13 replies to this topic

[jconway1968]

Not sure if this belongs here or in Motherboard support, but I'm going to move from the MSI z77a-g41 to the ASRock z77 Extreme 4 (for obvious overclocking reasons).  here are my specs:

• i7 3770K
• G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
• Kingston Hyper X 120GB SSD (for OS and virus protection)
• Crucial M4 512GB SSD for games and Photoshop, etc...
• Seagate 2T for everything else (photos, video, music)
• Zotac GTX 680, 4GB (Amp edition)

I've had this current setup for about 1 month on my MSI and am now moving to the ASRock. What method would you all use to avoid re-installing Win 7?

[JBags]

1) Switch out the motherboards

2) Profit.

 

Both those boards have an Intel Z77 chipset. There should be no driver conflicts as it's the same. 

 

Now if you were moving from an Intel platform to an AMD platform, it's a bit more complicated 

[El_Capitan]

Not 100% sure about that JBags, but it's worth a try. Otherwise, you'd want to use something like Acronis Home True Image Plus with Universal Restore.

[DanTheGamer11]

Windows 7 needs a reinstall? I thought we only needed to reconfirm our product key :/ Or is this for performance/clean os?

[SpikeSoprano]

You should be able to do it no problem, but before swapping mb's I would go to Asrocks site and download all the latest drivers for that board and save them to a usb stick so you can reload them if anything screws up.

[airman]

I can confirm this worked with two Z68 boards - only had to reactivate Windows and reinstall Office.

[JBags]

Not 100% sure about that JBags, but it's worth a try. Otherwise, you'd want to use something like Acronis Home True Image Plus with Universal Restore.

 

Trufax. I'm more familiar with AMD platforms and I've switched out a few older AMD mobos with nForce chipsets with no issue, and I believe all of AMD's current chipsets fall under a universal driver, so this is possible going from 790X to 890FX to 990FX and so on.

 

Even though I'm not as familiar with Intel chipsets, considering the two boards have the same chipset, Z77, it should work. The biggest factor in this will be the storage controller, which should be the same with two boards with the same chipset.

 

Also, if SATA is set to AHCI mode in the BIOS of the old board, it will need to be set manually in the BIOS of the new one.

 

 

Windows 7 needs a reinstall? I thought we only needed to reconfirm our product key :/ Or is this for performance/clean os?

 

yeah, jconway will probably need to reactivate Windows.

 

 

You should be able to do it no problem, but before swapping mb's I would go to Asrocks site and download all the latest drivers for that board and save them to a usb stick so you can reload them if anything screws up.

 

+1

[jconway1968]

I can confirm this worked with two Z68 boards - only had to reactivate Windows and reinstall Office.

I know I will need to re-activate Win 7, but why did you need to re-install Office?

[EuroFight]

The only issue I could forsee would be using Windows 8 as when the OS is first installed, the product key binds to the motherboard. With Windows 7 it should just be a case of replacing the board and plugging everything in. Best of luck.

[wevsspot]

When doing the same thing I;

 

1. Grab the latest drivers from the new motherboard mfgs. website

 

2. Before swapping motherboards uninstall the following drivers; Ethernet, Audio, USB 3.0, eSATA - this may not be necessary if you want to do a quick cross reference between the two boards and determine if the afore-mentioned hardware are from the same mfg. and same model chipsets.  Many times two different board makers will use different mfgs. chips etc. for ethernet, audio, USB 3.0 and eSATA - hence the safety precaution of removing those original drivers first.

 

3. After uninstalling the existing ethernet, audio, USB 3.0 and eSATA drivers swap boards.  Reboot and Windows 7 should install the generic Windows drivers for each of those hardware components (if the drivers are available).  Once that is done you can manually install the latest drivers from ASRock or the hardware mfg. itself.   

[JBags]

The only issue I could forsee would be using Windows 8 as when the OS is first installed, the product key binds to the motherboard. 

Another reason to stick to Win7 

[d6bmg]

My own experience says that you don't need to reactivate office or win7.

I switched between Z68 boards for countless times, and IO never had to reactivate any of them.

Although I'd to reactivate office when I switched Z68 with a Z77 board.