Iam thinking about switching motherboards. becuase the one I have only has one pci express for video cards. and want to switch to motherboard with at lest two pci express for video I am thinking about getting the GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P but I wanna know is... if I change boards will I have to reactivate windows? the cpu..memory and everything else will be the same
If your windows installation works, then you won't have to reactivate, but there is a chance that your windows installation will not work and you will have to reinstall windows.
I just changed my M/B and since my chipset didnt match it booted into dos mode only leaving me to have to format my HD however by doing this I have a squeaky clean new install. Windows activation was a no brainer and I only have a builders OEM Vista 64 bit ver. After installing all service pacs I simply clicked on activate windows took a whole 10 seconds then windows was validated. No prob. I couldnt switch out my chipset drivers because my old M/B fried but you can download your new chipset drivers to a USB flashdrive then remove your existing chipset drivers & install the new drivers on your HD, shut down then assemble the new M/B into your case then reboot. With the new proper chipset you may be ok with windows..............maybe. The best way tho is to simply place your windows Cd in the cd player then shutdown, assemble the new sys. then boot using the cd as the first boot drive, windows will do the rest for you and your new setup will be bug free no conflicts etc.......... Dave By the way, expect to upgrade that PS also for dual GPUs. Thats just too close for comfort (borderline).
Yeah its going to be a slow project to switch over to crossfire,due to money ,figured I switch motherboard first then psu and then second card, but by then there probably directx 11 cards so probably buy two new cards with directx 11 but once its done. Faster fps!!!:banana:
Although there is a workaround for this, it's complicated and it's always better just to reinstall the OS from scratch. The workaround requires registry edits and unpacking .cab files and saving the original versions, installing the OS and then replacing some critical Windows files. Again, not really worth it. You could also do a 'Repair Install' from the Vista CD (choose 'Install' first, then chose 'Repair' at the second screen) - this takes time, but also does the trick without wiping out any of your settings/files, but is nowhere near as efficient as a clean OS from a format. (you'll probably have to call Microsoft and have them do the phone activation with this method) Here's what I've done for years (since XP): Every time I install a program, it gets installed on a separate HDD...same for games. When I install a new OS, I simply point a new shortcut to the install folder and 90% of the time, it just works. I'm also religious about backups. I back up my Program Data, Program Files, Program Files (x86), Users\Documents, Users\AppData\Local and Users\AppData\Roaming to a separate HDD, and this way, anything that *has* to get installed to the C drive still works from the backed up location. Having multiple HDDs is really a must these days - especially for this kind of thing. I happen to have 7 500GB HDDs just for this reason, and it's worked like a charm since the days of XP. Psychlone