Changing motherboard + CPU, what will Windows 7 say?

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Profile Jord
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Message 1202023 - Posted: 3 Mar 2012, 10:58:09 UTC

Never done this one before. This afternoon, if all is well, I will be changing from my present Asrock H55DE3 with an i3-530, to an Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 with an i5-2500K (Although I wished it could've been an i7-2600K).

My Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit is the full version. I changed videocard + RAM without major issues. But I haven't a clue if the above is deemed an even more major change, or at least major enough that I need to reinstall Windows but in the least reactivate it.

Anyone here who done this before and who can advise?
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Message 1202024 - Posted: 3 Mar 2012, 11:09:58 UTC - in response to Message 1202023.  

Never done this one before. This afternoon, if all is well, I will be changing from my present Asrock H55DE3 with an i3-530, to an Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 with an i5-2500K (Although I wished it could've been an i7-2600K).

My Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit is the full version. I changed videocard + RAM without major issues. But I haven't a clue if the above is deemed an even more major change, or at least major enough that I need to reinstall Windows but in the least reactivate it.

Anyone here who done this before and who can advise?

I haven't done it on Windows 7, but I did change the motherboard of a Vista machine recently, and it may be similar enough to be relevant.

I didn't re-install Windows (I was trying to keep the user's data and installed programs intact). Windows started normally, but unsurprisingly there were missing drivers etc. I installed those from the motherboard DVD.

Once the machine was running smoothly without hardware warnings, I checked the system control panel, and found that Windows required activation within a 3-day grace period. There was an option to enter a new license key: I clicked it, and re-entered the original key. That was accepted, and activation was successful.
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Message 1202026 - Posted: 3 Mar 2012, 11:24:32 UTC - in response to Message 1202024.  

I didn't re-install Windows (I was trying to keep the user's data and installed programs intact). Windows started normally, but unsurprisingly there were missing drivers etc. I installed those from the motherboard DVD.


One really nice thing about Win 7 is that it is much better at drivers. It has a lot more built in than Vista, and, if it doesn't have some specific driver, it will go online and (usually) get it from MS. I've not had to use a MB driver disk in any install I've done with Win 7.

Of course, YMMV.
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Message 1202031 - Posted: 3 Mar 2012, 11:32:39 UTC - in response to Message 1202024.  

There was an option to enter a new license key: I clicked it, and re-entered the original key. That was accepted, and activation was successful.

Yeah well, there's what I worry about. According to their web page:
You might be using a product key that doesn't match the version of Windows 7 that's installed on your computer. Check the product key to make sure it is for the version that you are trying to activate. You can't use a product key for Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) to activate a copy of Windows 7 without SP1.

I wonder what it does the other way around, as I of course have the non-SP1 original key, but have updated to SP1 in the mean time. Probably worrying too much for nothing. ;-)
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Message 1202032 - Posted: 3 Mar 2012, 11:33:36 UTC - in response to Message 1202026.  

I didn't re-install Windows (I was trying to keep the user's data and installed programs intact). Windows started normally, but unsurprisingly there were missing drivers etc. I installed those from the motherboard DVD.

One really nice thing about Win 7 is that it is much better at drivers. It has a lot more built in than Vista, and, if it doesn't have some specific driver, it will go online and (usually) get it from MS. I've not had to use a MB driver disk in any install I've done with Win 7.

Of course, YMMV.

Provided, of course, that the network interface driver isn't one of the ones that goes TU. I think it was in my case, but I was changing to a different motherboard brand. Jord is sticking with Asrock, which may improve his chances.
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Message 1202037 - Posted: 3 Mar 2012, 11:38:53 UTC - in response to Message 1202031.  

There was an option to enter a new license key: I clicked it, and re-entered the original key. That was accepted, and activation was successful.

Yeah well, there's what I worry about. According to their web page:
You might be using a product key that doesn't match the version of Windows 7 that's installed on your computer. Check the product key to make sure it is for the version that you are trying to activate. You can't use a product key for Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) to activate a copy of Windows 7 without SP1.

I wonder what it does the other way around, as I of course have the non-SP1 original key, but have updated to SP1 in the mean time. Probably worrying too much for nothing. ;-)

I think there's a difference between 'Installing from an original RTM DVD, then upgrading with SP1' and 'Starting with a new DVD from M$ which was manufactured with SP1 included'. Their warning relates to the second case: you're trying the first case, and I think that should be OK.
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Message 1202047 - Posted: 3 Mar 2012, 12:17:20 UTC

Changing the motherboard always requires a fresh windows install.
Did that 3 times since december.
Changed from Asrock 870 Extreme 3 to Asrock 990 FX Extreme 3.
Win did start but wasn´t stable.
After 2 weeks of testing i reinstalled win and all was fine.

Related to the activation key i agree with Richard.



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Message 1202149 - Posted: 3 Mar 2012, 17:38:10 UTC

Another thing that happens when moving a drive to another system is a black screen with windows saying that it can't boot. If it does that then you would just want to boot from the install disc, or WinRE, and tell it to fix it. After that you will probably get a prompt to reactivate. I have never had one come up that required me to enter the key again though.
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Message 1202219 - Posted: 3 Mar 2012, 23:27:27 UTC - in response to Message 1202047.  

Changing the motherboard always requires a fresh windows install.

It shouldn't unless there are existing issues with the OS.
I've changed motherboards on a few systems, even pulled a HDD from one & put it in a completely different system.
After Windows found & installed all the required drivers, i did a manual update to check for more, they all ran without problems.
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Message 1203025 - Posted: 6 Mar 2012, 15:34:40 UTC

The motherboard is finally in, as is the CPU. The HDD we ordered separately appears to have been built into Holly's PC, so will have to go rip it out of there. ;-)

So now the planning is to:
- Install Windows on the 2TB HDD, clean, no updates, no drivers --is that even possible?
- Move as much muck from my present 1TB HDD to the 2TB as humanly possible, giving me more clean space.
- Move as much muck from the old TV server next to the TV to the 2TB drive over network.
- Uninstall as many drivers as I can find. Possibly good idea to do Driver Sweep as well?
- Rip out the old Asrock motherboard + CPU, after having cleansed it of the unncessy hardware, amongst which ATI HD6850 + 8GB RAM.

Then
- Put in new Asrock motherboard + new CPU.
- Have fun fighting those small case wires, where the heck do they go on this mobo and in which way?
- Put in videocard + RAM + reattach 1TB HDD + optical drive.
- Cross fingers and boot.

Then, but about the same time,
- Remove ancient Asrock motherboard + P4 3.0GHz CPU + AGP videocard + PSU from TV server.
- Put old Asrock motherboard into TV server + 4GB RAM still lying about + ATI HD4850 + PSU capable of supply that HD.

That about it?
I hope I have enough Arctic Silver. ;-)
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Message 1203066 - Posted: 6 Mar 2012, 16:38:18 UTC
Last modified: 6 Mar 2012, 16:38:56 UTC

Arctic Silver is probably a little old for a new CPU.
I reduced temps by 5°C just using MX-2 compound.

Depends on the cooler of course,


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Message 1203075 - Posted: 6 Mar 2012, 16:59:29 UTC - in response to Message 1203066.  

Depends on the cooler of course,

Standard. What with all the cat hair around here, I'm better off trying to install filters.
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Message 1203268 - Posted: 7 Mar 2012, 6:53:11 UTC - in response to Message 1203075.  

Depends on the cooler of course,

Standard. What with all the cat hair around here, I'm better off trying to install filters.

I use Medical grade filters, Demci filters stick on to a case by way of magnets, their easy to clean with dish soap and water, blot dry, these can be bought at Performance PCs, which is where I've bought them from, keeps a lot of dust out and Graces fur too and as Cats go, She's a long hair.
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Message 1203339 - Posted: 7 Mar 2012, 14:02:05 UTC - in response to Message 1203268.  

Depends on the cooler of course,

Standard. What with all the cat hair around here, I'm better off trying to install filters.

I use Medical grade filters, Demci filters stick on to a case by way of magnets, their easy to clean with dish soap and water, blot dry, these can be bought at Performance PCs, which is where I've bought them from, keeps a lot of dust out and Graces fur too and as Cats go, She's a long hair.

I made my own filters a while ago using 3M heater filters and some magnetic sheet stuff from the hobby store.
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=64774&nowrap=true#1126453
That seems to be working out well for me. I have washed them a few times without any fuss.
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Message 1204571 - Posted: 10 Mar 2012, 14:14:07 UTC

We hit a snag, just a small one but one with big consequences. ;-)

We'd been copying a crap-load of stuff to the new 2TB drive in the tv-server, all our electronic books, movies, series, music and whatever other we found that could go there. About 600GB of data transferred. Ever so glad I put a 1Gbit card in that PC over there... transferring gigabytes is so much the better at 70MB/sec. :-)

Here's the snag though, when I installed the 2TB drive in the Windows XP machine, I partitioned and formatted it with Windows Disk Management, but at the time I didn't notice that instead of a primary and logical partition, I made dynamic partitions.
We found that out when we tried to resize one of the partitions, in order to have some space at the front of the drive free, on which I could copy an image of Windows XP. Since that time we've been busy trying to find a way to change a dynamic drive to a basic drive without needing to delete the partitions and thus losing all the data on it.

That we found out last night, really in the middle of the night (2am-ish), but the problem is that instead of one partition, it's two. So after a reboot after we thought we converted the dynamic partitions into basic ones, it came up that only one of the partitions had survived, the other one was showing as Unallocated. It has all of our series (Warehouse 13 season 1 - 3; Eureka season 1 - 4; Supernatural season 1 - 7; Babylon 5; Farscape) and some other things as well, well over 300GB of data that we didn't want to go download again.

So I have been searching for a program to recover lost partitions and now finally found one. It took 3 hours to find everything on the partition, but we can't recover the partition as we ain't got the space: It can't write over itself. So we're now using that same tool to copy all of the data from that partition onto the other one that we did convert already. That's going to take several more hours, as it's copying these files one by one... all 1482 of them in the series directory alone. Then there's still some X amount of GBs of other files to do. Oh well.

But at least at the end of that, I should be able to move the basic partition around, add a small partition for Windows and leave the rest as a third partition on that drive. Perhaps leave it unallocated until we actually need it.

Tomorrow I should be able to go do the motherboard shuffle that I'd planned for today. Please all, cross those fingers, and cross them correctly. Don't jinx us any further. ;-)
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Message 1204710 - Posted: 10 Mar 2012, 20:43:43 UTC - in response to Message 1204571.  

Ouch! Been there.....was a right pita until I built Windows Home Server which is currently holding over 40tb.

For what you've got, wouldn't it pay to get an external (2 or 3tb maybe) external drive soley for media backups? It would save a lot of hassle when your tv server plays up.
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Message 1204762 - Posted: 10 Mar 2012, 23:53:42 UTC - in response to Message 1204710.  

For what you've got, wouldn't it pay to get an external (2 or 3tb maybe) external drive soley for media backups? It would save a lot of hassle when your tv server plays up.

We still have plans for a small NAS, or otherwise at least one extra 2TB drive. Depends on how much we manage to get back from our IRS.

At least good news, the recovery worked. We managed to recover all data, moved it off to the working partition, and in the mean time also moved that partition, and made ready to clone the Windows partition.

But that has to wait until after I removed all the drivers, since it is still Windows XP on that system. I remember from older days that it doesn't like changing motherboards --unless the chipset is exactly the same, which it isn't-- so I'll be uninstalling the videocard-, chipset-, audio- and any other driver I can find, then running driver sweeper or some sort to make sure we're totally clean before cloning and subsequent shutdown.

Ah computers...
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Message 1204776 - Posted: 11 Mar 2012, 0:36:14 UTC - in response to Message 1204762.  
Last modified: 11 Mar 2012, 0:37:03 UTC

it is still Windows XP on that system. I remember from older days that it doesn't like changing motherboards

I did it without problems a couple of times, but it invloves 20-50 reboots with each new piece of hardware/driver it finds/installs.
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Message 1204857 - Posted: 11 Mar 2012, 11:00:07 UTC
Last modified: 11 Mar 2012, 11:04:32 UTC

PC one is done.

11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | Starting BOINC client version 7.0.20 for windows_x86_64
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task, app_msg_send, benchmark_debug, checkpoint_debug
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | log flags: coproc_debug, cpu_sched, cpu_sched_debug, dcf_debug, file_xfer_debug
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | log flags: rr_simulation, sched_op_debug, scrsave_debug, statefile_debug
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | log flags: task_debug
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | Libraries: libcurl/7.21.6 OpenSSL/1.0.0d zlib/1.2.5
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | Data directory: D:\ProgramData\BOINC
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | Running under account Ageless
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | Processor: 4 GenuineIntel        Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz [Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7]
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | Processor: 256.00 KB cache
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss htt tm pni ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 syscall lm vmx tm2 popcnt aes pbe
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | OS: Microsoft Windows 7: Ultimate x64 Edition, Service Pack 1, (06.01.7601.00)
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | Memory: 7.91 GB physical, 15.83 GB virtual
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | Disk: 205.08 GB total, 150.32 GB free
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | Local time is UTC +1 hours
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | VirtualBox version: 4.1.8
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | ATI GPU 0: Barts (CAL version 1.4.1703, 2048MB, 2015MB available, 2976 GFLOPS peak)
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | OpenCL: ATI GPU 0: Barts (driver version CAL 1.4.1703 (VM), device version OpenCL 1.1 AMD-APP (898.1), 2048MB, 2015MB available)
11/03/2012 11:57:47 |  | No NVIDIA library found

11/03/2012 11:57:55 |  | Running CPU benchmarks
11/03/2012 11:57:58 |  | [benchmark] Starting floating-point benchmark
11/03/2012 11:58:08 |  | [benchmark] Ended floating-point benchmark
11/03/2012 11:58:13 |  | [benchmark] Starting integer benchmark
11/03/2012 11:58:22 |  | [benchmark] Ended integer benchmark
11/03/2012 11:58:26 |  | [benchmark] Ended benchmark
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | [benchmark] CPU 0 has finished
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | [benchmark] CPU 1 has finished
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | [benchmark] CPU 2 has finished
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | [benchmark] CPU 3 has finished
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | [benchmark] 4 out of 4 CPUs done
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | [benchmark] CPU 0: fp 3399835054.318259 int 11851633604.927406 intloops 181264000.000000 inttime 8.704856
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | [benchmark] CPU 1: fp 3432241273.236337 int 0.000000 intloops 0.000000 inttime 0.000000
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | [benchmark] CPU 2: fp 3398788629.247678 int 0.000000 intloops 0.000000 inttime 0.000000
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | [benchmark] CPU 3: fp 3423412206.038292 int 0.000000 intloops 0.000000 inttime 0.000000
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | Benchmark results:
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | Number of CPUs: 4
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | 3414 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
11/03/2012 11:58:27 |  | 11852 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU


Had a small scare when I uninstalled the AMD drivers and my screen went black. Couldn't see any of the buttons anymore, not even after a reboot. Fixed that by booting to Safe Mode and running Driver Sweeper.

Haven't noticed yet that Windows is complaining about it not being genuine anymore or anything, but then I also lost where it says that. Hints anyone? ;-)
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Message 1204858 - Posted: 11 Mar 2012, 11:17:38 UTC - in response to Message 1204857.  

Haven't noticed yet that Windows is complaining about it not being genuine anymore or anything, but then I also lost where it says that. Hints anyone? ;-)

In the control panel, system. Scroll to the very bottom to get the activation status.
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