Can I find a motherboard that will take Win 7 drivers ?

Then I can swap out the motherboard.

Also, it seems that the motherboard video is shorting out the PS.
New PS has overload protection and will reset after a few minutes.

How do I disable the motherboard PS to the video so I can install a
video card that I know has win 7 drivers ?

The motherboard is in a PowerSpec B639 desktop.

Thank you !

Barney wrote:
> Can I find a motherboard that will take Win 7 drivers ?
>
> Then I can swap out the motherboard.
>
> Also, it seems that the motherboard video is shorting out the PS.
> New PS has overload protection and will reset after a few minutes.
>
> How do I disable the motherboard PS to the video so I can install a
> video card that I know has win 7 drivers ?
>
> The motherboard is in a PowerSpec B639 desktop.
>
> Thank you !

You can't disable the "PS to the video", because the GPU
on the motherboard is inside the H61 PCH. We used to call those
the "Southbridge" in the past. Not only does desktop video
come out of that chip, so do the SATA ports for the hard drive.

CPU ----- PCI Express x16 video slot
| ----- RAM sticks hosted by CPU
|
+-> PCH ----- graphics, like VGA connector on I/O plate of motherboard
| ----- PCI bus for PCI slots
| ----- SATA ports off PCH
|
Five locally regulated voltage supplies feed the PCH
3.3V, 5V, 12V come from PSU, PCH uses 1.2V, 1.5V, 3.3V and so on.
Things like 1.2V and 1.5V are made on the motherboard.

Southbridge chips typically have five voltage rails,
a couple of which draw multiple amperes. There are
normally little regulator circuits right on the
motherboard, which deliver power to the PCH. So perhaps
3.3V is used to make a 1.5V supply for some core logic.
That sort of thing.

Your claimed symptoms are, that the ATX PSU is shutting down,
because of a short somewhere on the motherboard.

If the PSU would stay running, it would be a simple matter
to plug a video card into the x16 slot. The motherboard BIOS
should "autoswitch away from H61 graphics" when a video card
is detected. But some customer reports suggest various troubles
with ECS boards of that type - it would be throwing good money
after bad, to buy a $300 video card from today, and install
it in that old board, as the PCI Express slot may not be
100% healthy.

If you already possess a PCI Express video card
just sitting idle, it would make an excellent test item.

Plugging in the video card, does not improve or change
the stability of the ECS board in any way. If a power
circuit onboard is incinerating, it will continue incinerating.
That's the problem with this idea, is we're not repairing
the flaw in your ECS board. If the PCH is scorching hot,
it's only a matter of time...

*******

If the PowerSpec offering had included Retail Windows 7,
you would have the license rights to "move" the installation
(re-install) on another PC. However, the PowerSpec web page
says the machine came with Win8, and that the user has
"Downgrade rights". That terminology, if accurate, means
that company is a Royalty OEM, no better than a Dell, and
so the OS is not transferable to another machine.

Royalty OEM machines (if that's what this is), use the BIOS
SLIC table for activation. You would need an ECS motherboard
to match the current one, move the ROM from the duff board
to the new board, to preserve the custom SLIC they put in it.

Your options are really a function of "how tightly wedged
you are in that corner". Intel and Microsoft don't
want to help you, by providing a wide selection of
modern equipment to take its place. They've already
made it hard to keep Windows 7 going, as it is.

Now, I got an Optiplex 780 Refurb via Staples refurb sales
a couple years ago. It's not a wonder-pony, but it does
have a working copy of Windows 7 (which cannot be transferred),
and Windows 10 did install on it. It was $200 in local currency.
But it's still "mostly wedged in a corner", and its resale
value, with the mention of Windows 11, would likely be
cut in half about now. You could find Windows 7 machines
back then, and the seller was in my very own city, so
I could just drive there. A chinese shop owner, downtown.
Took me about ten minutes, to drive away with my refurb :-)

*******

If you have a PCI Express video card in another machine,
bring the card over and try it in the ECS. If running a
video cable off the PCI Express card gives you a BIOS
image, then you can see that "autoswitching" of the
video by the BIOS, worked.

The video card market is a mess. If you had an old HD6450
for example, it would be "plenty good enough to get you
out of this mess". It's a 13 watt card, that most of the
time draws 3 watts. The best price I could see for one is
$20 (from China, likely a pull and not a new card), but
the card has a low profile faceplate and is unlikely to mate
with your regular-height video card slot. It's quite possible
the HD6450 I bought new, has both faceplates in the box,
but the faceplates are custom, and the one off mine, would
not work with the Chinese pull. This would partly be why it
is $20.

Microsoft does not allow refurbs to ship with Windows 7 Refurbisher
OS on it now, and the cutoff date was several years ago. Private
sellers on Ebay could still sell you old stock (from before the
cutoff), but again, the people doing that, only buy
half a dozen machines, which are soon cleared out. Today,
there would be lots of refurb machines with Win10 on it
(not what you wanted to hear).

If I was caught like you, I would not be able to "make
a three course meal from the ingredients in my kitchen".
Every where you turn, there's an issue. It's not like
the old days, where a trip to the recycler provided
"fresh lettuce to work with". The COVID has ruined lots
of things in life. The lack of support from Microsoft
and Intel, doesn't make this any easier. Intel stopped
making Win7 drivers for their newer hardware, a number
of generations ago. Your USB3.1 ports would not work in
Windows 7.

Paul