Win7 - nForce2 drivers?

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SYN ACK

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 11, 2004
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i have an old abit NFS-7 mobo/system llying around and an extra win7 key so i wanted to install the x32 win7 on there as a second box ... but i cant find win7 drivers for the life of me.

it doesn't appear that there are vista 32/64 drivers on nvidia's site, either...

i was doing some reading and it looks like i might be able to do winxp drivers in compatability mode on win7? does anyone know if this is even possible or if it's a good idea?

this box will just be for the gf to do office/web browsing on, no gaming etc...but would be nice to use the sleep feature of win7
 
If I remember right, when Vista came out Nvidia specifically said they were no longer going to support chipsets older than NF4. So as far as I know, there are not any drivers for NF2 for Vista or Win7.

If you're running 64bit (which is probably unlikely since NF2 was a socket A chipset, right?), then you're out of luck as XP driver won't work. But 32-bit might work okay, you'll just have to give it a shot.
 
ryan_975 said:
If I remember right, when Vista came out Nvidia specifically said they were no longer going to support chipsets older than NF4. So as far as I know, there are not any drivers for NF2 for Vista or Win7.

If you're running 64bit (which is probably unlikely since NF2 was a socket A chipset, right?), then you're out of luck as XP driver won't work. But 32-bit might work okay, you'll just have to give it a shot.
Click to expand...

This ^^^

That's exactly what it is. NV was too lazy to write Vista drivers thus screwing the scores of NF2 users out there.
 
does vista/win7 not have built in drivers for this board? i guess i am just asking if you actually need the drivers to install the OS (do you need the drivers to recognize the HDD?)
 
not sure - guess we'll find out
the hdd is still pATA so i dont need the SATA drivers or anything.

it's 32bit only (i think i only have 512mb ram in there, anyways) - but wasnt planning on putting x64 on there since the hardware is so old.

i guess i can just install win7x32 and see what drivers it installs by default.

can you run drivers in "win xp compatability mode" - or how does that work?
 
SYN ACK said:
not sure - guess we'll find out
the hdd is still pATA so i dont need the SATA drivers or anything.

it's 32bit only (i think i only have 512mb ram in there, anyways) - but wasnt planning on putting x64 on there since the hardware is so old.

i guess i can just install win7x32 and see what drivers it installs by default.

can you run drivers in "win xp compatability mode" - or how does that work?
Click to expand...

Driver model is completely different between XP and Vista/7. So some drivers may or may not work if you run them in compatibility mode. All you can do is try and if it actually installs you start praying it is stable. ;)
 
The RC of Win7 doesnt support NF2, tried, failed.
I imagine the final is the same as NVidia havent released an update.
 
Damn that is random, just finished installing Windows7 on an old AMD 760 MP Dual Athlon Chipset and also on another computer with an old Via board, both I'm pretty sure are older than the NF2.
 
win7 x64bit ultimate running on an abit nf-7s here... it actually installs nicer then vista did. you can actually install the nf4 drivers for these boards (thats what windows does too). i dont get sound and god knows if its actually running as fast as it should, but it works well anyway. with win7, i didnt have to find any drivers, it just installed generically for the most part and works well.
 
If you want to see if it works without using your key, just install windows without the key and they add it later if everything is working ok.
 
I had the chance to try win7 RC with a NF7-s. I used some nforce3 and nforce 4 drivers and It did work, sound didn't work, probably because its a dedicated nforce hardware, not realtek based.

Unfortunately the mobo died shorthly after, not win7 related :p

One of the best mobos I've ever had, threw it out just yesterday.
 
I couldnt get sound nor network functioning.
Cant remember what else.
 
SYN ACK said:
i have an old abit NFS-7 mobo/system llying around and an extra win7 key so i wanted to install the x32 win7 on there as a second box ... but i cant find win7 drivers for the life of me.

it doesn't appear that there are vista 32/64 drivers on nvidia's site, either...

i was doing some reading and it looks like i might be able to do winxp drivers in compatability mode on win7? does anyone know if this is even possible or if it's a good idea?

this box will just be for the gf to do office/web browsing on, no gaming etc...but would be nice to use the sleep feature of win7
Click to expand...
Windows 7 has a lot of built in drivers. Just install it and see what happens.
 
thanks,guys!
keep you posted how it goes.
sound isn't too big of a deal - but networking sure is
 
Between the generic drivers Windows provides and your situation, it's really a gamble.
 
win7 install (no sata drivers?) couldnt see my sata hard-drive in there to even install the OS !

oh well, one NFS-7 board and ram and cpu going to for-sale section soon!
 
but youve never been able to install from a sata drive without added drivers.... not with those boards anyway.

but i agree, the tech is just too old to use as a main desktop anymore (unless you just browse the web). weird and sad really, because i bought nf7-s boards for gaming all those years ago. but for win7 you really do want an nf4 board or newer....
 
SYN ACK said:
win7 install (no sata drivers?) couldnt see my sata hard-drive in there to even install the OS !

oh well, one NFS-7 board and ram and cpu going to for-sale section soon!
Click to expand...

is there a possiblity of installing WindowsXP and install fromXP or Vista?
 
not sure - dont want to mess with it anymore
win xp obviously works, but i have extra win7 keys and wanted it for a computer in house for the GF that can 'sleep' quickly - and other advantages win7 has.

anyone who wants/loves the nforce can find it on ebay!
 
krupted said:
win7 x64bit ultimate running on an abit nf-7s here... it actually installs nicer then vista did. you can actually install the nf4 drivers for these boards (thats what windows does too). i dont get sound and god knows if its actually running as fast as it should, but it works well anyway. with win7, i didnt have to find any drivers, it just installed generically for the most part and works well.
Click to expand...

Want to explain how you got 64-bit windows running on a Motherboard that only supported 32-bit CPUs?
 
Chaintech 7NIL1 Nf2 mobo. The RC for Win7 32 bit installs just fine. That mobo does not have sata, so I obviously used an eide drive. The vid card is an Ati 9800pro and the system has 2 gigs of ram. It runs quite well with Aero glass enabled.

I did have two serious install issues however. Ethernet and sound drivers. I found drivers for the sound from the sound chip maker, CMI. Ethernet was more difficult. There was a hacked driver floating around for it, but it proved unreliable. (It would drop the connection every 10 minutes), so I bought a $20 PCI ethernet card that had Vista/Win7 drivers. I expected to run into AGP issues, but the drivers built in had that covered.

It is doable, but getting Win7 to run on the Nf2 is not without issues. But to be honest, when I was done, it was like, "why did I bother". The machine is only good for old games, and web surfing. The 2.0Ghz socket A cpu is not even capable of 1080p playback without dropped frames. I could have left Xp on it and accomplished the same utility.
 
I got win7 32-bit sound working on an old Intel 865 rig by extracting the sound drivers to a folder in XP compatibility mode, and installing manually via "Find a driver, browse...etc" dialog, IIRC. Same thing for the video driver (although I had to get a Radeon 9550xl to get widescreen support...the Intel 865 driver didn't support 1920x1080).
 
well for $50 you can drop in a pci 8400gs and that should allow you to make it high def capable. those boards dont sleep well though so youd be using hibernation, plus nforce audio boards would need another pci card just for sound... theyre really not worth it. best left as youtube and facebook machines, sadly.
 
i actually was trying to install win7 on a 939 board last week. some pos biostar i picked up pretty cheap thinking i could use another spare computer. mobo is cru51-m9, which is supposed to be the ame board as the 6100-m9 they have. this thing is actually brand new....gee i wonder why they had a box of these boards...anyway it took 3 attempts to isntall win7 after a few failures. it seemed to install drivers for everything although i do not know which ones as there are no vista drivers for this thing. i did download a vista sound driver and it worked great.but.... ie8 crashed when opened. i had random lockups and the system was pretty much unuseable. so i reverted back the xp. i think its mainly because the board is a pos, but im curious as to what drivers win7 would have installed since there are no vista drivers for it on the website.

i guess we're pretty much out of luck if the manufacturer didnt provide at least a vista driver.
 
The 6100 chipset is based on the Nforce 4, which Nvidia does support with Vista and Win7 drivers. If Biostar doesn't provide them, you can try to get them from the actual component manufacturers (e.g. Realtek, or Nvidia).
 
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