Acer win 7 no USB power.

[olex126]

The Acer Forums are no help on this issue.

My girlfriend bought an Acer Predator Orion 3000 gaming desktop (P03-600). She gave me the box unopened to downgrade Win 10 to Win 7. This unit has Win 10 installed on an NVME SSD and a 2 Tb hard drive for storage.

I started the machine and ran through the Win 10 setup. Everything worked fine

After changing BIOS settings from UEFI to Legacy, and removing the 128 Gb SSD with the Win 10 install, I tried installing Win 7 on another SSD. The installation only gets as far as the Win 7 installation screen and then the computer shuts down power to ALL USB ports, (2.0 and 3.0) which of course means no keyboard or mouse, essentially stopping further installation.

I tried the Win 7 install from both a USB stick and a DVD, same issue with both methods.

I get the same result with a Linux Mint installation, all USB ports lose power at the start of installation, which would indicate to me a BIOS problem.

I've check out and played with various BIOS settings, all with the same results.

Is it possible the BIOS is somehow tied to a Win 10 installation only?

Any suggestions, hints, tips or tricks or workarounds are greatly appreciated, 'cause I'm at my wits end with this t|ing!

Thanks. Regards.

Dave

[MikalE]

There is a thread here posted not long ago that states you can't downgrade to Windows 7 using an Intel 8th Generation processor without a lot of keyboard work. Way above my paygrade.

Search for it and it will give you the complicated procedure for allowing a Win 7 installation on an 8th Gen Intel based computer.

Edited to add:

I believe this is the thread here:

viewtopic.php?f=77&t=127080

[olex126]

Thanks MikalE!

I KNEW a TP Forum members would come up with a solution to a non-TP related problem!

Looks like that would (hopefully) solve the problem...I can understand integrating the USB 3.0 drivers into the install, but I'm kinda puzzled why the BIOS (or Intel chip) would close off all USB 2.0 ports as well, since I figured (I guess wrongly) that USB 2 support would have already been integrated as a basic function.

Sooooo... it seems possible to install Win 7 onto this machine.... but methinks she is going to have to run Win 10 as loaded for awhile.... I've WAY too many other projects on the go for the next month to even contemplate doing the necessary driver work needed for this to succeed. I allocated a few hours to it already, but my paying customers deserve first crack at getting their machines back BEFORE the "Honey, I need this done to my computer" problem gets solved.

So for a month or so Win 10 on the Acer Gaming Machine will have to stay, and she will probably just have to get used to it.... because somehow I don't think playing "Tetris" on a DOS-based Thinkpad 750C for a month or so is going to compare to the thrill of "Call of Duty-Black Ops 4" on her new machine.

Oh well, into every life a little rain must fall....

Thanks again for the help!

Regards.

Dave

P.S. She may get really and never speak to me again..... But if not, then I'll report back in a month or so when I get around to the Win 7 install and detail the process.

[RealBlackStuff]

A friend of mine needed a W7 reinstall on an Acer machine, forgot which model.
Anyway, I bought an official Acer Recovery set for W7-Pro, which says "For Distribution Only with an Acer PC".
Its instructions are slightly different from what we are used on Thinkpads.
Acer says (abbreviated):
- insert the System Disc, reboot and press F12 at the splash screen with boot menu for CD/DVD
- when prompted, insert Recovery disk(s)
- if prompted to re-insert System Disc, do so
- W7 may ask for Language Disk

That System disk might "activate" the USB ports!

My set has 5 disks: 1x System, 3x Recovery, 1x Languages
They have been used only once from new.
If interested, $20 shipped to your USA address.

[Puppy]

She gave me the box unopened to downgrade Win 10 to Win 7.

It does not make sense, there is no benefit. Windows 7 is 10 years old system optimized for the 1st Intel Gen CPUs and HDD (now we have 8th Gen and SSD) that goes out of any support January 14, 2020.

If your reason to make the pointless downgrade is the false widespread crap about "Windows 10 spying", please read this full post till the last sentence that says it very well viewtopic.php?f=57&t=127198&p=824720&#p824715

[olex126]

RBS Thanks for the offer! If adding the USB 3.0 drivers to my Win 7 install does not work, I'll take you up on your offer.

Puppy She has an aversion to Win 10 that borders on fanatical, and I can't convince her to switch to either Debian or Mint, so she will stick with Win 7 until the absolute last minute. I keep working on the issue with her, will maybe try Ubuntu next!

Regards.

Dave

[Puppy]

She has an aversion to Win 10 that borders on fanatical

See what damage fake news can do

[RealBlackStuff]

Who knows?
MS-Linux? Lindows? Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

[Thinkpad4by3]

RBS Thanks for the offer! If adding the USB 3.0 drivers to my Win 7 install does not work, I'll take you up on your offer.

Puppy She has an aversion to Win 10 that borders on fanatical, and I can't convince her to switch to either Debian or Mint, so she will stick with Win 7 until the absolute last minute. I keep working on the issue with her, will maybe try Ubuntu next!

Regards.

Dave

Just going to say this but .... ReactOS? I haven't tried it yet but you might want to take a look there.

[Puppy]

Who knows?
MS-Linux? Lindows? Could Microsoft release a desktop Linux?

He he, and those stupid clueless IT journalists will start to write series of crap articles about "spying" in Linux again Hard time for Linux community, to fight with public media idiocy.

[Puppy]

Does she use an Android [censored]? https://www.wotdahelldat.com/google-lis ... ersations/

[axur-delmeria]

Just going to say this but .... ReactOS? I haven't tried it yet but you might want to take a look there.

ReactOS is nowhere near stable enough, and many drivers don't work. Here's a blog post by someone who tried in on a T430: https://panoramacircle.com/2018/11/28/r ... t-working/.