Safetest way to upgrade MB for windows 7 without reinstall

[you2]

Is there an easy way to upgrade from sandy bridge (p67) to haswell z97 without reinstalling windows ?
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I.e, are there specific drivers I need to uinstall before removing the old motherboard or will windows 7 do the 'right' thing automagically when it detects the new motherboard ?
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This system has no raid; i know i need to set the bios to the right mode for the sata drive; the version of windows 7 is retail 64bit (not oem).
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I tried this once before with windows 7 xp when I went from thunderbird (amd) to dual core and it didn't go well (had to end up doing a complete reinstall).

 

[Auric]

It would probably work automagically but to ensure success make a backup image then in Device Manager change the storage controller driver to Standard (Microsoft). Optionally, all the old motherboard devices can be uninstalled either before or after (in the latter case must enable "Show hidden devices"). It's also best practice to upgrade as bare as possible before installing add-on devices (cards, drives, USB stuff and so on). As you know, setup the UEFI before booting or even adding the OS drive. Indeed, running MemTest86 would be well advised. Worst case, a repair install can be done rather than a clean install. Good luck.

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Methods to restore to dissimilar hardware are another option but generally overkill for this task and/or not free.

 

[you2]

ok. I guess the hard part is finding the old drivers to remove but it sounds like the number one priority is to make sure the disk drives are set to ms generic so the system can boot with the new mb. Yea I'll burn in the memory first; it is actually the same memory in the current system but i usually run prime95 over night on a new system just to make sure everything is working fine.

 

[Auric]

The thing with the memory is that behaviour may differ per system/controller -i.e. it is not really tested in isolation and despite standards, compatibility is not 100% certain and is why motherboard manufacturers still publish memory support or qualified vendors lists.

 

[John Connor]

You might want to look at sysprep. So long as the mother boards are the same manufacture you shouldn't have a problem...so I've read. I have yet to try this and it's what I will be doing as soon as I get my i5 6600.

 

[Ketchup]

Shouldn't be a problem with Intel. Did a similar upgrade (Sandy Bridge to Haswell Refresh) last year and Windows found everything. Intel in general has much better odds of this working out well than AMD, in my own experiences.

 

[Whisper2]

Several years ago, I replaced an i7 860/P55 with an i7 4770k/Z87. I turned on the system just to see what would happen and was surprised to see that Windows handled everything. The system worked as if I had never touched it.

I was planning to do a clean install, so I did nothing in preparation. Windows did it all by itself -- I was impressed.

 

[vailr]

The "Show hidden devices" procedure is a little more complicated.
First, create a text file with this content:

set DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES=1
devmgmt.msc
.

Save the file as "setdev.bat.txt", then rename to "setdev.bat".
Right-click & run as Administrator.
Device Manager will start. Click View/Show hidden devices.
Then click each (+) and look for any "grayed out" (non-present) devices.
Right click each grayed out device and uninstall.

It's an especially useful procedure, when switching to a different motherboard.

 

[Auric]

Or for permanence add as a new Environment Variable.

 

[country2]

I remember years ago Leo Laporte showed doing it by just uninstalling the drives in device manager..of course that was years ago.

I do it by imaging software that I bought that will load the image without the drivers.Its called Image for Windows by Terabyte Unlimited it includes other tools that I use for this..Boot using IFL media and use the TBIDTool. Of course not free but is good for I believe 3 pcs and works great.

 

[Spydermag68]

I just swapped out my old computer to my 6700k. It took a little bit longer to boot the first time but everything worked fine. I had to install the drivers from the CD ROM.

 

[you2]

It seemed to go ok. Took about an hour to remove the old MB and add the new MB. A little bit confused about the show hidden described above. Itsn't it enough to just click show hidden in the view ? I removed those devices that were 'unknown' (none were 'greyed out'). Not sure I got them all butt he system seems stable. Only 'bad' thing is with prime95 the cpu runs around 97c with stock fan but this seems normal from what I've read in other threads. I tried down volting and turning off turbo but it doesn't seem to help a lot (with games like witcher 3 the cpu runs around 51; I think with 3dmark it peaks around 62 which is fine. 3dmark numbers went up 20% over the old system whcih was identical but 2500k. I'll try running prime95 tonight but only use two threads instead of 8 to keep the temp in check. I just want to validate memory which should be fine (it is gskill pc1600). Bit surprise by the increase in 3dmark but probably most of it is the cpu component and not fps. Hum. Lots of z97 on sale (well asrock, msi and gigabyte - not so much asus).

 

[Ketchup]

Prime95 runs a Haswell CPU very hot. Hotter than anything else you would be throwing at it. If you keep it under 100, you are not throttling, so nothing to worry about there. And with the stock HSF, those temps are perfectly normal.

Glad the upgrade went well for you.