Can I easily upgrade between these motherboards?

[CaptainTom]

So I currently own an ASROCK Pro-4M and everything was fine until about 10 months after I got it. Long story short, I have to send this thing back every month or so do to it breaking. I think my G.Skill 2133 RAM is breaking it, but it is on their list of supported memory modules so it should be their problem, not mine.

But I can't take it anymore so I am thinking of switching to this motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130647

It basically has all of the same features of the Pro4-M except now I can crossfire! My question is: If I do upgrade between motherboards, will I have to re-install windows?

That would be a deal breaker for me because then I would lose MS Office 2013 (They won't let me re-download it...).

 

[CaptainTom]

Hi, its always recommended to reinstall your OS with a new motherboard because of the different hardware being used. In your case you might get away with it because of the same chipset being used, but you may still have issues. Have a look at the following articles:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/making-sure-windows-7-will-boot-after-changing-the-motherboard/
http://www.dowdandassociates.com/content/howto-repair-windows-7-install-after-replacing-motherboard/

I recommend to boot into safe mode, go to device manager and uninstall all the drivers from the ASRock motherboard, reboot normally and see what happens. If the SATA ports were set as AHCI in the bios then you must make sure that its the same with the MSI board.

Great guide!!! Thanks!