Board/CPU upgrade advice

matt_fsr · 24 Jan 2011 at 12:10

Not quite sure if this falls under General Hardware or Windows really, but here goes.

I've just got my shiny new i3 4.0Ghz bundle with RAM and new board turn up, quicker than expected so pacing up and down at work drooling now

The thing is, I'm currently running a dual-boot XP and Win7 64 bit build, so I dont really want to have to reformat both just because of the upgrade.

Will it work to just go into device manager, and remove system-specific drivers from both OS builds, install new CPU/board, and reboot? :confused:

(Obviously I'll be backing things up before I do just incase, but really can't be faffed with rebuilding both OS's - XP still comes in handy for a few things, dont want to say bye to it just yet)

Thoughts?

Orcvader · 24 Jan 2011 at 12:46

I heard with 7 it should work, but with XP you're almost garanteed to format.

Emphacy · 24 Jan 2011 at 13:01

Windows 7 doesn't require you to re-activate or anything after a big hardware upgrade, whereas XP makes you:

1. Either reactivate or 2. Reformat.
Your best option is probably to reformat XP anyways as you may get a driver conflict or something similar if not uninstalled properly... You're still using XP BTW?

manveruppd · 24 Jan 2011 at 13:02

I've gotten away with "Repair" installations when changing motherboards on XP in the past. Means you won't need to reinstall anything else apart from Windows. Can't 100% guarantee stability though, it was a while ago, don't remember how well it worked.

matt_fsr · 24 Jan 2011 at 14:41

Thanks, I'll probably Google for a few tips before I do it

I have managed more than 1 XP board upgrade in the past, without needing to format there and then.

Yes, I do use XP for a few bits and pieces - I'm gradually moving over to 7 as my main O/S, when im finally happy I'll wipe my XP partition and just use it for storage.

Blue160 · 24 Jan 2011 at 15:44

I recently tried to get away without a reinstall of 7 going from a Q8400/Asus P5K to the rig in my sig. I got nothing but BSOD, and no joy with a repair, so it doesn't always work.

matt_fsr · 24 Jan 2011 at 16:34

Blue160 said:
I recently tried to get away without a reinstall of 7 going from a Q8400/Asus P5K to the rig in my sig. I got nothing but BSOD, and no joy with a repair, so it doesn't always work.

Out of interest, did you uninstall the motherboard/graphics/sound drivers before you upgraded?

Blue160 · 24 Jan 2011 at 17:18

No, which is probably where I went wrong.

I was fully prepared to do a full install anyway, so probably didn't prepare properly. Just gave it ago to see if it would work.