Advice for rebuilding my PC

[Nightmare515]

Hello all, here is my situation. Its a bit of a story so I apologize in advance.

Last year I bought a Dell Inspiron 3847 PC from the store. It has an i5 4440, 8gb ddr3 ram, and 1TB hard drive. I wanted to upgrade so I bought a GTX 760 and a 550W Seasonic PSU and swapped the parts into a new Antec case for better cooling.

Now here is the problem. Since its store bought it has a problem with aftermarket parts. To this day I still cannot figure out how to make it work with my new GPU unless I disable sleep and hibernation mode in the BIOS and disable the Windows 8.1 apps and whatnot. Why this makes it work I have no idea but after months of trial and error that is the only thing that seemed to work.

I know the conflict has to do with Dell and probably something to do with the motherboard and BIOS. Im sure they do something with the BIOS to prevent people from upgrading parts for warranty and liability reasons or something. Understandable.

So here is what I want to do. I want to buy a new motherboard and keep the CPU, RAM, Harddrive, optical drive, etc. I want to buy an SSD to use its magic copy feature (or whatever its called) to install my OEM Windows 8.1 on there for faster boot times and keep the 1TB harddrive for storage.

First off is this going to work? I've heard mixed things about copying existing harddrives to SSD's. Secondly if I replace the motherboard will that rid me of the "Dell" problems I am having with aftermarket parts? Is anything Dell related on my actual harddrive and is there a way to get rid of it after I swap motherboards?

The bottom line is that I pretty much just want to keep the good parts of the store bought PC and scrap the motherboard and rebuild it as a fully custom PC. I already have a PC full of decent hardware I just need a way to make it all work together without the headache.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated or if anyone has a better idea to accomplish what Im trying to do please let me know.

Thanks.

 

[SBMfromLA]

Nope.. it won't work. The Dell motherboard is an OEM part as well as your copy of Windows. That means your version of Windows is connected to your motherboard... and when you start it up.. the first thing it checks for is to see if the motherboard is from Dell. If it detects a different motherboard then you'll get an error.

You might also have problems if you try to get the free copy of Windows 10. More than likely, the free upgrade will come from Dell (through MS) and you will need a Dell motherboard to install the free Dell OEM copy of Win10... not sure but OEMs usually handle the free OS upgrades to their computers.

If you change motherboards you lose your copy of Windows... so the only way around that would be to buy another copy from the store.

I have one question for you... did you use the same install for windows when you swapped cases or did you reinstall Windows again? I'm wondering if a fresh, new install would solve your problem.

 

[dark_lord69]

"I disable sleep and hibernation mode in the BIOS"
Welcome to the club...
Sleep modes are notorious for not working properly. I just disable them and turn the computer off when I'm done.

"I've heard mixed things about copying existing harddrives to SSD's."
It can be difficult because the boot drive typically contains the master boot record and other system boot information that tends to be more hidden but the right software should be able to do it.

I recommend, if you get an SSD, you re-install windows instead of attempting to copy the drive.

 

[Nightmare515]

Nope.. it won't work. The Dell motherboard is an OEM part as well as your copy of Windows. That means your version of Windows is connected to your motherboard... and when you start it up.. the first thing it checks for is to see if the motherboard is from Dell. If it detects a different motherboard then you'll get an error.

You might also have problems if you try to get the free copy of Windows 10. More than likely, the free upgrade will come from Dell (through MS) and you will need a Dell motherboard to install the free Dell OEM copy of Win10... not sure but OEMs usually handle the free OS upgrades to their computers.

If you change motherboards you lose your copy of Windows... so the only way around that would be to buy another copy from the store.

I have one question for you... did you use the same install for windows when you swapped cases or did you reinstall Windows again? I'm wondering if a fresh, new install would solve your problem.

"I disable sleep and hibernation mode in the BIOS"
Welcome to the club...
Sleep modes are notorious for not working properly. I just disable them and turn the computer off when I'm done.

"I've heard mixed things about copying existing harddrives to SSD's."
It can be difficult because the boot drive typically contains the master boot record and other system boot information that tends to be more hidden but the right software should be able to do it.

I recommend, if you get an SSD, you re-install windows instead of attempting to copy the drive.

If necessary Im willing to buy a retail version of Windows 8.1 and just install it when I get the new motherboard. I was just trying to avoid spending more money if I didn't have to.

I didn't uninstall or reinstall anything when I swapped cases. I simply took everything out of the retail case and put it in the new case. The only problem Ive seen with swapping cases is that the computer simply will not turn on when using the case's own power switch. Again Im assuming that Dell did something to only allow the computer to turn on with using the original power switch that came with the retail case. I simply took the retail switch and hooked it up in the new case and have it sort of hanging through one of the empty drive bays in the front. Its not pretty but its the only way I could get it to work.

The components in the computer all work just fine and are a little over a year old. The only reason I want to switch motherboards is because Im tired of having part of my PC disabled just to get it to work properly.

Im sort of torn to be honest. My overall plan is to upgrade the GPU to a GTX 970. Then I started to second guess myself and wonder if I should first use the money to get the PC working properly without being jerry rigged and then upgrade the GPU later. Or should I just keep it jerry rigged and buy the 970 instead since it technically works just fine its just rigged.

 

[Nightmare515]

Alright so Ive decided that I should probably get the computer working properly before doing a GPU upgrade. So I'm planning on buying the following components.

MSI ATX Z97-G45 Gaming Motheroard
Samsung 850EVO 128GB 2.5" SSD (To install the new OS)
Windows 8.1 Retail version
Arctic Silver Thermal Compound

Total is $321.71

I plan on simply swapping the CPU and RAM from the old MB and putting them in the new MB. Installing the new Retail version of Windows 8.1 on the SSD and keeping the old HDD for storage.

This I believe should rid me or any further issues that I am having with Dell and give me a fully functional custom PC with no more "store bought" components to cause headaches.

Does this sound like a good plan? If anyone has a better or cheaper idea for what I am trying to accomplish then please let me know. I really want to buy a GTX 970 but I feel the money would be better spent getting the PC in working order first.

Thanks

 

[Nightmare515]

Before I commit to buying these new parts I have another question. If I decide to go ahead and buy the new retail version of Windows 8.1 and install it on the SSD do I have to first delete the OEM version from the HDD? My plan is to simply install the new SSD with the new version of Windows on it and swap the motherboard but will there be some sort of conflict if I have the retail version on the SSD and the OEM version on the HDD? If so how do I go about fixing that? Can I simply boot Windows using the SSD one time and then delete Windows from the HDD?

Thanks