Win 10 on Legacy Radeon?

I'm attempting to get Windows 10 Pro x64 running on a Compaq NC8430 laptop, upgraded with a Core2 Duo CPU. BIOS has been modded to update SLIC and remove the WiFi adapter whitelist.

Drivers for everything have been found and installed, except there are problems with the ATi Mobility Radeon X1600.

The only driver that it will allow to be installed is the WDDM one for Windows 7 from Windows Update Catalog. All the others I've tried the installer runs through without errors but the driver doesn't actually install. If I try to do it manually through device manager, I either get a bogus error about not being able to find a file, or it bluescreens.

The problem with the one driver it will take is power management. If the laptop goes to sleep, hibernate, or simply turning the display off - when it comes back it only shows a black screen with the mouse cursor.

So the only thing I know to do is hold the power button until it shuts down. But when I do that it briefly removes the 'black veil' to flash the desktop at me right before it shuts down.

I'm going to try flashing the latest, unmodded BIOS, but I'm not expecting that to fix it. Some people have gotten builds of Windows 10 older than 1809 working on this model.

 

Old hardware is better working with windows 8.1. Don't even believe others or consider forcing windows 10. I talk from personal experience with older laptops/desktops.

 

I'm going to try FLEM on it. https://digitalflem.tk/

 

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...h/a8c06953-350c-4e7d-ba0d-7411141fc0f4?auth=1

Take a look here.

 

Already been down that road. The WDDM Windows 7 drivers *do not work properly* with version 1809 of Windows 10. Apparently they do work with previous builds as I've not seen reports of the power management problems in those older threads on various forums.

 

Guess one option if you're willing to try is using an older Win10 build

Otherwise, any WDDM 1.0 (Vista driver) shall work on Windows 10. People have successfully used the Legacy 10.2 driver, which also was released when Win7 was on the market.


It might also be the case that you have to install the driver from HP, it was more common back then that laptops required special drivers to work correctly.

 

The latest driver from HP won't install. The installer completes without error but doesn't actually install the driver, and manually pointing Device Manager at the extracted files sees it's an appropriate driver but install fails.

I'm going to try FLEM using the WDDM driver (the only one that will actually install but has issues) and Catalyst 12.3 to see if that can put together a working driver that doesn't have issues with power management.

 

While i advise against installing window 10 on such an old machine (doesn't really make a lot of sense, not like you're really missing out on anything)

you may try this https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/ati-catalyst-12-11-beta-11-modded-driver-for-legacy-gpu.372799/
link 1 is still good

I suspect that driver signature enforcement will be an issue however.

 

FLEM is supposed to be able to created modded drivers that are signed, using the Windows Driver Kit.

Edit: I tried, it failed to create a modded Catalyst 12.3 that 10 build 1809 would accept. Cannot get signed up on the FLEM forum because their site is super laggy-arse and it constantly times out.

I'm going to see if I can get some $ out of the laptop for use with Linux.

 

See problem is windows 10 64bit, needs digital signatures done through microsoft's dev portal, afaik the old driver signing (cross-signing) should not work under normal conditions (criteria is driver must have been signed prior to july 2015, windows must: have secure boot disabled, have been upgraded from an earlier version of windows than win10 1607)

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...code-signing-policy--windows-vista-and-later-
you can look here for more details

 

It would be a long process but I could try an install of Win 7 x64 Ultimate, with all drivers working, including the one and only WDDM Mobility Radeon x1600 driver from Microsoft that 10 x64 1809 will accept. Then upgrade to an earlier build of 10 *then* upgrade to 1809.

All to see if that will strongarm the bleeping thing into running power management correctly with that video driver.

If it would restore the display properly returning from hibernate, sleep, or just turning the display off, it'd be fine.

 

Might be a bit of a stretch but you could give this a shot:

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/h...0-to-fix-backlight-issue.425055/#post-5635796

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/f...it-black-screen-issue-crimson-edition.419451/

 

It's not a backlight issue, the mouse pointer is visible when everything else is black. Nor does it happen during boot or at a login screen. It's something making it change or cover everything with black, except the pointer.

Just finished burning a DVD of 1511. Going to install that, get all the drivers installed, hopefully the Win 7 one from Compaq will work with this version of 10 - and not have issues with power management. Then I'll try upgrading to 1809 and see if Microsoft will then out of the goodness of their black heart allow the video driver to stay - and not have issues with power management.

If this works, it would be interesting to see if it's possible to trick 1607 and later clean installs into believing they're an upgrade install and to allow Vista and 7 drivers that worked pre-1607.

 

No offence but at times when a user explains a bug it isn't actually related to what they think it is. And these dwords do more than mess with brightness control.

DisableRTPMSupportForNonCSConfig

https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/how-to-disable-ulps-on-amd-crossfire-setups.1586693/

Only things I recall that relate to blackscreen, mouse cursor.

Good luck with the burn process of the DVD!

 

Partial success. I installed 1511 and the Windows 7 driver for the x1600. (Also all other drivers.) Then upgraded to 1809 and it kept the driver that 1809 will not allow to be installed with a clean setup.

But it's doing exactly the same black screen with cursor when waking up.

 

There, I've fix it.

 

Linux is trash. And I am an IT pro. I can't cope with sluggish performance tearing or stuttering because of shittish drivers. I do not worth fighting this hassle.

 

That was uncalled for.
Each one has different opinion. I respect yours, but it's in everyone's benefit to behave and respect other opinions as well.
I also work in IT, maybe not so Pro, and I have 20 years of my butt saved countless time by Linux's agility and "trashiness" of solving my problems.

And countless older computer saved by installing lightweight distros and no more e-waste and saved some money from the IT budget. IT managers were more than happy to find out there is no more money spent on those older computesc, regarding OS license or hardware upgrades.

Do remember that this forum is what we make of it. Respect every other guru and their different opinion is the vital part of it.
Please, get down from your high horse IT Pro level and behave like an adult.

 

The DX9 era GPUs are so old and limited that I doubt it matters for this, but I was shocked when I read that browsers on Linux still don't have hardware acceleration enabled by default due to driver issues.

IMO, since Linux distros have started dropping support for 32-bit, and Windows 10 is supposed to be able to use Vista drivers, Linux has lost some of its reputation for being a great OS for old or slow PCs

 

The OS is just a tool. Use the right tool for the job or the tool who handles best the task at hand. Be it any flavour of Windows, Linux, whatever if it works.
Another trick is to create a stripped down version of whatever Windows ISO happens to run on that hardware and slipstream modded drivers into the ISO. That's what I did as an IT guy.