PC refresh possible?

[GARoss]

OK. Time for some new stuff. I have a few questions so bare with me as I'm not sharp as a tack when it comes to building my own PC! I do some graphics (video & photo editing) & have to wait for the newer 1155 type motherboards to become available again. It seems Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs are best for my needs.

I want to keep all my hard drives including C: where Windows 7 64-bit is installed. Is it wishfull thinking to buy a new case & power supply, a new MB, CPU w/fan & RAM & just plug-in my hard drives? I'm sure MB bios would need to be installed or setup for my hardware.

Is it that simple or am I wishfull thinking?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I want to keep all my hard drives including C: where Windows 7 64-bit is installed. Is it wishfull thinking to buy a new case & power supply, a new MB, CPU w/fan & RAM & just plug-in my hard drives? I'm sure MB bios would need to be installed or setup for my hardware.

Is it that simple or am I wishfull thinking?

Not that simple.

I recently rebuilt to Sandy Bridge. Sandy Bridge requires a new motherboard and chipset and that is the rub. The PSU, RAM, case, and heatsink are no problem, but the new motherboard (chipset particularly) pretty much force you to reinstall Windows.

Your current hard drive contains a Windows registry that matches your current motherboard and chipset. If that hard drive were to wake up and find out it is now connected to a new motherboard, it would frown.

I have heard of people successfully avoiding a new Windows install nonetheless. It appears Windows 7 is more accommodating on this issue than earlier Windows releases.

But the general consensus is that you should reinstall. You might want to get more comment on this to see if you dare to simply reconnect the old hard drive and not reinstall. You'd get an education even if it failed.

 

[diehrd]

Save what needs to be saved and do a fresh install of the O/S and the drivers for your new hardware it will make life a million times easier .

 

[GARoss]

I want to keep all my hard drives including C: where Windows 7 64-bit is installed. Is it wishfull thinking to buy a new case & power supply, a new MB, CPU w/fan & RAM & just plug-in my hard drives? I'm sure MB bios would need to be installed or setup for my hardware.

Is it that simple or am I wishfull thinking?

Not that simple.

I recently rebuilt to Sandy Bridge. Sandy Bridge requires a new motherboard and chipset and that is the rub. The PSU, RAM, case, and heatsink are no problem, but the new motherboard (chipset particularly) pretty much force you to reinstall Windows.

Your current hard drive contains a Windows registry that matches your current motherboard and chipset. If that hard drive were to wake up and find out it is now connected to a new motherboard, it would frown.

I have heard of people successfully avoiding a new Windows install nonetheless. It appears Windows 7 is more accommodating on this issue than earlier Windows releases.

But the general consensus is that you should reinstall. You might want to get more comment on this to see if you dare to simply reconnect the old hard drive and not reinstall. You'd get an education even if it failed.

Save what needs to be saved and do a fresh install of the O/S and the drivers for your new hardware it will make life a million times easier .

Wow! I was affraid that it wouldn't be that simple. I was planning on upgrading to an i5 or i7 with a new MB, new RAM, case & power supply.

Here's the thing. I purchased Win 7 as an upgrade & did a clean install, deleting XP Home. I still have my old XP install disc. Will I be able to install without XP being installed or wont Windows allow this?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

If you have a RETAIL Windows 7 upgrade disc, you will have no problem. You don't have to install XP. You just have to own it to be legal.

If you had an OEM disc rather than retail, you'd have a problem.

 

[GARoss]

If you have a RETAIL Windows 7 upgrade disc, you will have no problem. You don't have to install XP. You just have to own it to be legal.

If you had an OEM disc rather than retail, you'd have a problem.

Thanks. I purchased it from Dell Business on sale found here;

MICROSOFT CORPORATION Windows 7 Home Premium - Upgrade : Software | Dell

I think this is retail, at lease that's what it says under Tech Specs.

It's all legit & registered. So, I'd need to reinstall on the same hard driver so the Windows registry matches the new MB & CPU? Does a new mother board come pre-installed with bios & just needs configuring to my hardware?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

It's all legit & registered. So, I'd need to reinstall on the same hard driver so the Windows registry matches the new MB & CPU? Does a new mother board come pre-installed with bios & just needs configuring to my hardware?

You can install on the existing hard drive or on a new one. It doesn't matter.

When you reinstall Windows, you will get a new registry.

The new motherboard will have a new BIOS.

You would just install the new hardware, connect the hard drive, and boot from the Windows disc.

Complete the install, update Windows, install Intel chipset installation utility, get antivirus going, and then proceed with your configuration and install your applications.

If you get a Sandy Bridge H chipset, you will have built-in graphics. If you get a P chipset, you will have to get a discrete graphics card.

The chipset is part of the motherboard. You will see some SB socket 1155 motherboards with a P in the model name and some with an H. Those letters refer to the chipset found on the motherboard (H67 or P67).

Look at my system specs for an example.

 

[GARoss]

It's all legit & registered. So, I'd need to reinstall on the same hard driver so the Windows registry matches the new MB & CPU? Does a new mother board come pre-installed with bios & just needs configuring to my hardware?

You can install on the existing hard drive or on a new one. It doesn't matter.

When you reinstall Windows, you will get a new registry.

The new motherboard will have a new BIOS.

You would just install the new hardware, connect the hard drive, and boot from the Windows disc.

Complete the install, update Windows, install Intel chipset installation utility, get antivirus going, and then proceed with your configuration and install your applications.

If you get a Sandy Bridge H chipset, you will have built-in graphics. If you get a P chipset, you will have to get a discrete graphics card.

The chipset is part of the motherboard. You will see some SB socket 1155 motherboards with a P in the model name and some with an H. Those letters refer to the chipset found on the motherboard (H67 or P67).

Look at my system specs for an example.

I'll take a look! "If you get a Sandy Bridge H chipset, you will have built-in graphics." Do you mean I wont need my ATI graphic card (5570 I think)?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'll take a look! "If you get a Sandy Bridge H chipset, you will have built-in graphics." Do you mean I wont need my ATI graphic card (5570 I think)?

That is correct. You could use it if you wanted if you were dissatisfied with the built in.

If you get a P series motherboard/chipset, you MUST use a separate card.

As a point of reference, I think the built in graphics is about equivalent to a 5450??

My WEI graphics score is 5.1. My gaming graphics score is 5.8.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Really weird: I looked at your specs. They are very similar to what I had until 6 weeks ago.

I had the same Intel board you have. I had a Core 2 Duo 2.4 (E6600). I had and still have 4 gigs of RAM.

 

[Wordsworth]

Wow! I was affraid that it wouldn't be that simple. I was planning on upgrading to an i5 or i7 with a new MB, new RAM, case & power supply.

Here's the thing. I purchased Win 7 as an upgrade & did a clean install, deleting XP Home. I still have my old XP install disc. Will I be able to install without XP being installed or wont Windows allow this?

As others have said, fresh install Windows 7 rather than using the hard drive with the old Windows on it. It will make the build easier when all is said and done.

Since you have the upgrade version of Win 7, you will need to follow one of the methods on this page http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31402-clean-install-upgrade-windows-7-version.html to install from the upgrade media. You can also use a fourth method which is to double install described here.

Have fun with the new build.

 

[GARoss]

Really weird: I looked at your specs. They are very similar to what I had until 6 weeks ago.

I had the same Intel board you have. I had a Core 2 Duo 2.4 (E6600). I had and still have 4 gigs of RAM.

Great minds think alike!

Your new system specs look similar to my target system. i5-2500 looks like the best value for the $$$. The new Gigabyte B3s referred to in an earlier post of yours range from mid 100s to 400 pending on connectivity (mostly how many). Difference in $$$ between H & P types is small for similar boards. I do use a Creative Sound Blaster audio card that is ASIO complaint for Dolby Digital encoding. I see these have Realtek built in but I don't know if they are ASIO complaint. Need to research that.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Can't help you on the Realtek question other than to say it works fine for my purposes and DOES support "what you hear" recording aka stereo mix, which is not a given these days on Windows 7.

Pay attention to the port situation on Gigabyte boards if that is what you buy. Some have firewire, some don't; some have eSATA, some don't. I needed and got the latter. It's generally faster than USB as I understand it.

Now the bad news:

I only occasionally can tell that I have upgraded in spite of the fact that this processor is 4 times faster (on a CPU benchmark) than my E6600.

I'd notice it much more often if I regularly loaded the processor, but I don't. I upgraded for 2 reasons:

1: I had the itch.
2: My existing hardware had about 20,000 hours on it and I was getting nervous about parts failure.

I spent only $377 (RAM, motherboard, CPU). I kept the same power supply. This setup uses 80 watts idle/160 load. The E6600 used 115 idle/160 load. So the new setup is easier on power. You don't need a big PSU unless you go totally hog-wild on a graphics card.

The stock cooler is pretty quiet and I'd say adequate under most circumstances. At extreme load, CPU temps get into the low 70s, but I never get anywhere above even 45 in my usage.

 

[GARoss]

Wow! I was affraid that it wouldn't be that simple. I was planning on upgrading to an i5 or i7 with a new MB, new RAM, case & power supply.

Here's the thing. I purchased Win 7 as an upgrade & did a clean install, deleting XP Home. I still have my old XP install disc. Will I be able to install without XP being installed or wont Windows allow this?

As others have said, fresh install Windows 7 rather than using the hard drive with the old Windows on it. It will make the build easier when all is said and done.

Since you have the upgrade version of Win 7, you will need to follow one of the methods on this page http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31402-clean-install-upgrade-windows-7-version.html to install from the upgrade media. You can also use a fourth method which is to double install described here.

Have fun with the new build.

Now I am confused.

I setup all my new hardware (case, PS, RAM, CPU & MB), plug-in my old stuff- audio & graphic boards, DVD burner, keyboard, mouse, monitor & finally my old hard drives with C: as the boot drive. (I've done a complete back as I did for the XP to Win7 upgrade). I load my Win 7 64-bit DVD & what happens? It's not going to see XP but Win 7. Is that the same? It just assumes it's a re-install or do they send the Feds to my house? I presume questions will be asked when registering Win 7 again? Something like that?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Now I am confused.

I setup all my new hardware (case, PS, RAM, CPU & MB), plug-in my old stuff- audio & graphic boards, DVD burner, keyboard, mouse, monitor & finally my old hard drives with C: as the boot drive. (I've done a complete back as I did for the XP to Win7 upgrade). I load my Win 7 64-bit DVD & what happens? It's not going to see XP but Win 7. Is that the same? It just assumes it's a re-install or do they send the Feds to my house? I presume questions will be asked when registering Win 7 again? Something like that?

I'd probably leave out the audio and video cards to start with, just to confirm that the built in audio and video worked as advertised.

No, it won't see XP. Microsoft deliberately did it this way so the upgrade disk is effectively the same as a full disk, the only qualifier being you need to OWN an earlier qualifying OS, which you do. It won't ask for the XP disk or product key.

Follow that guide.

Other considerations:

Possibly partition your drive into 2 parts--one for Windows and applications; the other for your data. I'd certainly do a "clean install", wiping out all existing applications after backing up all data (including email and bookmarks).

 

[GARoss]

Can't help you on the Realtek question other than to say it works fine for my purposes and DOES support "what you hear" recording aka stereo mix, which is not a given these days on Windows 7.

Pay attention to the port situation on Gigabyte boards if that is what you buy. Some have firewire, some don't; some have eSATA, some don't. I needed and got the latter. It's generally faster than USB as I understand it.

Now the bad news:

I only occasionally can tell that I have upgraded in spite of the fact that this processor is 4 times faster (on a CPU benchmark) than my E6600.

I'd notice it much more often if I regularly loaded the processor, but I don't. I upgraded for 2 reasons:

1: I had the itch.
2: My existing hardware had about 20,000 hours on it and I was getting nervous about parts failure.

I spent only $377 (RAM, motherboard, CPU). I kept the same power supply. This setup uses 80 watts idle/160 load. The E6600 used 115 idle/160 load. So the new setup is easier on power. You don't need a big PSU unless you go totally hog-wild on a graphics card.

The stock cooler is pretty quiet and I'd say adequate under most circumstances. At extreme load, CPU temps get into the low 70s, but I never get anywhere above even 45 in my usage.

I've got the itch, too. Rendering video is tough on CPUs. 4 cores & 6 threads (i5 & i7) should help tackling those AVCHD files. Might need more than my present 4Gb RAM (???). And, I recently upgraded to Vegas Video 10 64-bit which can put all this to work; hopefully faster than ever. Looks like 2-4 weeks on the Gigabytes. But, no hurry.

I just started my research to see what all of this will cost. Lots of great help on this forum!

 

[GARoss]

Possibly partition your drive into 2 parts--one for Windows and applications; the other for your data. I'd certainly do a "clean install", wiping out all existing applications after backing up all data (including email and bookmarks).

(C: ) is 75Gb with 23Gb of free space. I have a larger, 300Gb, drive (F: ) I use for video that is empty. I used that for backup when I installed Win 7 on (C: ) to keep them separate. I just assumed I'd do this the same as before when XP was on (C: ).

 

[Wordsworth]

Now I am confused.

I setup all my new hardware (case, PS, RAM, CPU & MB), plug-in my old stuff- audio & graphic boards, DVD burner, keyboard, mouse, monitor & finally my old hard drives with C: as the boot drive. (I've done a complete back as I did for the XP to Win7 upgrade). I load my Win 7 64-bit DVD & what happens? It's not going to see XP but Win 7. Is that the same? It just assumes it's a re-install or do they send the Feds to my house? I presume questions will be asked when registering Win 7 again? Something like that?

Sorry, didn't mean to confuse; just wanted to give a heads up that going from XP to 7 is a little different than you may be used to (i.e. Win 98 to XP upgrade and so forth). For whatever reason, on a clean new harddrive, my Win 7 upgrade media won't do Option 1 or 2 in the guide, so Option 3 or the double install methods are what's left for me. I'd try Option 1 then work your way through until one of them works but just don't panic; even Option 3 won't bring the feds to your door.

Again, have fun and let us know how everything turns out.

 

[GARoss]

Again, have fun and let us know how everything turns out.

Will do & thanks for the help. It's clear what I need to do now. Hopefully in a few weeks more of the new 1155 MBs will be in stock whereas now only a few. I'll post back.

 

[bobkn]

I've got the itch, too. Rendering video is tough on CPUs. 4 cores & 6 threads (i5 & i7) should help tackling those AVCHD files. Might need more than my present 4Gb RAM (???). And, I recently upgraded to Vegas Video 10 64-bit which can put all this to work; hopefully faster than ever. Looks like 2-4 weeks on the Gigabytes. But, no hurry.

I just started my research to see what all of this will cost. Lots of great help on this forum!

4 cores & 6 threads?

The I5 and I7 CPUs both have 4 cores. The I7 supports hyperthreading, so Windows shows 8 logical CPUs.

Either way, I suggest paying a little more for a "k" suffix CPU. It has an unlocked multiplier, so overclocking is painless. (Some motherbaords are setup up to take a 2500k or 2600k to 4.2 GHz at the touch of a button.) You may want to buy a third-party CPU cooler in that case, which is a bit more. I don't own one, but this cooler (Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus) is highly regarded for its price:

Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7

(Also available at Amazon, with free shipping, less than $30 altogther.)

Note that coolers suitable for Socket 1156 are also compatible with S. 1155.

Incidentally: while it's recommended to do a clean install of Windows with a new motherboard, it's possible that you could just plug your old HD into the new system. Windows will probably boot. You might have to tidy up some driver issues, but your performance may be no worse than if you'd done a clean install. (The odds are good that you'll need to activate Windows again, perhaps through the automated phone method.) I repeat that it may be best to do the clean install anyway, but Win7 seem to be pretty forgiving about recognizing hardware changes.