Windows 10 only fully supported on 6th gen Intel Core and newer desktop CPUs. Why? But early AMD FX supported. Does this list matter?

[Bryan-10EC]

I searched for info on this topic.. and searched here, but I probably just missed it.

I apologize in advance if I missed something obvious.

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Ok, I have been trying to trouble shoot a coworkefriend 's cheap refurbished Dell (an OptiPlex 790 tiny) with an I5-2400s iirc- he had it upgraded at local shop with 16 GB gamer ram (waste of money on this thing- but it was bought in 2020 when everybody was grabbing cheap PCs and laptops for WFH and they were scarce).

He uses it to remote desktop to his work office PC using Cisco (our work firewalls are brutal).

It will BSoD after 25-30 minutes or so.

Originally I fully disassembled and cleaned, swapped to an SSD with fresh 10 pro install (had to use command prompt to install off usb thumb drive and I forgot how. lol) and redid the thermal paste (it was plaster) and thought that would fix it since very tiny and CPU overheating could cause a BSoD.

Even added a tiny heatsink to the exposed chipset that was right under the power supply.

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He said it still does it.

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This time he added it gives some type of chipset error (he said it probably did it before but he failed to notice- great).

So I checked for updates - there was a bios and some other ones I did.

Ran the thing for three hours while running cinebench and playing multiple YT videos and surfing the web and downloading- all at once.

It actually stayed cool (enough) and did it fine. Actually took it much better than expected.

They really did a great job of engineering E-waste.

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He said it still does it. ffs.

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So I decided to see exactly what CPUs (and thus chipsets) are supported by Windows 10- focusing on an actual hardware compatibility issue.

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/windows-processor-requirements

 

On the desktop Intel CPUs.. just 6th gen or newer.

But for some reason AMD goes all the way back to 2011 and the 1st FX CPUs (2011!) and even the crap E1 series APUs that could barely match top Pentium 4 performance in some programs.

 

So two questions:

Do these lists actually mean anything? (Is using Windows 10 on CPU not listed possibly going to cause problems like I described?)

If so, why the heck would the AMD CPUs have better support since they were pushing power hungry cores over good IPC back then? (I still have FX and Phenom systems and am currently using a 5600x PC, so don't see this as AMD bashing. Also have Intel systems including a HT P4 lol.)

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If all this does matter, now I wonder how all these sites can sell "refurbished" old Dell and Lenovo business desktops with Windows 10 when those CPUs/chipsets do not have fully support.

I guess I could redo my old FX-8350 system for him to use (if this list is accurate and the cause of the BSoD). Maybe under-volt it and swap out the dual 6950s for a PCI-e slot power only RX card so it doesn't burn down his house. Lol. (I seem to hoard used cheap PC part finds fwiw)

Still seems odd to me that a compatibility issue would take 30 mins of use to cause a BSoD though.

Thanks for reading this rant/question.

[da na]

Every Windows 10 machine I own is from before the 6th gen with absolutely no issues. No idea what BS that list is going on about but Windows 10 runs absolutely fine on a Pentium 4 or Athlon 64, albeit very slowly. The BSODs you are experiencing are likely from drivers (chipset, or SATA) or a dead board. Make sure your SATA drive is on a correct port, not an RST.

[Levent]

TIL there is such list. I installed and ran Windows 10 on a LGA775 Core 2 Duo systems just fine (even installed latest W10 on one last month). I suspect your issue is hardware related rather than software.

[da na]

Just now, Levent said:

TIL there is such list. I installed and ran Windows 10 on a LGA775 Core 2 Duo systems just fine (even installed latest W10 on one last month). I suspect your issue is hardware related rather than software.

As said here, I have several Core 2 Duo and Quad systems with Windows 10 and no issues. So it's a software thing,

[Bryan-10EC]

1 minute ago, Levent said:

TIL there is such list. I installed and ran Windows 10 on a LGA775 Core 2 Duo systems just fine (even installed latest W10 on one last month). I suspect your issue is hardware related rather than software.

 

Just now, Mel0nMan said:

As said here, I have several Core 2 Duo and Quad systems with Windows 10 and no issues. So it's a software thing,

It's a hardware issue.

It's a software issue.

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Having the exact same issue after a total clean install suggests hardware to me.

But idk. This is completely outside of my purview.

[Bryan-10EC]

I tried using it like he does and it was fine for over an hour.

Then got out of all that  back to just the PC and was just browsing a merchant website and it BSoD with another error code entirely.

I think it's borked- maybe heat damage to something on mobo due to previous thermal paste being mortar.

It does do some odd things- like never showing upload gauges on speed tests.

Note the INTEL HD 2000 does not have Windows 10 drivers.

Last driver update was like 2013. 

That was not a good time for Intel graphics.

And that could also be causing issues.

This tiny pc doesn't even have a pcie slot to add a dedicated gpu with real drivers, so it's just SOL.

I also went through the event viewer and it's a mess.

Somebody probably could figure it out, but it's just not worth the time and still may have a borked PC.

BSoD while in the middle of something important is always going to piss you off, even if it does immediately boot right back up.

[cretsiah]

this is my personal experience:

 

as for AMD FX series i have 2

AMD FX 4130 with an asrock 980de/u3s3 motherboard

AMD FX 8320 with a gigabyte 970A-D3P motherboard

both with 16 gig ram

neither of these systems can get passed windows 10 version 2004 ( which is sluggish )

 

so having windows 10 per se might depend on actual version

after the version 2004 windows 10 just goes into constant a) graphical issue bootloops b) update bootloops c) constant failure to recognise / operate wifi cards and dongles

[Paul Siu]

All of my machines are Haswell era. The only one that wasn't died recently, so I don't think it's limited to 6th gen or above since Haswell is 4th gen.

[GoodBytes]

On 7/9/2022 at 12:33 PM, Bryan-10EC said:

So I decided to see exactly what CPUs (and thus chipsets) are supported by Windows 10- focusing on an actual hardware compatibility issue.

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/windows-processor-requirements

The first thing you should do is to analyze the BSOD error. Microsoft has documentation for all BSODs on its website.

 

But you must keep in mind that the system is also incredibly old. We are talking about the possibility of bad capacitors, (Remember, it is an OEM build... so why use quality components when cheap one will suffice) or other components. 

 

On 7/9/2022 at 12:33 PM, Bryan-10EC said:

On the desktop Intel CPUs.. just 6th gen or newer.

But for some reason AMD goes all the way back to 2011 and the 1st FX CPUs (2011!) and even the crap E1 series APUs that could barely match top Pentium 4 performance in some programs.

That is correct. Microsoft updates the list of supported CPUs over time.

This list, like the one for Windows 11, is based off manufacture (Intel, AMD, but also.... Dell, HP, Acer, and so on) support. Microsoft wants to aim to ensure that if there is a CPU micro-update due to a security issue or bug, AMD and Intel would provide a fix, and that Dell, Lenovo, Acer, HP and so on, would deliver the BIOS update for the system.

 

On 7/9/2022 at 12:33 PM, Bryan-10EC said:

So two questions:

Do these lists actually mean anything? (Is using Windows 10 on CPU not listed possibly going to cause problems like I described?)

Yes, it does. Using an unsupported CPU, you agree that you'll get what you get as experience and expect no support from Microsoft. If Intel or Dell doesn't want to issue an update to fix something discovered as the OS evolves or security issue has been found, it's not Microsoft fault.

 

As the CPU world hasn't drastically changed since for like 15 years, typically, for home user, where its system isn't used for generating money (aka: work) it isn't in a state of real concern, and that down time isn't the end of the world, beside just an inconvenience.

 

In the work environment, companies seek the highest level of reliability possible, and unsupported systems, means, a no go. Security the critical for companies. We are talking, even for a small company, millions of dollars at play.

 

On 7/9/2022 at 12:33 PM, Bryan-10EC said:

If so, why the heck would the AMD CPUs have better support since they were pushing power hungry cores over good IPC back then? (I still have FX and Phenom systems and am currently using a 5600x PC, so don't see this as AMD bashing. Also have Intel systems including a HT P4 lol.)

'cause AMD is providing support. And I guess because of the way AMD makes its BIOSs, where they tend to handle most of the work, it is low cost for manufactures of computers with their CPUs to make an update.

 

On 7/9/2022 at 12:33 PM, Bryan-10EC said:

If all this does matter, now I wonder how all these sites can sell "refurbished" old Dell and Lenovo business desktops with Windows 10 when those CPUs/chipsets do not have fully support.

Technically they should not be doing, same with Windows 11 on unsupported hardware. Expect many people who acquired used systems that don't comply with WIndows 11 at all (UEFI unsupported/disabled, no SecureBoot, or no TPM 2.0) to not be able to update to the latest version of Windows 11 coming up in a few months, as now Microsoft is putting their foot down. Unsupported CPU but still have TPM 2.0, SecureBoot and UEFI support, is expected to be ok, despite the unsupported CPU side of things.

 

On 7/9/2022 at 12:33 PM, Bryan-10EC said:

Still seems odd to me that a compatibility issue would take 30 mins of use to cause a BSoD though.

Thanks for reading this rant/question.

Analyzing the BSOD will guide you to the problem. It is a GPU problem, faulty RAM, or the system board RAM slot is broken, a failing drive, a driver is missing, so many guesses... To help you, we need information. What is the BSOD error code, what is the error hex code? What Event Viewer says? What does the mini-core dump say when you analyze it?

[Bryan-10EC]

FWIW- I ran across some posts elsewhere about FX AMD and Windows 10- basically that any Windows 10 builds after version 2004 run very sluggish. So "working" and "usable" are two different things.