Effect on Win 7 when switching out motherboards

[LongHaul]

I'm switching from a Zotac Z68-ITX-A-E to an ASUS Maximus V Gene (Switching cases too). I'm trying to anticipate problems I may have with the OS.

First, the OS is installed on two 256 GB SSD drives confirgured in RAID 0. The Maximus mb supports Intel Rapid Storage Technology just like the Zotac mb did so I figure I can configure raid 0 to work on the two drives fine. So first part of my plan is to simply try and mimic the raid setup and get a boot to work okay.

Second, I'm wondering about driver installs. I'm concered there were drivers installed with the Zotac mb and when the system comes up something may not work properly after boot(on board audio maybe?). I'm hoping I can simply run the ASUS install disk and resolve these issues if any.

Video card will not be changing. Memory will be chanigng but I don't think this will be an issue.

Am I wrong or on track? Comments or suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[Rotary]

you will lose the raid when you do this, you need to image the drives and reload it when you get your new stuff.

 

[LongHaul]

I have full image and incremental backups so I'm prepared to go that route if I need to, but I was hoping I could configure the RAID prior to booting the OS and have the boot work right off the striped drives.

Do you know of any reason this will not work?

 

[theELVISCERATOR]

I think most of us would just do a fresh OS install when switching Mobos, I know I would UNLESS it was the same exact mobo.

 

[LongHaul]

I think most of us would just do a fresh OS install when switching Mobos, I know I would UNLESS it was the same exact mobo.

Makes sense, but I'd like to avoid the pain of too much reconfiguration. Also, technically my Win 7 is an OEM license since the Zotac was built for me by a vendor. Not sure I can reinstall such a Win 7 distribution.

 

[Robert17]

You can get a new key by calling MS, following the online prompts, and be up and going in 5 minutes.

 

[hafa]

You can get a new key by calling MS, following the online prompts, and be up and going in 5 minutes.

While there is no technical reason why this would not work, doing so would violate the OEM EULA. More here and here.

 

[Mpegger]

A motherboard swap is doable with Windows 7 and nearly painless. I did so when I upgraded from a C2D to a i7. Obviously, both mobo and cpu were changed and all that happened was Windows 7 installed the required drivers for the new hardware.

 

[Robert17]

While there is no technical reason why this would not work, doing so would violate the OEM EULA. More here and here.

Only if it is an OEM license. The full version requires a key update after Some Unknown Number of MB change outs as well.

 

[LongHaul]

While there is no technical reason why this would not work, doing so would violate the OEM EULA. More here and here.

Thanks for the links!

Hmmm ... so it seems it boil down the defintion of "is". What is a new computer?

Well, good news is I have a retail version on my wife's under powered laptop I can switch out with Linux Mint. She does not do anything but gmail so Mint will work fine for her.

 

[LongHaul]

This worked out very well. Here is what worked:
1) When I disassembled the original PC I marked the two SSDs and ensured both were connected to the same Sata ports 1 and 2 as before.
2) Booted into the BIOS and enabled RAID in the Sata Configuration.
3) Rebooted using partedmagic(linux based partition manager). The raid device was found and mounted fine and I verified the NTFS was in good shape.
4) Rebooted to safe mode. Went to Device Manager and found which devices were disabled due to missing drivers. Just what I suspected it was the stuff on the new motherboard like Ethernet, USB 3.0 and the Z77 chipset driver.
5) It was then just a matter of installing the missing drivers from the ASUS disk. Several reboots later the machine was working fine.
7) Changed the product key from the OEM version to a new retail Product Key using the "Change Product Key" capability in the control panel.

The only issue I had was that the DRM was messed up for both Netflix and Amazon Instant Video. I had to completely reinstall Chrome, and Netflix to get those to work. I had to make sure all cached state for both players was deleted.

Working now like it never happened. I suspect the registry has some cruft in it form the old board and there certainly are some drivers laying around I could get rid of but that is low priority.

 

[OnDborder]

When upgrading/switching mb's I usually remove the video, audio, and ethernet drivers first then install them along with a chipset driver after the mb replacement..

 

[LongHaul]

When upgrading/switching mb's I usually remove the video, audio, and ethernet drivers first then install them along with a chipset driver after the mb replacement..

Ideally, I agree. The problem for me was that I did not know ahead of time I'd need to uninstall them and once I had the OS running on the new MB there is no direct way to uninstall the old drivers.