Windows 10 on the Intel DBZ68 motherboard

Yesterday I needed to install Windows 10 on a now 7 year old Intel DBZ68 motherboard, as the previous Windows 7 installation in the classroom was acting weirdly. Before I did that however, I tried to update the board’s firmware using the Windows based executable available on Intel’s site, as I’ve done with other Intel boards many times before. Unfortunately, a lot like the experiences I previously mentioned here, the firmware wouldn’t update using the Windows tool. I left it for later and proceeded to install Windows 10 on the machine.

Windows 10 itself runs quite nicely on this older board, helped no doubt by the SSD and Core i5 chip. The biggest snag I had was trying to use the onboard HD graphics to power a 3rd monitor. Windows 10 includes an “inbox” driver for 2nd and 3rd gen Intel Core CPU’s with integrated graphics, but Windows wouldn’t recognise and install the adapter for some reason. Trying to install the driver simply ended with the PC hard locking and needing a full power cycle to restore to working order. After futzing around for a while, I decided to do the firmware update, using a flash drive, Rufus and the last BIOS file on Intel’s site – you have to flash the firmware using IFLASH from FreeDOS, hence using Rufus to create a bootable USB drive with FreeDOS.

The 0014 BIOS that came on the board simply wouldn’t update via Windows and as linked in the previous article, it doesn’t let you use the F7 key during startup to do an update either. Thankfully the update went quickly and without any hitches. It seems the graphics adapter ROM was updated in BIOS 0027, changes which obviously carried over into the final 0043 firmware. Windows 10 needs the updated firmware for the adapter to be recognised correctly.

Back in Windows I simply had to select Update Driver on the unknown graphics adapter, choose from a list of devices already on the PC and let Windows find the best match. Seconds later the driver was installed and the 3rd monitor sprang to life.

The PC should continue to work for a few more years until eventually it gets replaced. The motherboard was a very nice one for its time, but lacks many modern useful features such as UEFI capable network boot, a graphical UEFI, UEFI Secure Boot etc. Still, it goes to show that with firmware updates and a little patience, even older hardware can still be relevant and useful in this day and age and doesn’t need to be carted off for recycling just yet. There’s plenty of power still left in Sandybridge era hardware, depending on your usage scenario of course.