Swapping CPU/MB without W7 reinstall?

[Tsavo]

Is there a was to effectively swap motherboard and CPU platform without reinstalling Windows 7?

A friend has a GF4 based PC with an Intel D 830 and would like to go to a Core 2 Quad, but reinstalling OS is something she'd rather not do. Sysprep, I am thinking, is out of the question due to her knowledge level.

My reply was to reinstall the OS, but she would very much rather not do that.

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Emulex]

windows 7 is actually very adept at this but i'd still recommend re-installing.

just throw an SSD on that mobo and it will be fast enough for her. Core 2 quad with a crappy old drive is going to be not much faster unless you are folding lol.

i've put SSD's on p4-2.8ghz non-ht (old school) and wow they are faster than a brand new 7200rpm drive core 2 quad system in many ways. (non gaming,non folding).

plus you don't violate any licensing (oem royalty) or reactivations. 30 minutes to clone that drive and done.

I would recommend you buy a new $350 core 2 quad boxen with win7 already installed before wasting the time doing what you are doing. Or better yet just buy an SSD and clone it in there. or do both!

 

[Tsavo]

windows 7 is actually very adept at this but i'd still recommend re-installing.

just throw an SSD on that mobo and it will be fast enough for her. Core 2 quad with a crappy old drive is going to be not much faster unless you are folding lol.

i've put SSD's on p4-2.8ghz non-ht (old school) and wow they are faster than a brand new 7200rpm drive core 2 quad system in many ways. (non gaming,non folding).

plus you don't violate any licensing (oem royalty) or reactivations. 30 minutes to clone that drive and done.

I would recommend you buy a new $350 core 2 quad boxen with win7 already installed before wasting the time doing what you are doing. Or better yet just buy an SSD and clone it in there. or do both!

Money is an issue so SSD is out. She's got a fast hdd, so no problems there. PC is for gaming, so a quad would destroy her old 830. I tried to talk her into a fast dual core, but she wants a quad.

 

[sivart]

If you find a new Mobo with the same (or very similar) chipset you will have the best luck. Haven't tried it with Windows 7 yet, but with XP, I removed all of the drivers and chipsets prior to booting down for the last time. I had about a 50/50 success rate.

 

[Gillbot]

Backup the drive, then swap and boot. Hope Plug-n-Pray detects and you'll be ok.

I've done it a couple times with Win 7, which appears to handle it much better than previous OS's.

 

[Lorne]

Ive done this, Even with a ATI to a Nvida chipset swap, I first uninstalled all add on drivers, Mainly the gfx.
I made the swap, Let it boot up and see if it will do its own recover first, If blue screen or black screen put the install cd in and go to the repair console and let it do its thing.

All I can say is it worked fine for me.
I will say dont expect perfection, I do belive there are some drivers or old trash still in the system that may cause oddities.

 

[Stevem627]

I have done this several times on various machines with no problems. Remove video drivers, and then shut down. A few reboots and all works fine.

No problems...yet

 

[JK949]

I went from a Q9450, P5N-D motherboard and 4 gig of ddr2 800 ram to an i7 920, P6T motherboard and 6 gig ddr3 1600 ram and had no issues at all outside of a windows re-activation.