Thursday, August 9th 2018
Intel Sneaks in Windows 7-compatible H310 Chipset Revision
Without making too much noise about it, Intel sneaked in a revision of its H310 Express entry-level chipset with support for Windows 7. Microsoft, if you'll recall, restricted support for newer processors (Intel "Kaby Lake" and newer, and AMD "Zen" and newer) on the 9-year old operating system, late-2016. There are ways around this restriction. The revised H310 chipset is pin-compatible with its predecessor, and hence major motherboard manufacturers are putting out revisions of their H310 motherboards with the newer chipset, being referred to as either "H310C" or "H310 R2.0."
To bolster this change, Intel is also releasing Windows 7 drivers for the chipset (INF Update Utility); integrated USB 3.0 controllers, the SATA AHCI controller, and even Management Engine Interface (MEI). What you don't get (yet), however, is Windows 7 versions of Intel UHD 6xx Graphics drivers, so you're restricted to using discrete graphics cards. Windows 7 refuses to die down, not just in enterprises, but also among PUBG gamers from China.
Source:
Anandtech
To bolster this change, Intel is also releasing Windows 7 drivers for the chipset (INF Update Utility); integrated USB 3.0 controllers, the SATA AHCI controller, and even Management Engine Interface (MEI). What you don't get (yet), however, is Windows 7 versions of Intel UHD 6xx Graphics drivers, so you're restricted to using discrete graphics cards. Windows 7 refuses to die down, not just in enterprises, but also among PUBG gamers from China.
35 Comments on Intel Sneaks in Windows 7-compatible H310 Chipset Revision
When W7 becomes EOL > Linux baby.
I also tried INF modding the newest driver and it did install (or seemed to) but after restart was still using the previous one.
Intresting that Intel added drivers for H310 r2 tho maybe not that suprising considering many OEM/Business machines will likely be using it and thus also using Win7 with it.
Tho it does open up an intresting (if not downright crazy) possibility of running the upcoming i9-9900K 8c/16t CPU on a H310 r2 board with Windows 7.
Before anyone asks: 8c support for upcoming Whiskey Lake CPU's was added to some 300 series boards including H310.
i will grant you that number has dropped approx 10% in a one-year period; from 2016 to 2017, it was something like this:
- Windows 7: 48.5%
- Windows 10: 26.28%
- Windows XP: 7.04%
- Windows 8.1: 6.96%
- Mac OS X 10.12: 3.21%
I wonder why the number of Win7 users dropped so dramatically...What about changing motherboards like socks, when has that deterred Intel? When has Intel done anything that makes them less profit :rolleyes:
If you are intelligent enough you can find drivers for 7 if you look.
Also DX12 is not an answer as barely anything uses it.
My question though is does Windows 7 install updates on this platform, or does it still give you the "processor unsupported" message? I mean, drivers for the chipset are all great and good, but it doesn't do much if Windows won't update. Of course, I know there are work arounds for this issue too.
Also need to check these settings on the Win10 test box I have. I think I ran Shutup10 on it at some point...
Administrative Templates | System | Internet Communication Management | Internet Communication Settings|Turn off access to all Windows Update features
and
Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Update\Configure Automatic Updates Disabled