Windows 7 on i865?

[sedrosken]

I got Windows 7 installed on my i865-based Optiplex GX270. Install was ugly (16 color VGA ahoy), res on install was huge (640 x 480 ahoy), but I found a Windows XP driver for it and installed it in compatibility mode, and it works. Still can't use aero, but nuts to that. On a Pentium 4 I'd just as soon stick with the basic theme anyway. It's still running a mere gig of RAM, and it's running surprisingly well. Looks like my GX270 isn't quite done with Windows yet!

I also got the SoundMAX integrated audio drivers installed without a hitch as well. Also, thinking about putting my tower on top of my desk (it sits below it right now). Your opinions? I have a metric crapton of space (enough for two full size desktop machines with CRT monitors), and almost none of it is being used.

 

[Mercutio]

The i865 is compatible with Windows 7 and you should really go and get proper drivers for the graphics and system chipset (you may also want/need the Intel Management Engine component to make everything work properly if Windows didn't pick it up and is being weird about detecting hardware). I know your data transfers are metered but I'm surprised that the install didn't pick up and work with that hardware.

However, that's probably a waste of a Windows license if you're installing a legal copy. I'm sure that machine would be a lot happier with XP than anything newer in the Windows world; I doubt you have even 2GB RAM for it and that's really the tipping point for making Windows 7 worthwhile. And yes, something like Mint would also be a decent choice, though that's going to depend a lot on your choice of Desktop or Window manager.

As far as where to put a tower, "off the floor" is helpful for keeping dust out of things, but it's really a matter of convenience. We're talking about hardware that is minimally a decade old. It probably SHOULD be dusty by now.

 

[sedrosken]

Well, no...

7 in fact did NOT install proper drivers automatically, and any attempt to install any other driver was met with it falling back to the Standard VGA Adapter. The XP-in-compatibility-mode driver scales all the way to 1440 x 900, the max res of my SE198WFP. The only problem I've noticed is that window controls seem a little sluggish; a nuisance in the worst case scenario.

It actually runs quite happily with only 1 GB. I'm very satisfied with that. Chrome runs just as fast as it does on my laptop, which really says more about my laptop than it does about the GX270.

On the subject of a legal license, I used my old x86 license. I wasn't using it on anything else nor am I expecting to.

For an experiment, I took it down to 512 MB for a boot cycle. It booted up fine, and ran only slightly slower than before. I put it back though.

 

[Mercutio]

In order to get Intel's motherboard drivers installed properly, you need one or two things: The Chipset driver and/or the Intel Management Engine driver (though I don't think that applies on the i865 as it's too old). If your video driver isn't installing properly, it's because one of those things isn't installed or sufficiently updated. XP doesn't use the same driver base as Vista/7/8 and in fact graphics drivers are even architecturally different for the newer versions, so I'm not sure what video driver you've ended up with on the system as it is, but you might as well get a proper one since any amount of video decoding help is going to be an improvement over doing it all in software.

There's a fairly substantial difference in responsiveness of between 1GB and 2GB on any Windows newer than XP. If you're going to stick with 7 on that machine, it's highly worth your while to track down some 1GB DDR sticks.

 

[sedrosken]

What I've been trying to tell you is that I've been lurking everywhere for a better driver and I simply can't find one that will install.

Also, if I had the money to upgrade the RAM in this machine do you think I'd still be fiddling with the i865 chipset instead of going with a cheap nvidia AGP card that's recent enough to work with 7?

I installed a Basic theme variant that's black. I don't even notice that it's the basic theme anymore (more or less because I set opacity to full on Aero on computers that actually can handle it). Here, have a screenshot.



My point is, I got it working. I am sure that it would be worth my while to track down a couple 1 GB sticks, but, as I said, if I had the money to do so I definitely wouldn't have been trying to get an i865 to work with 7. Hey, an i865 is better than an nVidia GeForce2 MX, right? Hehe, well, yes and no. The nVidia card doesn't depend on system RAM but at the same time no amount of fiddling would make 7 work with the GeForce2.

I was running this with the vs15 when I realized that my sisters AXP didnt have built in speakers - - I sacrificed my happiness in my built in monitor speakers for her. The built in SoundMAX speaker isn't too terrible. Nothing you'd ever want to play music off of, but meh. For music, I have headphones.

 

[Mercutio]

As much as I dislike nVidia-based cards, you're most assuredly better off with that Geforce 2. You can find legacy drivers to work with it at Omega Drivers.

 

[sedrosken]

Hmm. Good to know. You can bet that I'll be slapping in that GeForce2. Thanks for the protip!

 

[sedrosken]

... Or not. At least, not right now. It's current release does not support Windows 7 yet, but it will in the next one. As it says, "stay tunned"!