The Gigabyte motherboard on my PC failed. They have a 3 year warranty, but I have to RMA directly to Gigabyte. I disassembled the PC last night and started the process.

I am considering buying a different board altogether. I had other problems with that board, and wasn't happy with it.

So I have a question: if I replace a gigabyte motherboard with a different brand (say MSI, or AS rock) would I have to reformat my HD and lose all my data? I had 1 HD only, no RAID setups or anything.

What about if I replace it with the exact same board?

I would like to avoid reformatting if at all possible. If that means keeping the same model board, then so be it.

_________________

As far as Windows XP goes, you can't replace the motherboard with a different chipset and have it still boot. You can sometimes do a "repair" using the setup CD but this is a pain because it can fudge up your installed programs due to it replacing system DLLs back to original CD versions.

I'm not sure if it works with Windows 7, I've never tried it, but I wouldn't risk it personally. Basically, there are things Windows installs during windows setup that are specific to your motherboard's chipset and HAL. If they're different, it'll blue-screen immedately on boot, can't even use safe mode.

Regardless of OS, if you swap the motherboard with the exact same motherboard it will boot no problem.

In both cases, Windows may however fail activation and you might get a window telling you to phone Microsoft. It's relatively painless though, its usually automated these days: just enter a bunch of numbers on the screen into a phone keypad and then type the number you get back into the window. If it forwards you through to a person just tell them your motherboard/CPU/RAM/whatever broke and you had to replace it and he'll give you the number.

Windows is licensed to one set of hardware, so when changes like that are made you have to call MS like Ket said. I had to do it for a freaking VM in one of my classes and while annoying, it was relatively painless. I don't think Gigabyte is a bad brand, so if you can live without your desktop for a while you might be well off just RMAing it and waiting for the replacement.

_________________
[In Yarr we trust.]

You can run the same HDD on new motherboard but the window will ask you to unlock the window just like ket said on bottom. but if set to raid and not using the same chip settings then no you will lose it and I had almost lost mine and thought MB was dead and it was not. so I put the old board back and got the HDD working again on raid setup then made back up to switch new MB.

_________________
PS3 Friend list name: Pantherxx Wii code 1629-0463-4657-0263 (revised 9/28/07) Steam ID - Pantherxx010 62BLU 75PLD Reactived 7/5/10 I dare you Click this!

If you have another machine or a friend who's willing to help out, boot the hdd up as a secondary and backup all of your "content" then i'd recommend formatting.

By some miracle it could boot with a new mobo but it will eventually disagree with something down the road and cause more problems then take you back to square one, so its not worth it.

_________________

soul I never had those problems when you upgrade MB with same HDD if not setup as raid and all it does make the window see new hardware and update new settings.

_________________
PS3 Friend list name: Pantherxx Wii code 1629-0463-4657-0263 (revised 9/28/07) Steam ID - Pantherxx010 62BLU 75PLD Reactived 7/5/10 I dare you Click this!

Thanks for the assist guys. I decided to be patient and wait for Gigabyte to process my RMA.

Reading reviews on Newegg, a lot of people had the same problem with my board. It gets stuck in a boot loop and keeps restarting before POST. It won't let you enter bios. It also doesn't beep at all, so the beep codes are useless lol.

I checked every other component on my PC, unplugged every device one by one before boot, replaced every SATA cable, and even bought replacements for a few things (RAM, PSU). I'm pretty sure my board just isn't a good model. But I'll give it 1 more chance. If this happens again, I'm bailing on gigabyte. I already have my next motherboard picked out.

FFXIV runs like shit on my old PC (laggy even at low settings/low res). I don't know how I dealt with it for a year before building a better PC.

_________________

Well my MSI had not let me down yet so far and in fact I got two MSI running. One is my upgraded version of i7 2600k sandybridge 3.4Ghz with MSI board, and two is old Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz with MSI board.

Both has not failed me yet. Remember I am not into overclocking my CPU, Just stock is all I like.

_________________
PS3 Friend list name: Pantherxx Wii code 1629-0463-4657-0263 (revised 9/28/07) Steam ID - Pantherxx010 62BLU 75PLD Reactived 7/5/10 I dare you Click this!

Sent away the motherboard today:

• Average turnaround time will be 2-3 business working weeks upon receipt

All for a refurb. Boo.

_________________

Are you certain that it was the mobo causing the problems?

Considering you replaced the ram and psu and still had the same problem, that narrows it down quite a bit, but did you try booting with a single stick of ram?

_________________

I tried booting with 4 different single sticks of RAM, in the proper slot on the mobo to run only 1 stick (according to the manual).

Also I flip-flopped and bought a different brand of motherboard lol. I bought a highly-rated AS Rock board from Newegg. It comes in tomorrow, and I'm just gonna reformat and start over.

_________________

Ah gotcha, nice man, the sooner you get back up and gaming the better haha

_________________

Good news: it was extremley painless.

Replaced a Gigabye Z68 motherboard with an ASRock Z68 motherboard.

Used same HD, CPU, cooler, RAM, etc

I gritted my teeth and booted the comp, entered bios just to verify everything was recognized. Everything was recognized and configured at good OEM settings, I tweaked the system clock and continued.

Windows loaded fine. I recieved a few popup errors about programs only working with the Gigabyte motherboard (Gigabyte software), then windows started downloading drivers. I right clicked "my computer" and updated the windows product key. It validated over the net (didn't have to call microsoft).

Now everything is working completely fine. I did not have to reformat and my computer is running like nothing ever happened. I removed the Gigabyte software and updated with ASRock software and drivers. I don't recieve any more errors when rebooting. I am pretty happy.

_________________

GRATZ! I know those will work even if you get another motherboard it will still work on any HDD as long as they are not raided.

_________________
PS3 Friend list name: Pantherxx Wii code 1629-0463-4657-0263 (revised 9/28/07) Steam ID - Pantherxx010 62BLU 75PLD Reactived 7/5/10 I dare you Click this!

in windows 7 you can pass hdds from one to another no problem. i had a RAID 1+0 with 4 750gb black drives on intel ICH9 raid chipset. It died, the manufacturer left the motherboard business so i took a stab in the dark and grab a newer ICH10R motherboard plugged in all 4 hdds and it was able to correctly boot without any issue

_________________
"all men die, and no brave man lets death frighten him from his desires"