Sandy Bridge.... Fresh install or just upgrade

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radeon962

[H]ard|Gawd
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I was reading a post in another section of the forums talking about upgrading the motheboard, CPU and memory and it sounds like there is/has been success with just swapping the mobo, CPU and memory without reinstallation of Windows 7.

Who has done it and did you run into any issues?

I would be going from LGA775, e8400, DDR2 to 2500k, P67, DDR3. Rest of the system would be the same: GTX 460, X25-M boot drive, WD Black 640GB storage.

Does running in AHCI mode cause any issues?

It is a retail copy of Win 7, so OEM validation is not an issue.
 
do it right the first time and not have to worry about it later.

Fresh install.
 
I would never do a CPU/Mobo update w/o installing. You're just asking for trouble.

I recently upgraded my system and from start to finish with installing it, I was at the Windows 7 desktop in 9 minutes. Saying it takes to long simply doesn't apply any more.
 
Best to reinstall to avoid headaches in the future.Some people get by some don't
 
The next time you experience a problem - any problem - how will you know it isn't due to this?
 
Fresh install all the way. Makes no sense trying to cut corners. If you do and things get wonky, you'll feel like kicking yourself for not having done it right the first time.
 
If you have the time, do a fresh install.

However, if you have a complicated setup with lots of software to re-install and configure, and work to do, you can attempt the mobo swap. I did and it worked (and I have none of the problems I keep hearing about here). Plenty of others did so as well. And if it doesn't work, it doesn't take long to reformat (do your backups before the swap). The swap process is quick...I didn't spend a lot of time doing it. Software / setup takes a lot longer.
 
I did the upgrade without having to reinstall the system, and did so to avoid having to reinstall all the apps I had running. On XP, I skipped Vista:), I would not have even made the attempt.

I have no problems whatsoever, and have been monitoring my event logs to verify that the system is running clean. Win7 is a different animal than its predecessors, and is more flexible when it comes to recognizing new hardware and various drivers, etc. I would be interested to see if you could do it going from a substantially different platform, I upgraded from X58 system to the P67.
 
I'm going to try it just for kicks. I have always done a fresh install when I swapped mobo's when building a new system and I was planning on doing a fresh install when going to SB, but am curious to see how things perform if I just swap it out.

I backup all my systems weekly, so restoring from a backup can be done by Acronis image or Windows backup. Saved me a few times when the kids did something that caused an issue.

It won't be for a couple of weeks as I'm still not sold on the P67 mobo's availablle.

I would agree that a fresh install is always best, but that is all I heard about going from a HDD to SSD. I used an image from HDD to SSD and both machines have been running excellent since I switched over to SSD.
 
I usually do installs...but i thought wth...so i tried it...

I went from a Q6600 on a P37 board to a i2600k and Gigabyte UD4 on Win7 64bit. Win 7 seemed to take the upgrade without a hitch...it reinstalled some chipset drivers on its own, and only failed to install sound, ethernet, and a hand full of minor things....I popped in the gigabyte cd to finish it off the installs...and I am back up and running with zero probelms at the moment....don't know if any will rear their ugly head later...but so far so good.

Overclocked to 4.0ghz (only adjusted multiplier) for now....doing a handbrake encode of a dvd at 120fps....old q6600 topped out at 24-28fps....will try for higher in the next few days...


I
 
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I tried this from an 939 rig to a 478 rig just to see. It seemed to have recognized everything and went smoothly, but I did a fresh install anyway.
 
I moved my OS HDD from a Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R to a DFI LanParty Jr X58-T3H6 to my new Sandy Bridge mobo (Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3P) all without reinstalling. It transferred fine every time. It just loaded up the drivers and asked for a re-boot, then that was it.

That being said, and even taking into account the near-miraculous ability of Windows-7 to handle those sorts of changes, I would also recommend a fresh install. I just transferred my OS because I was testing several motherboards in quick succession, and I wasn't planning to leave it that way long-term.

So yeah, chances are you could get away with leaving it intact and letting Windows-7 do the work. But I know I rest easier being certain that I don't have a clogged-up registry and a bunch of conflicting drivers slowing me down.
 
Isn't this like the third thread on this already? The safest bet is to do a clean install, but with Win 7 it'll do an upgrade just fine. Do whichever you feel comfortable with. Worst case, you don't re-install, it doesn't work for some reason (and really, what reason could that be?), so you re-install then. This isn't WinXP. Windows installs, activates, and deactivates drivers all the time, it is plenty robust enough to handle a motherboard swap.
 
Always do a fresh install. Its a good excuse to get rid of all the crap and guarantees you will have a machine that runs well with the new hardware (that is assuming the hardware is good).
 
Windows 7 doesn't need fresh install when replacing motherboard. For windows 7 changing a motherboard is just like changing any other piece of hardware. Just install the driver and go.

The only reason you might want to do a reinstall is if you want to clean everything off your PC and start again.
 
Forceman said:
Isn't this like the third thread on this already? The safest bet is to do a clean install, but with Win 7 it'll do an upgrade just fine. Do whichever you feel comfortable with. Worst case, you don't re-install, it doesn't work for some reason (and really, what reason could that be?), so you re-install then. This isn't WinXP. Windows installs, activates, and deactivates drivers all the time, it is plenty robust enough to handle a motherboard swap.
Click to expand...

Curiously, on my main system, I went from a Gigabyte 775 mobo (quad-core) to an Asus SB (quad-core) mobo without any problems (I had full backups before attempting this).

So I said to self, "It ought to be easy to move my old main-system Gigabyte 775 mobo (quad-core) to a lower-end Gigabyte 775 mobo (dual-core, but quad-core capable) system." However, it didn't work. I could not get Win7-64 to boot without error no matter what I tried. And I was so cocky as to not even make a back up, either. (I don't save any data on my second system that I can't afford to lose). So I had to do a fresh install anyway.

I think whether it works or not depends on if you make a backup first or not. Don't have a backup, it won't work. You have been warned. :)
 
Thread gives me hope. Windows 7 installon an ssd is super fast but installing everything else is giving me heartburn.

When it comes to a new computer I'm going to do a back up, put drive in new computer and see what happens.

I've been so impressed with Windows 7 that I'm sure it'll handle it fine.
 
For kicks I popped in my SSD that my C2D was running off of when I rebuilt it as a i7-2600k and it booted and did a whole lot of detecting and seemed to run. But I did secure erase the SSD and did a fresh install anyway after as it just makes sure there are less issue down the line.
 
As long as you switch the HDD controler driver to the standard Microsoft one before you swap the motherboard you should be fine. The only other time you will run into trouble is if you are using mobo RAID, that will be much harder to try and upgrade the motherboard without reinstalling and/or losing all your data so backup that data before you start.
 
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