Legacy MoBos and Windows 10

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Dear Sir, or Madam, 
i own quite a lot of MoBos, mainly for Building PCs with Win98SE running, together with Windows XP Pro and Windows 7 (in "triple boot" configs").
I do this for interest in game design, and research of some old games, that run on Win98SE only.
I installed XP just because i can, and Windows 7, so to be able to do something else beyond playing old games on these PCs.
I usually have installed an Audigy or Audigy 2 Soundcard, some "NVidia GeForce 6x00 xy", 2-4 GB RAM, a QuadCore CPU, either onboard LAN or an Intel PCI Gigabit MAC, as well as some IDE SSDs and SATA SSDs for snappy systems, one per OS.
It requires some knowledge to get Win98SE running on these systems (i.e. to make Win98SE "blind" for Memory above 1 GB), all which i learned from the helpful guys at MSFN.

I was now looking which of these systems might be able to run Windows 10.
I consulted the compatibility-pages of Microsoft (which originally are for Windows 8.1):

http://www.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/compatibility/CompatCenter/ProductViewerWithUpdatedFilters?TempOsid=Windows%208.1&Locale=de-de&Architecture=X64&TextSearch=asrock%20motherboard&Type=Both&CurrentPage=1&TotalPages=4&ShowCriteria=2&SortCriteria=Relevance&Compatibility=Unknown&ProductName=asrock%20motherboard&LastRequested=5

...to see, that unfortunately about all my motherboards, there is "No Info", and "Check with device manufacturer". This is what i'm doing now.

My MoBos, and the OS-config. OS-configs in parantheses run like a charm, but are not officially supported by ASRock.

AM2NF3 (4GB, Phenom II X4 910e): Win98SE, XP, (W7-32bit). Addendum: W7-64bit is unstable, RAM beyond 4GB makes everything unstable.
ALiveDual-eSATA2 (4GB, Athlon II X4 620e): Win98SE, XP, (W7-32bit). Addendum: W7-64bit is unstable, RAM beyond 4GB makes everything unstable.
775Dual-VSTA (2GB, C2DE6400): Win98SE, XP, (W7-32bit). Addendum: I didn't even try W7-64bit, because with only 2GB RAM this makes no sense.
4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 (4GB, C2Q6600): Win98SE, XP, W7-64bit, W7-32bit. Addendum: This is a beta-BIOS by ASRock, only 3.2 GB is visible and usable.

I'm not naive. Most MoBos have the "compatible" flag (there a nearly all of your MoBos). For those that have "no info", i suspect issues, about which Microsoft probably keeps silent politely.

These MoBos are old, and have some curious chipset combinations, and i don't expect official support.

The only info i'd like to have: Did ASrock (or anyone reading this) try Windows 8.1 or even Windows 10 on any of these MoBos, and to what effect?

Please, anyone reading this (beyond ASRock), be so kind, and don't speculate on this subject. Just answer, if you either did try out yourself, of have a valid link to people who did (no matter what the result). Thank you!

Kind Regards,

Ragnar G.D.

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ragnar-gd Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 30 Apr 2015 Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote ragnar-gd Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Legacy MoBos and Windows 10 Posted: 30 Apr 2015 at 2:25am
	Dear Sir, or Madam, i own quite a lot of MoBos, mainly for Building PCs with Win98SE running, together with Windows XP Pro and Windows 7 (in "triple boot" configs"). I do this for interest in game design, and research of some old games, that run on Win98SE only. I installed XP just because i can, and Windows 7, so to be able to do something else beyond playing old games on these PCs. I usually have installed an Audigy or Audigy 2 Soundcard, some "NVidia GeForce 6x00 xy", 2-4 GB RAM, a QuadCore CPU, either onboard LAN or an Intel PCI Gigabit MAC, as well as some IDE SSDs and SATA SSDs for snappy systems, one per OS. It requires some knowledge to get Win98SE running on these systems (i.e. to make Win98SE "blind" for Memory above 1 GB), all which i learned from the helpful guys at MSFN. I was now looking which of these systems might be able to run Windows 10. I consulted the compatibility-pages of Microsoft (which originally are for Windows 8.1): http://www.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/compatibility/CompatCenter/ProductViewerWithUpdatedFilters?TempOsid=Windows%208.1&Locale=de-de&Architecture=X64&TextSearch=asrock%20motherboard&Type=Both&CurrentPage=1&TotalPages=4&ShowCriteria=2&SortCriteria=Relevance&Compatibility=Unknown&ProductName=asrock%20motherboard&LastRequested=5 ...to see, that unfortunately about all my motherboards, there is "No Info", and "Check with device manufacturer". This is what i'm doing now. My MoBos, and the OS-config. OS-configs in parantheses run like a charm, but are not officially supported by ASRock. AM2NF3 (4GB, Phenom II X4 910e): Win98SE, XP, (W7-32bit). Addendum: W7-64bit is unstable, RAM beyond 4GB makes everything unstable. ALiveDual-eSATA2 (4GB, Athlon II X4 620e): Win98SE, XP, (W7-32bit). Addendum: W7-64bit is unstable, RAM beyond 4GB makes everything unstable. 775Dual-VSTA (2GB, C2DE6400): Win98SE, XP, (W7-32bit). Addendum: I didn't even try W7-64bit, because with only 2GB RAM this makes no sense. 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 (4GB, C2Q6600): Win98SE, XP, W7-64bit, W7-32bit. Addendum: This is a beta-BIOS by ASRock, only 3.2 GB is visible and usable. I'm not naive. Most MoBos have the "compatible" flag (there a nearly all of your MoBos). For those that have "no info", i suspect issues, about which Microsoft probably keeps silent politely. These MoBos are old, and have some curious chipset combinations, and i don't expect official support. The only info i'd like to have: Did ASrock (or anyone reading this) try Windows 8.1 or even Windows 10 on any of these MoBos, and to what effect? Please, anyone reading this (beyond ASRock), be so kind, and don't speculate on this subject. Just answer, if you either did try out yourself, of have a valid link to people who did (no matter what the result). Thank you! Kind Regards, Ragnar G.D.

ragnar-gd Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 30 Apr 2015 Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote ragnar-gd Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 19 May 2015 at 12:48am
	Dear people at AsRock: Maybe my question was not formulated in an intelligible way (i'm not a native speaker): 1. Did you try out your (this) boards with WIndows 7 / 8.1 / 10 (32bit/64bit), and what was the result? AM2NF3 ALiveDual-eSATA2 775Dual-VSTA 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 2. Will there be support for Windows 10 on any of these boards?

parsec Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Moderator Group Joined: 04 May 2015 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 4996	Post Options Post Reply Quote parsec Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 19 May 2015 at 1:46pm
	Your questions are easily understood in my opinion, your English is very good. The lack of responses is partially due to the newness of this ASRock forum, the number of ASRock users visiting it at this time is still small. Another reason is the limitation of your own creation, which I understand, but further limits the chances of replies: "Please, anyone reading this (beyond ASRock), be so kind, and don't speculate on this subject. Just answer, if you either did try out yourself, of have a valid link to people who did (no matter what the result)." As you said, these boards are almost eight and nine years old, and the number of people using them is again, limited. Owners of these boards tend to be PC users rather than PC enthusiasts that are experimenting with new versions of Windows. Let's consider "... support for Windows 10 on any of these boards", where would that come from? While it may appear the mother board manufactures supply driver software for their products, you must know that mother board manufactures supply only a few utility programs themselves. The drivers are provided by the various chip manufactures, Intel, AMD, ASMedia, Broadcom, Realtek, Marvell, etc. If they do not provide drivers for Windows 10 that will work with chipsets on your boards (like the VIA^® VT8237S or NVIDIA^® nForce3 250), who can or will? My suggestions are these: Search for drivers for your various chipsets from the manufacture, VIA and Nvidia, although neither are in the mother board chipset business now, or have been for years. If they have stopped supporting their own products, and they have in these instances, how can we blame the mother board manufactures for not supporting them? You can download the Windows 10 Technical Preview iso installation file free from Microsoft. You can use that to install it on an empty drive or partition of an existing drive. I would not suggest trying the update to Windows 10 TP from a currently working Windows installation method. If it fails it may destroy the original installation.

Xaltar Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Moderator Group Joined: 16 May 2015 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 22688	Post Options Post Reply Quote Xaltar Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 19 May 2015 at 5:26pm
	Parsec pretty much nailed it. I like to add a little to it though. Many older components, particularly chipsets, NICs and other board mounted components tend to end up being supported natively by Windows. However the native support ceases when the product in question no longer meets the requirements of the OS. Given that the performance of PC hardware, with the exception of perhaps GPUs, has been relatively stagnant over the last 10 years I would imagine that windows 10 will likely run fine on all the systems you listed. I think its fairly safe to say that if they run windows 7 then windows 10 should be fine as 7, 8 and 10 share much of the same core program code, especially on the back end that handles hardware calls and such. The only limiting factors I forsee are perhaps insufficient RAM for more extensive tasks and sluggish performance on the dual core socket 775 system. Basically I don't think its a question of if your systems will run windows 10, more a question of will windows 10 run well enough to be worth using on them. Native drivers tend to be optimized for compatibility and stability which means you may lose some performance here and there. Overall though I have seen a few people still using core 2 Quads and I am sure at least some of them have tried the technical preview of win 10. A quick google search did not yield any comparability issues with the hardware you mentioned. I am quite sure the Phenom II will be fine as I have the AM3 Phenom II 955 in my other PC with a 790x chipset board and it ran the tech preview flawlessly with 4gb of RAM.

ragnar-gd Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 30 Apr 2015 Status: Offline Points: 5	Post Options Post Reply Quote ragnar-gd Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 22 May 2015 at 4:25am
	parsec, Xaltar, thank you for your considerate answers. I could have told what i already did, but that would have blown up my mail considerably. I used the technical preview on all four boards, both 32bit and 64bit. That makes 8 installations of Windows 10... So i pretty much know what the tech preview will be like on those boards. As you both guessed, the limiting factor is the chipset. On the NF3, the system will not even install. The VIA chipset is identified correctly, and Windows 10 comes up both in 32bit and 64bit. So, on the intel-boards, limited success (64bit does not make much sense, but, hey, it works none the less). Limiting factor is lack of an NVidia-driver for the GeForce 6200/6600/6800, which makes the intel-systems nigh unusable. This seems to be the same with windows 8(.1): It works ok, still, this is already not officially supported by ASRock, even though i absolutely have no issues with the intel boards. That's ok for me, don't be mistaken. The NF3-boards work rock-stable up to Windows 7 32bit, but that's it, with 64bit it get's shaky, bluescreens and such. Does it make sense to have these modern OS running on these oldtimers, or even running old OS on them? Well, let's put it like this: Does it makes sense to drive oldtimers on the street, if you can have a modern car (i mean real true cars), for getting to work, moving things, drive to the holiday resort of your choice? Probably not. But does that mean there is no sense or use in that? In every civilized country, there are exceptions in law to allow for oldtimers on the street, even though they are less secure, use more gasoline, produce more bad air, you name it. And for the same reasons i keep these oldtimers running. That much for my motivation... Back to my questions: Take them at face value. Microsoft says: "Ask ASRock about these boards". And exactly that for i'm here: Ask - and hopefully get an answer - from some proud ASRock techie about these absolutely amazing and unique boards, which allow every Microsoft system that there ever was to run on them (and, truth be told, some linux-variants as well, i can tell you, as, i.e., my beloved Kali... don't ask, don't tell... ;) (...AND, this is no slouch, it still is faster than many laptops, and with these components, it is completely silent, as all cooling is passive. The idle power draw is the only subject where it shows it's age). The 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 might be that one board, in exactly that (and probably ONLY that) configuration. If there were an official NVidia (legacy) driver for these GPUs, and some kind of assistance of ASRock, this would become a legendary mainboard. Of course: Thanks to the fact Microsoft does not plan for a Windows 11... ;-) I think all of this is reason enough to ask ASRock at least for their opionion and experience with these boards. I don't ask for "official support", i don't need that (even though Mercedes Benz opened a new buisiness supporting their oldtimers, which is, as rumours tell, profitable... just saying...) So? ... :-) Cheers, and thank you for your patience, Ragnar G.D.