Maximum PC

What hardware have you tried with Windows 7? What has worked and what hasn't?

2011-04-26 - Added link to FAQ, Removed sticky status.

Edit: I think it would also be useful to add the Performance Score that windows provides so that we can see the difference in scores by hardware.

I installed Windows 7 on my LG x110 Netbook with the following hardware working 'out of the box':

Mobile Intel® 945 GSE Express Chipset
Intel® Atom™ Processor N270, 1.6GHz, 533MHz FSB, 512KB L2 Cache
1 GB DDR2 RAM
Intel® GMA 950 integrated video
LAN 10/100MB Ethernet
Bluetoothâ„¢ v2.0+EDR
LG Smart Cam (1.3M Pixel)
AUDIO SRS WOW HD, SRS TruSurround XT, Stereo Speakers (2W/ch)
Synaptics Touchpad (with Scroll Function enabled after downloading drivers)
MULTIMEDIA CARD SLOT 4-in-1 (SD, MMC, MS, MS pro)
3xUSB, VGA (untested), RJ45, Mic-in, HP-out

Enabling wireless (Realtek integrated WNIC) required manufacturer's drivers.

Once installed, everything worked fine except the wireless NIC and the scroll function on the trackpad. Both of those items required only Vista drivers from the manufacturer's website. Note: even the netbooks FN key worked .. I could change the brightness of the screen, alter the volume, etc., using the softkeys without any additional drivers.

Processor: 2.2
Memory (RAM): 4.5
Graphics: 2.3
Gaming Graphics: 3.0
Primary Hard Disk: 5.3

I've install Win7 on my HP Laptop with the following specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 @ 1.5GHz
2GB DDR2 RAM
Intel X3100 integrated graphics
802.11b/g WLAN
10/100 Ethernet
200GB Hard drive
8X DVD-RW
17" WXGA 1440x900 LCD

I was surprised to see the WLAN function without installing drivers. My USB logitech wireless mouse worked within seconds after plugging it in. The sound card works but the integrated microphone isn't working properly.

There's also two "Base System" entries showing up in Device Manager. They might be my IR receiver and touch sensitive multimedia buttons which aren't working.

I'll try and get those drivers from HP and see how it goes.

Satch: what kind of wireless card is in your laptop?

Mine is a Realtek RTL8187SE and was not supported without Vista drivers. I suspect yours is an Intel chipset? It'd be interesting to note which devices work out of the box and which require a (small) amount of effort.

According to Win7 it's a Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG.

Here is what I'm running Windows 7 on:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R (F3 BIOS)
4GB DDR2 667 dual channel
200GB Maxtor Sata hard drive
Lite-On 20x DVD Burner
eVGA 9800GT

Gateway laptop:

AMD Turion 64 x2
ATI Radeon Xpress 1150
Broadcom 802.11g Wireless Network Adapter
2G DDR2

Detected drivers I needed for the ATI upon first boot. I'm not sure how optimized Microsofts drivers are for the chipset but everthing seems okay. DXDIAG detects everything it should and there doesn't seem to be any lag in window movement. Everyone has been saying it runs snappier than Vista and even XP in some cases, but for me it's been about the same as my Vista partition. It does, however, boot up and shut down quicker. It also detected my wireless before first boot and even asked for and saved my network settings, which makes me happy

i have an old pc with 768mb of ram, you think win 7 will work on that? the min system requirements is 1gb.

Try it I think it will work. Vista and Xp both installed and ran on systems that didn't meet the minimum system specs. Do it and tell us if it works... Sounds like fun.

Installed with almost no problems on my HP dv5t laptop:

Windows 7 x64
Intel Core 2 Duo P8600
4GB ram
250GB HDD
NVidia Geforce 9600M GT
Intel Wifi Link 5100AGN
Realtek RTL8168C Gigabit ethernet
Webcam
memory card reader
blu-ray drive

I haven't had a chance to try out the bluetooth yet. Many of the system level drivers weren't picked up as they were listed with exclamation marks in the device manager, but were still running on the generic drivers. However a simple driver update scan of my c:\ (i'm dual booting with vista) and everything picked up and worked with correct drivers.

Intel E8400 stock clocks
EVGA 780i SLI mobo
CRUCIAL 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
EVGA GTX 260's in SLI
SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
PC Power & Cooling S75CF 750W EPS12V
LITE ON LH-20A1S DVD Burner w/lightscribe
Windows 7 64 bit beta

Windows 7 32 bit
Athlon 64 X2 5600+
3.5 Gigs of Ram
Gigabyte GA-M55SLI mobo
BFG 8800GTX OC
Random sized hard drives both SATA and IDE
Belkin wireless card
Creative X-Fi Extreme Audio (I know, not really the X-Fi chip, what a rip off)

Everything installed perfectly except the sound card. It doesn't recognize it, and installing the drivers causes a BSoD. i've also tried the "compatibility mode" trick, and it does the same thing. It also won't accept the drivers for my onboard audio. the only audio I can get out of it is the USB audio, and it sounds like ass. Any ideas?

I'm going to try the 64 bit version tomorrow and see how that goes.

Windows 7 32-bit

Motherboard : Asus Crosshair II 780a
CPU : AMD 9950
Disks :
RAID0 2 x 300G velociraptors
RAID0 2 x WD 320GB
SATA : WD 1TB WD1001FALS
EIDE : WD 250GB WD2500JB
EIDE : Pioneer DVR-108
RAM : Corsair XMS2 (4 x 1 GB sticks)
Video 1 : BFG 8800GTX OC
Video 2 : BFG 8600GT
Video 3 : Hauppauge WTV-HVR 1800
LCD1 : Dell 1905FP
LCD2 : Dell 2405FPW
LCD3 : Dell 2407WFP
Sound : Sound Blaster X-Fi Fata!ty (had to install in Vista compatibility mode)
Printer : HP PSC 2210
Mouse : Logitec G7
PSU : PC P&C Silencer 750 Quad

I finally got windows 7 up! Here's my hardware:

p4C 2.4Ghz
p4p800-deluxe
1GB ram
1 80GB WD HDD
1 160GB Seagate HDD
1 120GB Seagate HDD
1 500GB Seagate HDD Sata
AIW Radeon
Audigy 2 sound card

With my hardware being so old, I couldn't find vista drivers for my mobo or video card. I had to run it in compatibility mode to get them to install. Windows 7 wouldn't recognize my raid off my mobo. The raid drivers are xp only so I had to run it in compatibility mode too. For the most part everything seems to work except I can't shutdown my computer I get a BSOD telling me something about server driver errors, and it reboots itself. So to turn off my comp I have to flip the switch in the back. I'm not sure if it's because of my crappy/incompatible drivers, or something else. If I can't get rid of this BSOD, I'll have to go back to XP.

windows 7 64 bit

asus striker extreme
e4300 core 2
2gb ocz titanium ddr2
evga geforce 8800gts 640mb

all without a hitch.. no extra drivers discs, nothing.

although there is an old 56k modem in there that still needs a driver disc to install, but i haven't bothered.. i should really just take it out.

Q6700
8 GB DDR2
EVGA nForce 750i SLI
8600GT

Also, right out of the box without installing anything (unless it grabbed it via the couple Windows Updates) was my HP PSC 2350 Print/Scan/Copy mutli-function.

Still haven't gotten the X-Fi card to work.

Desktop
Gigabyte p35-ds3l - needed ich9 drivers used vista ones
cpu - e4500 O/C from 2.2ghz to 3.0 273x11
2gb pc6400 ddr2 patriot extreme @ 819mhz 4-4-4-12
9800gtx
windows 7 64bit

stable 100% uptime for the past week.

Laptop
Toshiba a135-s2386
chipset ati radeon xpress 200m
cpu t2080 1.73ghz
2gb ddr2 667

Attempted install of 64bit win 7, computer said hell no, not capable of 64 bit, I should have figured since this bumpkiss 200m chipset limits me to 2gb of ram. Anyway I grabbed the 32-bit version and it found everything without a hitch. I noticed it was a bit peppier, and my battery life greatly improved. I'm dual booting vista sp1 and the win 7 beta now, haven't booted to vista partition since installing 7

final thoughts, happy with 7 enough to make it my almost primary OS. I say primary cause while i'm using it full time I still have something to fall back on.

Anyone been able to get Creative drivers to work with 7 (with X-Fi cards)?

I have W7-32bit installed on my Sony Vaio VGC-RC310G

Pentium D 940, 3.2 Ghz
Intel 945 chipset
4GB Kingston HyperX DDR2
nVidia 7600GT
Audigy 2
Pinnacle HD-TV PCI card
Matshita BluRay drive

Everything working flawlessly. The only missing device driver I ran into was the game port on my Audigy 2. Much snappier then the XP-MCE that came with the PC. It even loaded the drivers automatically for the Pinnacle card.

Performance Scores?

Anyone?