barry

I just installed win 7 pro (RTM) on a old MSI nForce2 and it picked everything up ok

Good stuff.

Which sata chipset is on that mobo (if you know)? is it a sata hd you are using?

[pp05]

I tried today.

Even managed to get silicon sata drivers on floppy. Midway through installation it stops with an error. I'm hoping the public copy wont have such problem.

[Behemoth]

Is the sata controller set for RAID mode or is it set for IDE mode ? This vaught a mate of mone out trying to put XP onto his new laptop.

[Skinleech]

I have Win7 running on an nforce 2 board also, but I *had* to install from a DVD. Installing from a bootable USB stick failed on the SATA drivers every time. Burning the image to DVD and installing that way worked a treat, loading the drivers off a USB stick.

It's an Asus board with a Silicon Image SIL 3112a chipset. If it's any use, I can upload the drivers I used to rapidshare or the likes?

[pp05]

Originally Posted by Skinleech

I have Win7 running on an nforce 2 board also, but I *had* to install from a DVD. Installing from a bootable USB stick failed on the SATA drivers every time. Burning the image to DVD and installing that way worked a treat, loading the drivers off a USB stick.

It's an Asus board with a Silicon Image SIL 3112a chipset. If it's any use, I can upload the drivers I used to rapidshare or the likes?

The public beta I tried installing was via dvd. It was an iso.
I downloaded copy of 3112 sata drivers from Abit website and copied them onto floppy.

Windows 7 couldn't see the disks so I inserted floppy. All seemed fine ..

But during the installation at the part when it was 'expanding files' it would stop around midway saying some file was needed.

The image was fine, the buning process was fine. Then what?

[Skinleech]

http://rapidshare.com/files/28031589...ivers.rar.html

There's the ones I used without issue. In my case, using USB meant that none of the drivers I tried were flagged as matching my hardware, I'm afraid I didn't experience an issue with missing files.

Can you remember what file was reported missing?

[pp05]

Error code: 0x80070570

Initially I thought there might be problem with ISO. So I checked that and it wasn't. Then burned it to dvd again and verified there were no errors during the burn process. That was fine too. There was some file that it needs that it couldn't find. Or could it be SATA even though it went to the setup files stage.

[Behemoth]

I wonder, is it the IDE cable your using on your DVD drive ? May be fine for burning things and installing in a windows envirment but sometimes its the cable that will stop windows installing at all. used to get errors like this with really old cables with XP.

Might be worth trying a new cable, could also try a different drive if you have one handy.

[pp05]

Originally Posted by Behemoth

I wonder, is it the IDE cable your using on your DVD drive ? May be fine for burning things and installing in a windows envirment but sometimes its the cable that will stop windows installing at all. used to get errors like this with really old cables with XP.

Might be worth trying a new cable, could also try a different drive if you have one handy.

Yes the dvd-rw drive is connected via IDE cable. Same drive has installed XP/various linux just fine. I only have one dvd drive at present, the other being an old cdrw else I could have tried a different route to rule out original dvd drive.

I will try and have a look for a spare IDE cable and see if the results are any different.


Main question I've had about win7 is should I buy new mobo/cpu/ram or keep existing machine for win7. Ideally I want the latter. I'm thinking if I can get windows 7 installed on present hardware then all I realistically will need is an extra 1gb of ram as I'm on 512mb at the moment. Or I could just go for new mobo/cpu combo and start fresh give its almost 5 years old now and avoid silicon/nforce2 headache.

[Behemoth]

Originally Posted by pp05

Yes the dvd-rw drive is connected via IDE cable. Same drive has installed XP/various linux just fine. I only have one dvd drive at present, the other being an old cdrw else I could have tried a different route to rule out original dvd drive.

I will try and have a look for a spare IDE cable and see if the results are any different.


Main question I've had about win7 is should I buy new mobo/cpu/ram or keep existing machine for win7. Ideally I want the latter. I'm thinking if I can get windows 7 installed on present hardware then all I realistically will need is an extra 1gb of ram as I'm on 512mb at the moment. Or I could just go for new mobo/cpu combo and start fresh give its almost 5 years old now and avoid silicon/nforce2 headache.

I'll be honest with you here, if it were me I'd buy all new parts for a new PC, it's admireable to keep old hardware going for as long as you have, but to be vrutally honest there is going to come a time when it feels like your pushing treacle uphill, backwards.

If you can afford to spare say £400 I'm sure you could build yourself a decent system using a new AMD cpu and motherboard. DDR2 RAM is dirt cheap at the moment.

I'm really not the one to advise on which hardware to get (I made a backward step last year for some reason, went from an Intel Core 2 Duo rig to an AMD X2 system)

As I say, thats what I'd do anyway, then sell off your Socket A gear for what ever you can get to offset a little the cosr of the upgrade.

[Skinleech]

New gear wold be more energy efficient than old socket A gear too.

[pp05]

Originally Posted by Behemoth

I'll be honest with you here, if it were me I'd buy all new parts for a new PC, it's admireable to keep old hardware going for as long as you have, but to be vrutally honest there is going to come a time when it feels like your pushing treacle uphill, backwards.

If you can afford to spare say £400 I'm sure you could build yourself a decent system using a new AMD cpu and motherboard. DDR2 RAM is dirt cheap at the moment.

I'm really not the one to advise on which hardware to get (I made a backward step last year for some reason, went from an Intel Core 2 Duo rig to an AMD X2 system)

As I say, thats what I'd do anyway, then sell off your Socket A gear for what ever you can get to offset a little the cosr of the upgrade.

I doubt I'd get much for them. 400 would be high for me as I'd like to take existing components over where possible given my computing needs aren't too intensive these days.

Originally Posted by Skinleech

New gear wold be more energy efficient than old socket A gear too.

Is 330w psu sufficient these days for non-gaming machines?

[DataMatrix]

Originally Posted by pp05

I tried today.

Even managed to get silicon sata drivers on floppy. Midway through installation it stops with an error. I'm hoping the public copy wont have such problem.

People still use floppies?

[Behemoth]

Originally Posted by pp05

I doubt I'd get much for them. 400 would be high for me as I'd like to take existing components over where possible given my computing needs aren't too intensive these days.


Is 330w psu sufficient these days for non-gaming machines?

I know your not going to get all that much for Socket A gear now, but my point is that if you spent say £300 or less on an upgrade it would be enxt to useless in a few years time. Intensive use or not, you need a decent bit of kit behind you than can cope with what you want to do now and what you may want to do later on (as your finding out with your socket A gear now)

You'll probably find that your 330 watt PSU may do the job for a while, also depends on the quality of it to be honest, if its a good supply from a known brand (Antec, enermax etc.) you may be alright, if not I very much doubt it.

Please don't think I'm trying to mock you or what your doing, it's just sometime sit's futile trying to get old gear working with new software, although it carries a certain degree of satisfaction when you get it going, but is it really worth all the agro ?