Should I re-install Win 7 with new CPU and motherboard?

[allthatisman]

I just bought a 160gb Intel SSD last week, so the install is pretty new, but over the weekend I hopped on the Fry's deal of the week and got a Core i5 750 and MSI P55 GD41 motherboard with Corsair XMS 1600 ram... anyway I didn't reinstall the OS... should I have? I installed the OS on the SSD with the previous setup using AHCI, but I couldn't find the option to turn it on with the new motherboard until last night... Windows installed the approriate drivers and I seem to be golden.

I am just wondering if I could have issues later on...? I was replaying Crysis just to get a feel for the new setup and it seemed like it would very slightly speed up and slow down. It was very slight, but I am not sure if everything is kosher.

Any thoughts?

 

[-Nintendork-]

If you changed mobo, it's the best reason to reinstall the OS.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Is it retail or OEM? If it's retail, then yes, just re-install it with the new motherboard. Otherwise, if it's OEM - sorry, due to Microsoft's greed, you'll have to re-purchase the OS. The OEM EULA forbids transferring it to another motherboard.

 

[happy medium]

If you changed mobo, it's the best reason to reinstall the OS.

This.

Call microsoft and tell them you motherboard fried.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Is it retail or OEM? If it's retail, then yes, just re-install it with the new motherboard. Otherwise, if it's OEM - sorry, due to Microsoft's greed, you'll have to re-purchase the OS. The OEM EULA forbids transferring it to another motherboard.

Just lie to MS. Tell them your motherboard died. They never argue and will give you a new key.

Like some guy earning 1 dollar an hour in India really cares.

 

[allthatisman]

It's retail. Even though everything seems to be golden, I think I'll just knock it out tonight. This is the 4th OS I have installed in a span of 3-4 months....

 

[yh125d]

Even with OEM licenses you can take care of getting it authorized or whatever with in-windows prompts and a call to an automated system

 

[ElFenix]

if nothing is going wrong i wouldn't bother.

 

[SanDiegoPC]

To get windows working with a new board, just remove all the devices in the device manager. Restart with the new board's cd in the drive. As windows finds all the new devices you point it to the cd rom drive and let it load things one by one.

I've done this successfully to two or three machines and it works fine.

 

[biostud]

I had to re-install my win7 upgrade since my old mboard died. I couldn't activate win7 using the CD-key, so I called support and he told me just to use the phone activation, and it worked.

 

[mv2devnull]

To get windows working with a new board, just remove all the devices in the device manager.

Or switch to using generic MS drivers, if both boards do have devices of same type. Swapping graphics card is easy that way.

Another common "device change" is toggling between IDE, AHCI, and RAID mode of the ICH. Before, that was a delicate operation, because removal of disk driver has clear effect on the ability to read the disk. However, Windows 7 supports the switch very well, with mere registry edit as preparative step.


I have changed a Nforce4 mobo with Opteron 180 to AMD770 board with Phenom 9750 with practically no issues with XP Pro, which was on the drive. Except one:

I had AMD's scheluder utility with the 180, and after login on the new system, it invariably did BSOD. However, a boot from rescue/repair it was easy to delete the offending file (mentioned on BSOD), and after that life was good. That utility would be an example of a "driver" (although not listed as driver in Device Manager) that should have been removed before the swap. Sure, XP is no W7, but could MS possibly make new products that are worse than the old?


It might be good to make a (image) backup of the system disk, so in case of error one can roll-back. Backup is good anyway.

 

[allthatisman]

Well the OS has been absolutely fine except when I play Crysis... got a wierd message last night after I quit Crysis that said that I may want to change my theme since my system performance is low... even though every component I have is over a 7 according to Windows. Crysis has been running sort of wierd though. It will rin beautiful, and certain things bring the frames way down, ususally scripted stuff. That game has always been a bit buggy though... I am not sure if it's the OS or a component, since basically everything CPU, GPU, RAM, Mobo, SSD, are all new.