Your experience with "upgrading" motherboards

[glorygunk]

Hi guys,

I'm thinking about "upgrading" my current Intel Classic mobo to an Asus P5Q. I would prefer to just switch the two and boot since I'd like to keep all my old files and settings. I am a bit leery this would corrupt my Vista Ultimate installation, however. What are your experiences? Was the boot successful?

I'll share one of mine: Back when Athlon XPs were popular, I did a switch from an ECS mobo to an Abit mobo and proceeded to boot. This basically corrupted my boot partition and I lost all my files. Now I don't know if this is just due to Abit, because as it turned out Abit made some HORRIBLE mobos at the time (another story).

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

They say if the south bridge is the same, there shouldn't be an issue. I say this with caution though.

I remember when I switched from my A8R32 MVP Deluxe with a Raptor 150 in it to an Intel setup, it booted right into the OS no problems; I was stunned.

 

[DavidK21770]

Just do a repair install. Put the windows install disk in and at some point it will check for an existing install. When it finds it, it'll ask if you want to repair it or reinstall. Choose repair (backup 1st). I've been doing this with XP for years. Over several AMD chipsets and then to my current intel X48 MB. I have occasionally had to restore from backup and try again, but usually the 2nd time's the charm. If you've installed any service packs, you'll need to slipstream your install disks to the same service pack level. Google it. It's not hard (And you don't need a separate program to do it. Ignore the sites that want you to buy their program to do the slipstream. They're just executing a program on the install disk!)

 

[faxon]

do what DavidK said

 

[WT]

Went from a 650i to a 750i just because I knew it would be a painless upgrade. I was not as happy about my choice after learning of the video corruption bug, but I have not experienced it at all.

Here's my bizarre screenshot showing both the old CPU and new CPU before Vista had finished detecting the new hardware.

Core 2 WHAT ??

 

[stevvie]

done this many times for my mum,daughters,son and wife. Gone from Via 2 ATI, Via 2 Via, Via 2 sis, but the only time I was too lazy to reinstall and tried on my PC from Via 2 Intel it blue screened . I usually show hidden devices in device manager and delete old chipset BEFORE installing new mobo. the via2ATI is still going without a hitch for about 4 years now and that had a via 2 via change previous to that.

 

[Gillbot]

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This has been asked so many times it isn't even funny anymore. It is always recommended to do a fresh install. There is no guarantee that your OS will port properly with the new hardware but YES, it can work. Always backup first.

The second best option to a fresh install is to use SYSPREP, which is designed for this. Third is a repair install and lastly is the Russian roulette method of boot and hope it works.

 

[glorygunk]

Thanks all for your feedback, I'll backup first and try some of these options.