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We just bought some ASUS K30BD desktop PCs for the office, which came pre-loaded with Windows 8 (x64).

After downgrading to Windows 7 (x64), I realized the ASUS website does not offer Windows 7 drivers for this model. Why would this be? Surely, Windows 7 should still be an option for at least the next few years? Bizarrely, they provide Windows 7 (x64) drivers for the other hardware components... just not the graphics card.

Here's the link for the driver download page on the ASUS site:

http://www.asus.com/ca-en/Desktops/K30BD/HelpDesk_Download/

Here's a screenshot which shows the limited options on the ASUS site:

enter image description here

Does anyone have any idea why they the Windows 7 drivers wouldn't be an option (when they are for some of the other hardware components)?

Also (and more importantly) can anyone help me track down this driver?

For what it's worth, the CPU on this PC is an AMD Sempron 3850 APU with Radeon R3.

Thanks in advance!

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  • 1
    Looking for questions are off topic, maybe you are able to rephrase your question.
    – bummi
    Feb 2, 2015 at 8:19
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    How do you know this driver exists? Why should it exist? It's up the manufacturer to support what they choose to support. Did you email Asus and ask? Did you try the W8 driver?
    – Dave
    Feb 2, 2015 at 8:28
  • The Windows 8 driver doesn't work unfortunately! The Windows 7 driver should exist because they provide Windows 7 support for all of the other hardware components of the PC. What would be the point of them doing so if they weren't going to do so for the graphics card? Feb 2, 2015 at 8:32
  • AMD and Nvidia distribute their own drivers. If this hardware was only ever sold with Windows 8.1 instead of Windows 8.0 its unlikely ASUS would spend its resources validating its drivers against Windows 7. You didn't tell us which discrete graphics card you have in your system. I cannot provide an answer to your question without this information. If they came with Windows 8.1 not Windows 8.0 you should clarify that information.The display driver model changed in Windows 8.1 this means Windows 8 drivers do not work for Windows 8.1 or at the very least can allow for stability prb
    – Ramhound
    Feb 2, 2015 at 13:28
  • @Ramhound it was only ever sold with Windows 8.1 as far as I can see and yet I did find the Windows 7 64-bit driver. Instead of going the ASUS driver page route, I used the AMD autodetect utility. It recognized it as a Radeon HD 8200 /R3 Series video card and installed the Windows 7 x64 driver in seconds. Problem solved. Feb 9, 2015 at 16:00

2 Answers 2

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I found the missing Windows 7 video card driver I was looking for on the AMD (not ASUS site) last week.

The moral of the story is: if your computer manufacturer doesn't make it easy to find the driver... don't give up! Try the AMD or Intel (as appropriate) autodetect utility.

I ran the AMD autodetect utility. It recognized my video card, recommended a reassuringly large download (350 MB or so) and had us up and running on Windows 7 in no time at all.

Screenshot showing the video card no longer showing up as a generic VGA device:

enter image description here

enter image description here

Hopefully this helps anyone else looking to downgrade their Windows 8 ASUS PC (or any other model for that matter) where the OEM manufacturer does not make it easy to find the Windows 7 version of the driver.

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  • I told you to do this below
    – CharlesH
    Feb 10, 2015 at 13:48
  • I tried your link but they were to the wrong driver - the installer said it didn't match the hardware. Using the auto-detect utility turned out the best way to go here. :) Feb 12, 2015 at 15:21
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Generally speaking AMD graphic drivers are standard and the driver download is the same as you would find on the AMD website.

Lenovo M79 has the same graphics chipset as your machine and they provide a Windows 7 Drive here

Hopefully that link will be valid for some time. They provide 32 and 64 bit for whatever your needs are.

Try that and let me know how you get on!

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  • Unfortunately, when I installed the driver and rebooted, nothing happened. Any other ideas? Feb 2, 2015 at 11:08
  • Strange, if you go to Control Panel, Administrator Tools, Computer Management, Device Manager, open up display adapters, firstly what is the name of the device listed here? Also if you double click the device and then go to Details Drop down to Hardware IDs can you comment back with the top result? I should be able to locate a driver for you.
    – CharlesH
    Feb 2, 2015 at 11:26
  • It's currently showing as "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter" in Device Manager. The hardware ID is PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9836&SUBSYS_86231043&REV_00 Feb 2, 2015 at 11:55
  • It's not on many of the device databases, it could be an APU (built on to the CPU). Can you try going to support.amd.com/en-us/download and running the auto-detect tool to detect the device and download you a driver.
    – CharlesH
    Feb 2, 2015 at 12:23
  • @CharlesH - The desktop in question didn't come with an APU based on the fact it came with a AM1 processor.
    – Ramhound
    Feb 2, 2015 at 13:30

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