HP Envy 15z-j000 downgrade to Win 7

Hi there,

I'm trying to downgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 7 on my HP Envy 15z-j000. I've run into an issue trying to install Windows 7, it asks for a driver before I can install Windows 7 and I can't find the right driver for my laptop. I'm guessing it's a AHCI/Raid driver, I've tried a few but none have worked. This system has an AMD chipset: A10-5750M with the 8750M. I've had weird hard locking issues with this machine, sometimes it goes days without the issue happening and sometimes it happens multiple times in the same day, so I want to try Windows 7 and see if Windows 8 is the problem.

It looks like it's a USB 3.0 driver that I need, I've found a few but it hasn't accepted any that I've tried

Anyone have any success downgrading to Windows 7?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

Solved this myself.

Found the USB driver on this page:

HP ProBook 655 G1 Notebook PC

I downloaded the USB 3.0 driver and extracted the exe using 7zip. The drivers are in packages > drivers > SBDrv > hseries. I had to copy the files from the W764A folders in both sub folders and put them in a folder on my C: drive.

Also I had a hard time finding the right video driver, I ended up using a lenovo driver I found here:

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS035764

 

Thank you so much for sharing this!! I love this laptop, but hate hate Windows 8!! I wanted to see if by chance when you got everything up and running, did you have an "Unknown Device" listed in the device manager? I've got all the drivers to install but left with that damn "Unknown"!

Also, the latest display drivers that AMD released 13.12 are working just fine for me. Just thought I'd pass that along.
http://www2.ati.com/drivers/mobile/catalyst_mobility_64-bit_util.exe

 

Wow, I feel stupid, I never saw the mobility section. Thanks for the help!

I agree, I can't stand Windows 8. For my laptop, I've noticed that the laptop fan doesn't spin up and down as much on Windows 7 and that was my biggest annoyance with this laptop.

Some ideas as to what driver your missing:

Bluetooth: Ralink Bluetooth Software Driver - HP ENVY 15z-j000 CTO Notebook PC | HP® Support
Fingerprint Sensor: link
3D Drive Guard: HP 3D DriveGuard Software - HP ENVY 15z-j000 CTO Notebook PC | HP® Support

Hope that helps!

 

Hi therune,

Thanks for posting that USB driver bit about downgrading to Windows 7! I ended up staying with Windows 8 because I could never figure out what driver I needed. I was wondering if I could ask you a huge favor... it sounds like you have all of the HP drivers for the Envy 15z-j000? This morning my computer will not boot up and it looks like maybe the master boot record is corrupted, or worse. I had recently downloaded all of the HP drivers but kept them on my hard drive. I checked the HP driver download page today and they have completely removed all drivers and only provide the option of ordering recovery media! I was going to order but they want to charge $54, which I think is ridiculous when they were just available for download.

Is there any way you could post these drivers somewhere on the web so I could download?

 

Hey there, I don't have the Windows 8 drivers downloaded anymore. But I'm able to download files just fine from the link you provided, maybe the site was having issues or try using a different browser?

 

Guys all you need to do to make the install work is go into Bios and set USB 3.0 from enabled to Auto. Win 7 will then install without problems.