Z420 Windows 10 x64 Driver Issues - Online HP Support Assistant says "Do not need any drivers"

[Rhothgar]

@SDH

The marriage of SSD and RAID+AHCI was something entirely new to me. I don't think the xw4600 even had AHCI capabilities. I may be wrong. I haven't checked. Although SATA has been around for 20 years now, it was something I was very late to the party to. I didn't install my first SATA SSD until perhaps 5-8 years ago. I always tend to lurk in the Dark Ages hence why I was keen to upgrade to something with much greater performance than what I previously had.

I don't like to think of it as making it complicated. I like to think of it as trying to get a proper grip on how I can improve my knowledge. I used to mess about a lot with computers 20-30 years and used to love DOS. I've done a lot of this stuff before in Windows XP too but things change though you could argue the processes stay the same. The biggest leap for me will be the move to UEFI I think. My brother brought round an Intel NUC he spent a £1000 on and couldn't get working last year. I was totally bamboozled by this 'new' UEFI technology. I've always used MBR for installs. With all the issues, it took me 3 days to get Windows installed on it. I downloaded the NUC manually, built up the unit correctly too. He had broken one of the connectors on the board too and I had to fix that.

However, having said that, trying to keep investigate Win7 and Win10 at the same time is a big time eater so I think for now I am going to back off looking at Win7 x64 and striving for the incredible PassMark figures BambiBoomZ is achieving. I am not entirely sure that his use of Win7 x64 alone accounts for much of his score but I have a gut feeling that it is to do with which Intel XTU is more configurable using Win7 as opposed to Win10. I cannot seem to get the overclocking figures to 'stick' and save in Windows 10. Maybe I ask him the question direct of which version of XTU he specifically uses.

I've installed and played around with various scenarios over the last couple of days iro Win7Pro64 and Win10Pro64. I delved into My Digital Life and their tool for using something called SiMPLiX which installs Windows Updates without using Windows Update itself. I also created my own Win10Pro64 Clean Install unattended install iso with all my choices included and intend to play around with that more and perhaps have different ISO builds I can switch to without fuss. I've also played with batch files for deleting files and am now thinking along the lines of whether it is possible to do unattended installs on programmes I use but this area is not particularly important or critical. I need to get the basic install right which it is now thanks to everyone's help here in the last day on this driver issue.

I am also saving driver packs out into organised folders and writing README.txt for what it is for and copious notes on why I need them in a clean install. For example, one of the packs that Paul recommended sorted out three of the device manager issues in one fell swoop.

As for the HP iso, I have been keeping an eye out on Ebay over the last few days for an Windows 7 Pro x64 HP OEM Activation pack as the latest Z420 I purchased last week has a Win 7 Pro OA CoA on the underside so why not use it I thought? I guess such an HP OEM Activation Pack will not be specific to the Z420 motherboard as you say and will no doubt lack the relevant drivers perhaps. One day I may find out!

I was able to activate MS Win7Pro64 from DGroves AIO using the CoA on the underside but I had to go through telephone activation to do that.

The tip regarding .exe to .html change is amazing but I guess that will only work with the softpaq links. When you say, he, do you mean Paul?

Have a great weekend, SDH!

[Rhothgar]

Brilliant! Thanks.  

As ever, very useful information.  Interestingly, the installer has installed version 4.3 which is fine.

What difference technically does it make whether it is validated or not?  I am going to update it to 4.6 anyway but curious gets the better of me.

Have a great weekend, DGroves!