ASRock's Motherboards Are Windows® 10 Compatible

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ASRock_Official

Joined: 19 Mar 2015
Status: Offline
Points: 1096

Topic: ASRock's Motherboards Are Windows® 10 Compatible
Posted: 13 Jul 2015 at 12:03pm

TAIPEI, Taiwan, July 3, 2015 ??If you're still using that nostalgic Windows® XP or even earlier versions of Bill Gate's legacy, sooner or later you'd probably want to transition to the new Windows® 10, which promises an improved user interface and DirectX 12 for efficiently using multiple CPU threads to execute PC games. That said, you still need to double check on whether your motherboard supports Microsoft's new operating system. The good news is ASRock is ready.

Earlier, ASRock has sent out two motherboards on an epic quest to survive Microsoft's strict Windows® 10 compatibility testing, one team Intel® H81M-DGS R2.0 and the other one FM2A88X Extreme6+ from the AMD campaign, and now both have passed with Windows® 10 compatible certificates!

Rest assured that these Windows® 10 certificates aren't solely for the two aforementioned motherboards, ASRock is speeding things up to make sure that current motherboards and the upcoming Intel® 100 series will all support the new operating system flawlessly when it hits the market in the end of July.

http://www.asrock.com/news/index.asp?id=2872

parsec

Moderator Group

Joined: 04 May 2015
Location: USA
Status: Offline
Points: 4996

Posted: 15 Jul 2015 at 6:00am

ASRock has begun to supply Windows 10 compatible drivers and other files for some of their mother boards!

Availability of Windows 10 drivers depends upon the manufacture of the various chips used on the mother boards providing them to ASRock and other mother board manufactures.

As of the date of this post, July 14, 2015, only ASRock boards using Intel 9 and 8 series chipsets have select Windows 10 drivers available. Those drivers are ONLY for the Intel chipsets.

I have used drivers provided for Windows 8.1 with Windows 10 TP, with great results.

If your ASRock board does not yet have listings for Windows 10 drivers, I suggest using any Windows 8.1 drivers available via APP Shop or your board's download page.

I do NOT have any information about if and when Windows 10 drivers will be available for a specific mother board.

If you have questions about your board and Windows 10 drivers, feel free to post a thread in the Technical Support forum for your type of mother board.

odiebugs

Newbie

Joined: 07 Jul 2015
Status: Offline
Points: 193

Posted: 15 Jul 2015 at 7:44am

The Windows 10 builds 10162, 10166, and the first run candidate RTM of windows 10, 10176.

ASrock won't need drivers for.

9 series chipset, even though we have win 10 INF's.

The Intel 4600 IGPU, even though Intel has Beta drivers out.

The Intel i218-v network, even though Intel has win 10 listed drivers out.

Asmedia 3.0 USB, ASM1042AE.

All Realtek HD audio codecs, and realtek has win 10 drivers out.

All 13 and 14 series RST, ROM's and drivers.

Just pointing out that the windows native drivers work and the windows 8.1 drivers have worked with no problems and no performance issues with above hardware.

Except Realtek, some people have reported problems with the native win 10 drivers to the insider program.

Newer hardware seems to be putting out win 10 drivers to make sure when it's released people can see win 10 drivers.

Also a note, Nvidia has win 10 drivers out for the GTX, 6,7,9 series. Which are WHQL.

Over 5 million people are running the win 10 insider preview, so this will not be like win 8, where we had massive problems and needed a BIOS / UEFI update and needed a lot of hardware drivers made for 8.

So I hope this can let a few people relax if you were worried.

A big thanks to Parsec for the post and always going above and beyond the call to help people.

Insiders might see TH1 builds and not FBl impressive soon.

*** Added note, I have been running Nvidia 353.49, but Nvidia must have given Windows a 353.50, as this just showed up in windows update for my 10166 build.

Edited by odiebugs - 15 Jul 2015 at 8:25am

asrocking

odiebugs

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Joined: 07 Jul 2015
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Points: 193

Posted: 15 Jul 2015 at 9:38am

All of the ASrock 9 series motherboards now have a windows 10 64 driver download page, with Intel, chipset, IME, RST, VGA, listed.

Edited by odiebugs - 15 Jul 2015 at 9:40am

asrocking

parsec

Moderator Group

Joined: 04 May 2015
Location: USA
Status: Offline
Points: 4996

Posted: 15 Jul 2015 at 9:56am

odiebugs, good information, I agree 99.9% Wink

You can add the Intel 8 series chipset boards to the list of boards with Win 10 download pages.

The Intel network driver for Win 10 (20.1) on Intel's download pages still does not install correctly on Win 10 Build 10162 on my ASRock Z87 Extreme6 board. That was after I ran the 10.1.1.8 INF file installation program for Win 10. So I still cannot create a team out of the Intel I217-V and I211 network chips on this board with Win 10. That's not an issue that really matters, just a bit annoying.

ASRock is doing us a favor by not including that Intel network driver in the Win 10 downloads, I imagine ASRock and Intel are aware of this. A perfect example of the new driver not being better, something that I preach about occasionally. Wacko

The Readme file for the Intel installation programs lists the Intel 9, 8, and 7 series chipsets as compatible for installation. You can always try installing these drivers and INF installer (INF installer done FIRST!) on any Intel platform. At worst the installer will quit early if it decides it can't work with an Intel mother board.

Keep in mind that if earlier/older chipset boards do not get a Windows 10 driver/file download page, that is not because ASRock simply decided not to do so. Intel is the source and creator of these drivers, and they specify where they are applicable.

odiebugs

Newbie

Joined: 07 Jul 2015
Status: Offline
Points: 193

Posted: 15 Jul 2015 at 10:30am

Thanks for the info on the 8 series download page and other info.

I think we should mention to people who don't know, the Intel chipset has a native driver in windows.

Intel does list the chipset installer as a download on their website, but in reality there is really no reason to install the chipset utility. The utility only adds the identity of the driver to the driver properties page.

In simple terms, the only thing this does is make the driver show the name Intel on the chipset driver instead of windows. .

It has no bearing on any performance at all. Now with a Intel chipset utility newer than 10. 0.27 , you will see Intel listed as the driver for the SMb host controller, and PCI roots, LPC controller, instead of windows. Older versions only loaded the INF files for the SMbus to show as Intel.

Parsec, just to verify, are you saying the installer or the drivers, the drivers are not a 20 series, only the installer has this branding, just so you can let people know if the driver works but the software utility doesn't. They can just extract the drivers if they function and load them. The drivers for the 217 and 218 are a 12 series.

I was just scared by windows insiders, can you believe that the highest number of up voted feedback by insiders was asking for network adapter shortcut and enable /disable network connection. LOL

There is already a way to make it, talk about pathetic. Wacko

Edited by odiebugs - 15 Jul 2015 at 12:16pm

asrocking

Scripthen

Newbie

Joined: 25 Jul 2015
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Points: 6

Posted: 25 Jul 2015 at 6:23am

Thread almost 10 days old, so soz.

Will the ASRock 990FX Extreme3 be Windows 10 compatible? I won't be upgrading until AMD do DDR4 support so it would be nice to know to stick with 7 or go for upgrade.

Thanks.

parsec

Moderator Group

Joined: 04 May 2015
Location: USA
Status: Offline
Points: 4996

Posted: 25 Jul 2015 at 11:13am

Scripthen wrote:

Thread almost 10 days old, so soz.

Will the ASRock 990FX Extreme3 be Windows 10 compatible? I won't be upgrading until AMD do DDR4 support so it would be nice to know to stick with 7 or go for upgrade.

Thanks.

It probably will be with the Windows 10 generic drivers.

I checked three other mother board manufacture's 990FX mother board models, and none of them, including ASRock, as of this date (7/24/15) do not have any AMD Windows 10 drivers available for download.

That means that AMD has not yet provided (or they are still being verified) any Windows 10 drivers to major mother board manufactures.

If AMD does not provide any Windows 10 drivers for their chipsets, the mother board manufactures can't do anything about it.

Many of us have been using Windows 8.1 drivers for Windows 10 with fine results. I would suggest doing that yourself if no other drivers are available from AMD for Windows 10.

funpilot

Newbie

Joined: 28 Jul 2015
Location: Virginia
Status: Offline
Points: 3

Posted: 28 Jul 2015 at 12:47am

I am not that technical... I have the 2011 Extreme 9 motherboard with a 3820 Intel CPU. What do I have to do to get ready?

parsec

Moderator Group

Joined: 04 May 2015
Location: USA
Status: Offline
Points: 4996

Posted: 29 Jul 2015 at 9:33am

funpilot wrote:

I am not that technical... I have the 2011 Extreme 9 motherboard with a 3820 Intel CPU. What do I have to do to get ready?

Honestly, it depends upon what you use that PC for, and the current drivers/software you use.

What version of Windows do you use now? If you use Windows 8 or 8.1, you won't need to do anything. If you have Windows Update set to automatically apply updates, the default setting, Windows 10 will download and install anything that it deems important or essential. That also applies to Windows 7.

If you use anything older than Windows 7, (which is not eligible for a free update to Windows 10), you'll still be fine doing a fresh, new installation of Windows 10. The Windows Update process is very good at supplying anything your hardware would need regarding drivers and essential software.

If you are a PC user that wanted a great system and have the board and CPU you mentioned, but don't care to fool around with the latest version of drivers (in other words, if you're not a complete PC building geek Wink

) then as long as you allow Windows 10 to update itself as I described above, you will be fine. Not should be, you will be fine. If I'm wrong, stop by the forum again and I will fix you up. Geek

So far, there has not been any BIOS/UEFI updates for ANY Intel processor mother boards made by ASRock to accommodate Windows 10, or any other mother board manufactures I have checked, as of the date of this post. That would be the one thing that might make a difference moving to Windows 10.

But knowing what you are using now as your OS would help us help you much better.

One VERY IMPORTANT thing in your situation to know, mainly unrelated to Windows 10 is this:

End of story first, DO NOT PERFORM ANY BIOS/UEFI UPDATES UNTIL YOU (we) KNOW WHAT BIOS/UEFI VERSION YOU ARE USING NOW!!

You said you weren't very technical, so I'm talking with that in mind, sorry if I'm talking way below your knowledge level. Embarrassed

Do you know how to find the BIOS version your board currently has? Have you ever used the BIOS user interface? Please educate us about these things and the few others above if you want some more assistance.