Hi all,
Just a quick note that I spent all week trying to get the ethernet working on my Framework desktop to no avail.
Using HWInfo64 told me that they use the RealTek Semiconductor RTL8126 PCIe Ethernet Controller and hence I figured if I downloaded the drivers directly, they would work: Realtek .
And they did. My Ethernet is now up and running perfectly.
Figured I’d share since the standard drivers don’t work in Windows 10.
You probably know that, but I will tell you anyway, just in case.
Strix Halo processors are not meant to work with Windows 10 (just like Intel’s Alder Lake and newer). So you should be ready for all kind of instabilities and incompatibilities.
I wasn’t aware of that and in my research and had never come across any article or person who mentioned this incompatibility. You are the first person I’ve seen say that.
So far it’s completely stable with zero errors aside from the Ethernet driver, which I’ve now fixed myself.
In fact at the moment it’s the first time I’ve ever had zero BSDs with my firewire PCIE card and attached RME Fireface 800 firewire soundcard. On my old HP z640 Xeon it would BSD occasionally. With the framework it’s steady as a rock.
It seems like we should thank AMD and Framework for that, definitely not Microsoft, they are not interested to add support for the new hardware to Windows 10 anymore.
AMD officially announced that new processors (Strix Halo included) do not support Windows 10.
Moreover, Windows 10 does not fully support new Intel Thread Director which is necessary for correct P and E core load balancing on all of Intel’s heterogeneous CPUs (Alder Lake and newer).
Since mobile Zen 5 are heterogeneous too (but with no instructions differences between Zen 5 and Zen 5c cores) you may face something unexpected problems.
Moreover, Strix Halo specifically has a ton of new architectural stuff that are not specifically testes nowadays by AMD and Microsoft, since there is no official support.
The text in the quote box below is provided by Grok AI:
Strix Halo systems may boot and run on Windows 10 using generic or legacy drivers, but expect limited functionality, such as reduced iGPU performance, missing NPU (Neural Processing Unit) acceleration for AI tasks, and potential stability issues.
Awesome, thank you very much, that’s good to know. Might also explain my dock issues, probably due to incompatible thunderbold or USB4 drivers….
Out of curiosity - what do you need it for? Such an old tech… in top-notch PC with 8000 MHz RAM… I am surprised to say the least.
Is that hardware the reason you are stuck with Windows 10?
UPD: I don’t understand a thing in audio tech. Googled it and figured out that RME thing might be expensive to replace, that’s where the FireWire card comes from I guess.
It’s a really really good soundcard with 8 inputs and 8 outputs that I use for managing a large number of external analog synthesizers and recording equipment. It is easier to keep it running, and a lot cheaper, than replacing it with a USB3/4 soundcard.
In no way comparable but @D_Bit , in this post, noted Cubilux which look to have an amazing range of audio equipment that look quite respectably priced
Yeah that isn’t even close to replacing what the RME does. It’s on a totally different level.
Thanks for sharing this! I will not be using windows 11, and I can confirm Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC works just fine for normal desktop usage.
Do your fans stay on in sleep mode? The two orange LEDs and my 4 pin fan stays on during sleep.
Fascinating. I have always thought about Windows 11 turning a lot of good old hardware into trash (unless one is jumping ship away from Windows), never did I think about the other way round, lack of support for newer hardware for Windows 10. But it does make perfect sense, after all, not only security updates have been discontinued for Windows 10.
What I am wondering is how the situation is for Windows 10 LTSC. Does that get support for newer hardware like Strix Halo or is this also not specifically supported anymore? Does anyone know?
I am using Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC right now, although it’s technically not supported by AMD nor Framework, it works just fine and will get updates until 2032 from my understanding. I installed the Ethernet drivers and used the official windows drivers installer meant for 11. I will never use Win 11 and once time allows I will be installing Fedora 43 KDE.
Thanks for posting this @mo8 and @Luke_Emrose. I’m also never going to be running Windows 11 and I actually have been gaming in an offline and isolated Windows 10 Virtual Machine where I passed in my AMD Radeon 6900 XT GPU into it while using FreeBSD as the hypervisor. I also have a separate older Razer Blade 15” (2020) with Windows 10 as well. All of these machines are fully offline and only play single player DRM free games. So the Windows 10 EOL or security is not a concern.
I’ve been thinking of adding a new more powerful gaming computer to the mix for Windows 10 offline gaming and wanted to get the Framework Desktop, but my only show stopper was the minimum Windows 11 requirement. Given that Windows 10 and 11 are similar in driver architecture (vs the jump from XP to 7), I’m happy to hear that you have gotten the machine up and running. I may be picking up a framework desktop after all.. we will see what happens. I’ll wait till after the nextgen event on April 21 to make a decision.
The Strix Halo processor does not have P and E cores! Which makes it a great choice for those that wish to stay on Windows 10. The underlying architecture is the same between 10 & 11, so almost all programs and drivers can work in 10. AMD & Framework will never test stuff in 10 or provide any support, and understandably. But it does work and can work well.
To see people rain down and attempt to put the fear of god onto those who want to use it are missing the point. My work machines are windows 10 for the sole purpose of not having them break every month when updates get released. It’s such a show stopper to be out in the field of work and all of a sudden your equipment doesn’t work with the new update that’s forced down upon you. Security updates are not that important to me because I don’t do much that gets me exposed or fall for any nonsense online. I’m more than happy to deal with the rare incompatibility than the frequent issues caused by updates. 
System restore points are your friend……
When I was on Windows 10 IoT I did get a few blue screens when moving certain windows I think it was Ungoogled-chromium or Librewolf. I did try Windows 11 IoT for a short period and it was usable enough (better in terms of the fact it doesn’t crash but the new right click menu sucks), but currently I am on Artix Linux (KDE+OpenRC) with no dual booting as my school year is over (I was forced to use the desktop version of Microsoft Office) although there is an issue where USB A doesn’t work after sleep on the latest BIOS, I just don’t use sleep mode and use hibernate instead or just leave it on if I’m away for a short period of time. The only other issue I’ve noticed is booting is slow but that’s no big deal. Also the fully free distributions don’t work as from my understanding there’s no drivers for the iGPU so either go with Guix+nonguix or a non FSF approved distribution (like Artix).
True, just checked it.
But that’s not what I tried to point out.
That’s what I tried to point out.
Which is going to be less and less true (24H2 and its huge under the hood changes and POPCNT requirement)
That is why nobody should use it without good reason or knowledge. Because when the problem will suddenly show up, you would be on your own.
I am not trying to. I am just pointing out the things OP should know before proceeding. But I would very much love to do so, since I believe nobody should use Windows 10 in 2026, not even on unsupported hardware but in general. The fact that Windows 10 is EOL alone is enough to never touch it again.
I am a system administrator for small/medium businesses in one of those countries where it is Windows or death for any such organization, so I have managed quite a few machines. And there is no way anybody would ever convince me that Windows 10 is a stable operating system.
Two years ago, in one of the organizations I am employed, all of the Windows 10 machines with USB Wi-Fi adapters (only USB for some reason, not PCIe) would start to bootloop because Microsoft pushed some poorly tested update through Windows Update. There were also BSODs when trying to print (was a very widespread issue with huge media coverage) and many other small ones, that I lost count and memory of.
My personal machines had to be reset every 1-2 years to fix another issue. Even after I started to use Winget (an official Microsoft tool!!!) to install and update all of my apps and make minimal changes to the default OS and using only WHQL drivers. I even test installation media and reset Secure Boot to defaults and clear TPM before installing the OS just in case, it doesn’t help.
In my experience, Windows 10 is garbage in terms of stability. Windows 11 is garbage too, but a pretty one and with new features and still supported.
So without knowing the context of each personal case, I believe anybody should use 11 by default.
Will always agree, will never do (on personal devices) 
I’m pretty sure the OP knows exactly why and what he’s in for using Win 10. And doesn’t need your extreme scolding about it. I doubt you told him anything new that he didn’t already know. They guy was able to find and sort out a driver for something that isn’t supported. Good on him. But I did enjoy with laughs your remark “Windows 11 is garbage too, but a pretty one and with new features”. That’s a good summary sentence.
I did some tech hardware re-arranging this weekend and was able to move my FreeBSD server and all of the ZFS pools and drives to a spare comp I had in storage (Razer Blade 15" 2020. 64 gb of ram, i7 6 core / 12 thread processor, 512 gb NVMe drive), and purchased a 4 bay DAS to transfer my RAIDZ1 disks into it. This allowed me to make the desktop my gaming computer again with Windows 10 running in offline mode which will be what I’ll be permanently using on that offline single player gaming machine. The same way that I still use my NDS Lite and other older consoles with absolutely no security risk. This means I won’t be buying the framework desktop anymore but I’ll still be listening in on the event since there may still be something new I’ll want to pick up depending on what gets announced.