MSI Z370-A Pro Win7 driver issues

[maddock34]

Title says it all.

Motherboard: MSI Z370-A Pro

OS: Win7 Pro

Motherboard recognises mouse (Razer Naga) and keyboard (Razer Lycosa) as default PS/2 devices. HDD is recognised in device manager but isn't visible on My Computer. USBs can provide charge but that's all (pen drives don't show the auto-run menu thing and don't appear in My Computer).

I've flashed the BIOS and downloaded mouse/keyboard driver software (but because they aren't being recognised as Razer products the software doesn't do anything). Installed all Windows updates.

I thought I'd finally finished my build but a spanner has been thrown into the works. Not sure what to do so any help is appreciated

 

[DRagor]

Z370 were not made to run with Win7. Your best move is to upgrade to Win10. Otherwise you'll have to face such problems, and because not many people use Win7 on those boards you're pretty much on your own to solve them. I know that's not much of a help, but that's the way things are.

 

[maddock34]

Z370 were not made to run with Win7. Your best move is to upgrade to Win10. Otherwise you'll have to face such problems, and because not many people use Win7 on those boards you're pretty much on your own to solve them. I know that's not much of a help, but that's the way things are.

Damn. That's really unfortunate. Would changing motherboards be a viable option? I'm not sure if my Windows key has been activated yet but if it has would that be an issue?

 

[10tacle]

If you have an OEM copy of Windows, that license is tied to your hardware after activation. Any hardware change requires a new activation and often that means you must contact MS support and let them know why you need another activation (99.9% reactivation requests for hardware changes are approved). I say often and not always because sometimes the OS detects enough original hardware that you just click activate and you are approved. It just depends on your hardware and what was changed. If you have an retail copy, you can move it around as needed freely with activation.

But I would strongly recommend moving on to Windows 10 with new hardware. Windows 7 main security support stopped last year.

 

[maddock34]

Your Windows license is tied to your hardware after activation. Any hardware change requires a new activation and often that means you must contact MS support and let them know why you need another activation (99.9% reactivation requests for hardware changes are approved). I say often and not always because sometimes the OS detects enough original hardware that you just click activate and you are approved. It just depends on your hardware and what was changed.

But I would strongly recommend moving on to Windows 10 with new hardware. Windows 7 main security support stopped last year.

I don't want to upgrade is because due to a few reasons. I don't want forced ads in the start menu, I don't want to be forced to restart when the computer tells me to, and I'm not a great fan of the UI. I also believe it forcible collects info and sends it to Microsoft, I don't really want that (it probably only collects hardware info but I don't like it being done without my persmission or control). I guess if upgrading is the solution then I'll have to either deal with it or upgrade

 

[10tacle]

Well my gaming PC still runs Windows 7 for that reason which I also use for financial and other personal data transactions, but I'm running Win10 on my laptop and I'm not worried about any snooping on it. I'm afraid that we are being hung out to dry. Win7 is on its last legs. I'm looking into building a Linux system for personal/sensitive information use before I upgrade that gaming PC to Win10.

 

[das_stig]

MSI do support W7x64 on this motherboard and have the LAN and audio drivers for download.

You will need to go to Intel and download the chipset drivers and VGA drivers for the Z370 chipset.

 

[DRagor]

Changing motherboard will not help, since either way you need 8th gen board and all of them officially don't support Win7. You would have to downgrade whole system, which is hardly a solution. I'm not saying it's impossible to solve your problem while keeping Win7, just you'll have hard time finding someone who has the answers.
As for Win10 forcing you to shut down for updates - not true, you can change settings so YOU choose when to shutdown for system update.

 

[maddock34]

Well my gaming PC still runs Windows 7 for that reason which I also use for financial and other personal data transactions, but I'm running Win10 on my laptop and I'm not worried about any snooping on it. I'm afraid that we are being hung out to dry. Win7 is on its last legs. I'm looking into building a Linux system for personal/sensitive information use before I upgrade that gaming PC to Win10.

I'm interested in trying a Linux system but I can't be bothered with all the work involved. Thanks for the input anyway

 

[maddock34]

MSI do support W7x64 on this motherboard and have the LAN and audio drivers for download.

You will need to go to Intel and download the chipset drivers and VGA drivers for the Z370 chipset.

How do I find the chipset I need and how do I download it? I'm doing what I can to figure it out but should I continue having trouble I wouldn't mind some pointers

Thanks

 

[10tacle]

I think he meant go to MSI's website and download said drivers. Direct link:

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/Z370-A-PRO#down-driver&Win10%2064

 

[jr9]

Driver support for Windows 7 is very limited on the Z370 platform. If you go to the motherboard page and select Windows 7 you will only see LAN and audio drivers. There are no chipset or USB drivers for Windows 7 for newer platforms. My advice would be to move to Windows 10 as the hardware support just isn't there for Windows 8 and Windows 7. All motherboard makers, Razer, Microsoft, and your HDD manufacturer(who's drive needs SATA driver which is part of chipset driver which you don't have) will all tell you the same thing.

O&O ShutUp10 and other tools can strip the spying out of Windows 10 as well as many other potentially undesirable features.

 

[maddock34]

Thanks for everyone's support but I believe I have sorted it.

After being suggested that I need to download specific drivers for my chipset and whatnot I went to my motherboards support page but didn't find what I was looking for and the Intel driver update software wasn't working correctly. As a last ditch effort I tried a driver update program (4 of them to be precise).

Initially I used Driver Booster but this left me with a PC that didn't have functioning USB ports, after trying 3 other driver update software, I used Slim Drivers and installed on the USB controller (the other suggestion it had was a downgrade from what I already had installed) and this enabled all of my USB 3.0 ports (at the time of writing it seems the 2.0s are inactive and can only charge devices (mobile phone etc.).

In regards to the 'missing HDD', that was because it wasn't assigned a letter. I used Disk Management, used the table below the volume list, right clicked the unallocated space for the HDD I wanted and selected new simple volume.

Just putting this all here just in case anyone needs it (if anyone is following this could you copy and paste this so I can select as solution. Thanks)