Does my motherboard really not support Windows 10?

Question

I have been having some problems with a display driver crashing after booting into Windows 10 for a short period of time. The signal to my monitors is cut off, and Windows Event Viewer shows a new entry for Event ID 4101 source: display every 4 seconds from that point onwards.

I have tried resolving this, spending countless hours speaking with both GeForce support as well as Microsoft, and was given more advice last night.

The advice given, was that my Motherboard did not support Windows 10 and this was the reason for my problems...

I don't quite know what to think. I want to resolve the problem, but I don't want to buy a new MOBO/CPU if I dont have to...

My motherboard is an Asus P5N-D. Until recently, I had never flashed the BIOS. When I first got the MOBO, Windows Vista was the latest OS. So, the BIOS was only "updated" to Vista time however I was able to run both Windows 7 and 8(.1) without a hitch.

A few days ago someone suggested I flashed my BIOS to help fix the problems. I did this, so the BIOS is now up to date; however, the problems were not fixed. The reason they have said that it doesn't support Windows 10, is that the latest BIOS version for my MOBO released was for Windows 8.1, a few years ago.

What I want to ask... is do you agree that there is a chance my MOBO might be the problem? Does it sound plausible that I need a new one to run Windows 10?

Solution

Your motherboard as would be suggested by the official ASUS site's driver section for the board only supports Win8.1 64 bit on this motherboard (that and 32 and 64 bit of all older versions of windows down to win xp, also supports win2k, Linux and DOS, but not Windows 10)

However, the support is only to the extent of bios firmware updates, there is no official driver support for versions of windows never than Windows 7, so it is safe to say it definitely does not support Windows 10.

I believe you should pick this up with ASUS's customer support and see what they have to say. There might be a firmware update they can make to fix this, might be that they are just not supporting this board any more. Only one way to find out.

Comments

[gronostaj]

Have you tried to update MoBo drivers?

[pingu2k4]

The Bios? yes..

[Jon Cage]

Sounds like a cop-out to me!

[ganesh]

It sounds very unlikely that you need to update your BIOS for windows 10. The firmware on your motherboard should contain a BIOS which will work with just about any OS. (Linux, windows, BSD, solaris, whatever...). The sole exceptions to this are a broken BIOS and an OS which crashes due to that, or an OS that requires some functionality (e.g. ACPI) which the BIOS does not support.

[ganesh]

Also note that there does not exist a 'BIOS release for windows 8.1' or similar. Either you misunderstood, or someone on the phone was sprouting gibberish.

[gronostaj]

BIOS is a firmware, not a driver. Windows uses drivers to interact with your hardware. You have already updated graphics card drivers (commonly called display drivers), so you know the procedure. Do the same thing for your motherboard: visit MoBo manufacturer's website, enter your MoBo model, download latest drivers, install them.

[qasdfdsaq]

Driver bug. Same issue occurs on my Asus Z170, which says "Designed for Windows 10" on the box and wasn't released until after Windows 10 was out. The information support is feeding you is rubbish, everyone is just using the lazy 'blame Windows 10' line.

[pingu2k4]

I can't find any drivers for the MOBO (and as a result, didn't know that was really much of a thing). The website for my MOBO only lists BIOS flashes as possible related downloads? asus.com/Motherboards/P5ND/HelpDesk_Download

[gronostaj]

You could try to install chipset drivers for Windows 7. It seems that Asus hasn't released Windows8+ drivers, but older ones often work just as well.

[Ramhound]

If your motherboard didn't support Windows 10 it couldn't be installed at all.