Question Updated mini PC with Win 7 PRO and cant connect internet now

winr · May 29, 2024

I built a very small desk for my bedroom to hold a mini PC but huge monitor ... MSI 785GM-E51

Had a Phenom II X2 with 8 gig of ram... installed Phenom II X4 with 16 gig of ram and win7 PRO said cannot connect to net

Searched around and found where it said, hardware has been changed .. tried putting in Win 7 PRO key that has not been used as it advised , nothing

Thought I would see how win 10 Pro would run on the old PC, it is an ISO I downloaded from MS years ago and burned to a disk and put on a USB drive

I installed it using the USB drive on my daily PC with Intel MB, Core i7 2600 a while back.. simple install

Used the same USB drive on the Phenom PC and all kind of stuff popped up, wanted my phone number, email and pass word
Tried to sell me me all kind of games, tried to sign me up for 365 whatever that is, I declined 3 or 4 times but it kept saying how you like to pay for that

Edge browser is like the evil Step Mother in Disney Movies, I tried to download Chrome Browser and edge kept popping up and trying talk me out of it

It was a pain downloading Chrome, edge kept popping up over it and boxes would appear asking me where I would like to download a bunch of stuff

Win 10 wont let me load any of the drivers the old PC needs as well .... I downloaded this ISO years ago and have never seen this loading my Core i7 PC before

Anyway , the Phenom X II X4 runs Win 10 great but I want to go back to Win 7 PRO as Win 10 PRO will not let me install the win 7 or 8 drivers my MB needs

I will reinstall window 7 PRO with the updated hardware and see if it will let me onto the net again

I remember years ago, upgrading hardware on PC's with Win XP, I would have to call tech support ang give them my win XP key to get me back on the net
Sometimes the XP machines would stall and I would have to reload them

Anyone seeing this ??

Also, on my Core i7 PC ... how do I get rid of the adds, popups..... and the edge browser please ??

I disabled a lot of stuff but it keeps coming back

Ricky.

Shmee · May 29, 2024

Ok, there is a lot of info here. For the old Phenom II PC, it sounds like you tried to upgrade to Windows 10, but you couldn't get the network to work due to missing drivers? Are you going back to WIndows 7 here or trying to fix the Windows 10 install? If you want to try to fix the Windows 10 install, there are a few things you can try. It sounds like you already looked for motherboard drivers from the website, and there are no Windows 10 drivers it sounds like, and the ones for 7 and 8 wouldn't work.

While this wouldn't necessarily fair any better, it is worth a shot to use something like Snappy Driver Installer Origin to find drivers for your NIC / other missing devices. If that fails, you could try doing a fresh install of Windows 10, assuming this was a direct upgrade from 7. Be sure to back up any important data, probably before doing anything, whether driver or reinstall related.

If you do decide to reinstall Windows 10 fresh, try using the media creation tool to download the latest Windows 10 ISO. I would recommend using Rufus then to to install it to a USB drive. Rufus has more features and advanced options than the MS tool, and should be faster. Or you could look into Ventoy, which is great for making multi-boot USB drives. Remember though, to my understanding Windows 7 to Windows 10 upgrade is no longer free; you can no longer use a Windows 7 or 8 key to activate Windows 10. You may need to buy a fresh Windows 10 key, luckily they can be found fairly inexpensively on CD key websites. YMMV.

As for annoying Windows popups and "features" you can use something like Winaero tweaker to disable a lot of that. I am sure there are other tools out there as well, or you could use regedit or GPE manually. Edge you may be able to uninstall, I am not sure though. May require some tweaking.

winr · May 29, 2024

Sorry.... let me try and put it in order
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Mimi PC with Phenom II X2 cpu and 8 gigs of ram worked fine with Win 7 PRO
........................................................

Added a Phenom II X4 cpu and 16 gigs of ram and still worked fine, wordpad and other things
.........................................

But.. gave message could not connect to the internet, I could open google but gave the same message, cant connect to internet
..............................

Also, at the right bottom of my monitor a message said (This is not a legal copy of windows"
Was not there before
.............................

Searched around control panel and found a message that stated "Your hardware has changed "
.................................
Could the hardware change caused this perhaps ??
........................

Both win 7 and Win 10 are ISO's downloaded from MS.. the keys have never been used on any other PC
.......................................

The Win 7 drive was all wiped and fresh installed years ago
...........
After the Win 7 drive was wiped, The win 10 was a fresh install as well
......................................

I think I will do a fresh install of win7 with the new hardware and see what happens
Also can use the Win 7 drivers
.......................

Thanks for the advice

Ricky

winr · May 29, 2024

Ahhhh, by the way ... X4 runs Win 10 PRO great
..

The latest driver MS installed was for the lan dated 2019

Ricky.

Shmee · May 30, 2024

Changing the CPU might have triggered a request to reactivate windows, but without internet, the system can't do this easily.

I have never heard of deactivation of Windows causing one to lose internet access. More likely there is a hardware or driver issue. Try re-seating things, check for any shorts. You could also try resetting network settings in Windows.

winr · May 30, 2024

It is running pretty good now, the onboard video is an ATI RS800, no win 10 drivers

Ima put the 750 Ti in it from my old PC cause it has Win 10 drivers and uses low power

I used automatic AMD update and got a few newer drivers... the nic shows I have gigabit and the web is fast

Many thanks for help and advice, I love working on the old PCs
.............................................

When my Sabretooth MB crapped out, I bought a lightly used Intel DQ75W and put my Core 7 2600 and 32 gig of memory in it ... with a 1070 Ti video card .. Cooler master 202 cooler I added fan that sound like a tornado , good thing I had a huge case or the cover would not go on ....

Bios was 2012, I searched till my eyes were bleeding but found a 2018 bios for the Dq675W that worked fine
It makes me happy to make old stuff work in the new world.... Have a 1965 F100, second owner, owner over 47 years...... Was my daily driver till Daddy gave me a 2001 Mustang with 40,000 original miles on it

Next project is 386 MB with Win 3.1 .. Then an IBM PS-2 I put an INTEL overdrive in
Have 4 or 8 MB sticks of dimms, the small ones, think they have 32 pins, they worked before I stored them

I may be pleading for help on these .. lol

Thanks much !!

Forgot, XP would give me fits when I changed hardware, had to call support more than a few times to sort it out

Ricky.

Shmee · May 30, 2024

I am curious, how did you fix the network connection issue? What was the problem?

winr · May 30, 2024

I could not fix the internet net on Win 7 PRO no matter what I did after he hardware update
......
Kept getting the "hardware change" message and your Win 7 is illegal ...message and the popup box saying I was perhaps illegaly hacked ....

winr · May 30, 2024

When I installed a fresh Win 10 all is working fine except my old onboard video

The 750 Ti should fix that

winr · May 30, 2024

Depending on the MB, PC and OS... you could get all kinds of problems

Upping memory in XP would not let the PC boot, blue screen or call support center
Just one problem I remember, depending on the MB, cpu, memory, OS

I started off with 286 cpu's .win 3..1 ..

DAPUNISHER · May 30, 2024

I always make a new windows install USB if it has been more than a few months. It saves time during the install process if it doesn't need to run a bunch of critical updates before even making it to desktop. At least it has been that way with 11, as I stopped using 10 for anything but old testbench stuff years ago.

Your complaints about windows and edge are super common. There are many memes about how pushy and invasive they are now. Getting rid of edge on 10 - https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-uninstall-microsoft-edge

Article is a bit older so YMMV.

Philscomputerlab on youtube has a wealth of great vids when working with really old hardware. He includes modern hacks if you don't want to keep it 100% retro too.

I like edge myself, and copilot is so much better than google, which went down the crapper. I am moving more to Holo.iso though. If I am not on game pass or one of my other game launchers it does everything I need. Been meaning to test out Pop!_OS too. If you have not been on linux lately, there are distros that have come a long way on providing a user friendly daily driver experience. Including gaming. I know we are in the windows forum just throwing that out there.

winr · Jun 1, 2024

Thanks much !!

I will do that with the USB drives and look at the vids

Ricky.

Question Updated mini PC with Win 7 PRO and cant connect internet now

winr

Diamond Member

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member

winr

Diamond Member

winr

Diamond Member

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member

winr

Diamond Member

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member

winr

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winr

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winr

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DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member

winr

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