[SOLVED] Windows 7 No Keyboard/mouse on i3-8100

ZV505867

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So I have this Dell Inspiron 3670, with a Core i3-8100. Windows 10 performs terribly, Windows 8.x doesn't look good, and Windows 7 is the real logical alternative for me (Probably since that computer still has an old-school SATA HDD). But regardless if I use ISO image or USB, the keyboard and mouse won't work once the thing reboots (or when the language section shows up).

Here are the specs:
8 GB DDR3 RAM
Intel Core i3-8100 (quad core) @ 3.6 GHz
Some sort of HDD from Toshiba
Intel UHD 630

I'm assuming it's an issue with the chipset and/or USB 3.x. However, there aren't things like "Legacy USB" or "xHCI Hand-off". However, everything else works fine as long as I disable RAID and enable legacy option ROMs (which is pretty much CSM). Please don't suggest adding expansion cards or disassembling things. I know that I'm being a bit stubborn and not using 8 or later, but it's just slow.

I can get that thing to run correctly by mounting an ISO, but when I get to the setup part where you set your language and a username, the keyboard and mouse just freeze. They also froze in the screen after the first reboot (when about 20% of the installation files have been expanded).

Back to the whole USB 3.x thing, I have a USB 1.x wired mouse, and there aren't really problems with it when using a more modern edition of Windows. Just a Win7 issue.
 
Solution
Unfortunately, that tool did not work. There was still no responding mouse/keyboard upon booting to the USB. Also, when I plugged in the USB HDD, it showed up in explorer, but not in that Gigabyte tool.
Im also using Gigabyte B360 D3H motherboard, i5 8400 and running windows 7.

The first thing you need to do is to go on another pc or if you already have Win 8 or later on this pc use this, then get a clean Windows 7 SP1 ISO, without any other updates on top of it, then write it on an USB drive with the program "Rufus".

Make sure to select "MBR" and "BIOS" in rufus settings, Win 7 requires CSM to work properly.

After that if you try to boot you will have no usb, now you need to go into the BIOS and enable legacy op rom and CSM...

ZV505867

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Also, whenever you said that Win7 isn't faster than Win10, here's the reason. Every time I boot into Win10, I have to wait another few minutes for the whole desktop and taskbar to load. Also, performance is still laggy. Apparently, I'm assuming that it's the 100% disk usage in task manager.
 

Math Geek

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Ambassador
the solution is simple. update your win 7 iso with the needed drivers and it'll all work fine. i'm running win 7 on much newer hardware than you have and no problems at all once i updated things.

go here and grab this tool https://forum.videohelp.com/threads...SkyLake-KabyLake-CoffeLake-Ryzen-Threadripper

grab a fresh win 7 iso to work with using this tool https://archive.org/details/windows-iso-downloader

run the updater overnight as it will take a long time to finish. finally, put the iso onto a usb drive and install away :)

you can use something like rufus https://rufus.ie/en/ to make the usb if you don't already have something you like to use.

enjoy win 7
 

ZV505867

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Okay, it did NOT solve my issues. The thing resembled Windows 10 PE, which is fine, but the install.wim is the problem I'm pointing to. The installation process rebooted for the first time, and then I got the same result as if I had mounted the ISO image and started from there - the cursor was locked at the top left corner of the screen, and the mouse was unresponsive. The keyboard also didn't work.
 

ZV505867

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Okay, let me clarify some things. I plugged the mouse/keyboard into the USB 2.0 ports, but I doubt if that's going to have an effect. Also, it seems that this computer will work with Windows 7, but it's just the chipset drivers.
 

GoofyOne

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Apr 4, 2021
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Do you need to have MS Windows on it for anything in particular? If you are just using it for general computer work, you could try running Linux on it. I usually keep a copy of Linux Mint distribution around, try that one.

You can make a boot-able USB drive with Linux Mint on it, and use it to boot your machine. See if the keyboard and mouse is working. You can muck around with it and if you like it you can install it onto your HDD.


{GoofyOne's 2c worth}
 
So I have this Dell Inspiron 3670, with a Core i3-8100. Windows 10 performs terribly, Windows 8.x doesn't look good, and Windows 7 is the real logical alternative for me (Probably since that computer still has an old-school SATA HDD).
Windows 10 performs terribly only because you have a slow mechanical hdd installed.
BTW - what model drive is it?
If it is SMR drive, then it is not usable for installing windows on it.
Then - only solution is to upgrade to SSD.

For windows 7 it is necessary to integrate USB drivers into installation.
Use Gigabyte windows install tool
https://www.gigabyte.com/Support/Utility?kw=windows&p=1
 
the cursor was locked at the top left corner of the screen, and the mouse was unresponsive. The keyboard also didn't work.
This is not keyboard and mouse not working.
This is the OSes way of telling you that it has booted but can't find any info on what to load up next, keyboard and mouse doesn't work for anybody on any system at that point.
This happens because you mount iso and try to install that way, that just doesn't work. it can also happen when installing from usb since the installation sees the usb as a bootable device and puts the boot data (bcd) there.
If you can burn the iso math geek told you to make on a dvd and boot from the dvd it should work.
You could also try and boot into recovery with the usb you already have and try to do boot repair several times, don't do it just once it takes a few attempts.
Otherwise it will get pretty complicated to explain what you would have to do.
 

ZV505867

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Apr 1, 2022
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Do you need to have MS Windows on it for anything in particular? If you are just using it for general computer work, you could try running Linux on it. I usually keep a copy of Linux Mint distribution around, try that one.

You can make a boot-able USB drive with Linux Mint on it, and use it to boot your machine. See if the keyboard and mouse is working. You can muck around with it and if you like it you can install it onto your HDD.


{GoofyOne's 2c worth}
Do you need to have MS Windows on it for anything in particular? If you are just using it for general computer work, you could try running Linux on it. I usually keep a copy of Linux Mint distribution around, try that one.

You can make a boot-able USB drive with Linux Mint on it, and use it to boot your machine. See if the keyboard and mouse is working. You can muck around with it and if you like it you can install it onto your HDD.


{GoofyOne's 2c worth}
Unfortunately, that's not going to work. First, it's my aunt's computer, and she wants Windows, without the slower editions. If it's completely impossible, using Windows 8.1 would work, but I would prefer Windows 7.
 

ZV505867

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Apr 1, 2022
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Windows 10 performs terribly only because you have a slow mechanical hdd installed.
BTW - what model drive is it?
If it is SMR drive, then it is not usable for installing windows on it.
Then - only solution is to upgrade to SSD.

For windows 7 it is necessary to integrate USB drivers into installation.
Use Gigabyte windows install tool
https://www.gigabyte.com/Support/Utility?kw=windows&p=1
I'm pretty sure that it's the B360 chipset. However, I'm not sure what chipset it's referring to, and I'm pretty sure the motherboard is from Dell, not Gigabyte. Also, I don't exactly know how to disassemble a PC, so I would prefer not to take that path.
 
I'm pretty sure that it's the B360 chipset. However, I'm not sure what chipset it's referring to, and I'm pretty sure the motherboard is from Dell, not Gigabyte.
Then use Gigabyte windows install tool for Z370 series boards. It's closest to B360. It adds USB and NVME drivers to windows 7 installation plus couple of hotfixes.
Use of this tool is not limited to Gigabyte motherboards. This is generic tool (motherboard manufacturer independent).
Also, I don't exactly know how to disassemble a PC, so I would prefer not to take that path.
You could ask for onsite assistance from somebody with experience in assembling/disassembling a PC or take it to some pc repair shop.
Or learn it yourself by watching some video tutorial.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tiWDpjy6RY
 
So I have this Dell Inspiron 3670, with a Core i3-8100. Windows 10 performs terribly, Windows 8.x doesn't look good, and Windows 7 is the real logical alternative for me (Probably since that computer still has an old-school SATA HDD). But regardless if I use ISO image or USB, the keyboard and mouse won't work once the thing reboots (or when the language section shows up).

Here are the specs:
8 GB DDR3 RAM
Intel Core i3-8100 (quad core) @ 3.6 GHz
Some sort of HDD from Toshiba
Intel UHD 630

I'm assuming it's an issue with the chipset and/or USB 3.x. However, there aren't things like "Legacy USB" or "xHCI Hand-off". However, everything else works fine as long as I disable RAID and enable legacy option ROMs (which is pretty much CSM). Please don't suggest adding expansion cards or disassembling things. I know that I'm being a bit stubborn and not using 8 or later, but it's just slow.

I can get that thing to run correctly by mounting an ISO, but when I get to the setup part where you set your language and a username, the keyboard and mouse just freeze. They also froze in the screen after the first reboot (when about 20% of the installation files have been expanded).

Back to the whole USB 3.x thing, I have a USB 1.x wired mouse, and there aren't really problems with it when using a more modern edition of Windows. Just a Win7 issue.
You might want to install w10 so the machine at least functions and then look for why it performs terrible.
 

ZV505867

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You might want to install w10 so the machine at least functions and then look for why it performs terrible.
Okay, I actually got Windows 8.1 (which performs MUCH better) on it, and now I'll be scrambling for solutions. However, if there are none, At least Windows 8.1 is better than Windows 10.
 

ZV505867

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they feel same performance wise, maybe u were missing some drivers in win10?
Well, when I did have Windows 10 installed, the real only issues with drivers were the display drivers, which I fixed since Dell did provide a driver installer, but I'm not sure if it support Windows 8.x. Realistically speaking, the display quality doesn't really look much different with or without the proper driver, as the default Windows Basic Display Driver seems to do a good job, and there aren't any special effects in 8.x that require a specialized WDDM driver.
 

ZV505867

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Apr 1, 2022
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Then use Gigabyte windows install tool for Z370 series boards. It's closest to B360. It adds USB and NVME drivers to windows 7 installation plus couple of hotfixes.
Use of this tool is not limited to Gigabyte motherboards. This is generic tool (motherboard manufacturer independent).
Unfortunately, I don't have flash drives on hand - I only have USB HDDs. I'm pretty sure the utility doesn't work with USB HDDs, but I think there might be a way to do it using the dism.exe program for deploying windows wims and integrating drivers.
 

ZV505867

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Apr 1, 2022
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It works with USB hard drives too.
Note USB HDD will be completely overwritten, if you use windows media creation tool on it.
I plugged in the external HDD, and it didn't show up in the tool, but it does show up in File Explorer. I couldn't use the Gigabyte tool in that case, but I did download off the ZIP. I then used a guide from Dell (link below) that details how to create a USB 3.0-ready USB drive for Windows 7. I followed that guide, but I haven't tested the HDD yet.

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/...pset?msclkid=ddf6790fcf3511ecab85f629c70346c3
 
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ZV505867

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Apr 1, 2022
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Unfortunately, that tool did not work. There was still no responding mouse/keyboard upon booting to the USB. Also, when I plugged in the USB HDD, it showed up in explorer, but not in that Gigabyte tool.