What do you guys think about this?

[murdakillemall]

I recently purchased a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, and video card to replace my old setup. The new board is the MSI Z68A-GD65 (G3). I usually do my own builds as I did this time so replacing boards isn't new to me.

The original board was the ECS G33T-M2. I uninstalled all the important drivers, like anything related to the hard drives, prior to uninstalling the board. I installed the new board, CPU, and ram and booted into Windows 7. Next, I installed all the drivers and everything seemed to be working as expected. Games and browsers worked as expected. This system is not overclocked.

Then I started accessing other systems on my network. This is where the problem exists/began. At random times, my system will blue screen with IRQL_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL and every time it points to the NIC driver, rt64win7.sys. I uninstalled the driver multiple times and installed different drivers trying to resolve this issue. I used older drivers from Realtek, the drivers from the CD that came with the motherboard, and the latest drivers from Realtek. All drivers end up crashing the system with the issue being the rt64win7.sys kernel driver. I did run memtest86+ to ensure the RAM was not causing the problem and the test passed.

So, I contact MSI and they state I cannot change motherboards like I did and not do a clean install. The last time I did a clean install was when I first installed Vista 64 back in 2007.

So, I think that MSI is wrong and that I do not need to do a clean install because in my experience a clean install is never needed. At one time, I kept an installation that was originally installed with Windows 3.1 and upgraded it (and the hardware) all the way up to Windows XP (it now lives as a VM on my current machine).

Do you think I need to do a clean install? I'm not going to do it but I do want to know what you think. I've been building systems since the old 486-DX 33 days and while it is sometimes easier and definitely cleaner to do a clean installation when upgrading, it was never necessary to prevent blue screens.

 

[jsc]

Welcome to the forums.

My experience with using old drives with a new motherboard is that it works about half the time.

I think, and I am certain that most of the regulars here will agree with me, that you should do a clean install.

Here's something to consider: You are getting blue screens. The usual cause with a brand new build is memory or motherboard. With your system, you can include the already installed OS. You can either try to repair the problem or live with it. If you choose to try to repair the problem, the least expensive thing you can do is to reinstall the OS.

You should do that before the RMA period for your motherboard and memory run out.

 

[JKatwyopc]

I have built and rebuilt many systems, and my experience has been that a clean install is required every time I upgrade the motherboard. Most of the time the system will not even boot with a new motherboard and even when it does, I've never had a stable system until after I completely reinstall the OS. Sometimes a clean install is required even when nothing has been changed. I've had several times when I thought I had a hardware problem that I was able to fix with a clean install.

Do a backup of all of your important data first if you can.

 

[4745454b]

I agree that you don't need a clean install. I've done what you've done many/several times with only one issue. So long ago I don't remember what fixed it. IRQ not less then or equal is often a memory issue. But seeing as it points to the NIC I suspect a bad driver or card. Try adding a NIC and see if the problem goes away. I'd also double check the ram settings, though I think you'd have a lot more issues if it was the ram. Same if it was really because you didn't load fresh. If you needed a fresh install you'd have more issues then just trying to browse a network.

Internet issues? Odd that you'd be fine EXCEPT browsing your network.

 

[murdakillemall]

Odd that you'd be fine EXCEPT browsing your network.

Yes, that's odd. I'm updating this post right now in normal mode. I did some extra testing yesterday. Found no problems when running from safe mode so some software or driver is causing the problem. In Normal mode, any time I use a network resource, like Server Manager, Hyper-V manager, remote desktop, network share, etc. it blue screens pointing to the NIC.

I also thought it was a NIC problem, which is why I contacted the manufacturer about that. I'd have to look in my old boxes to see if I have a NIC laying around. I guess I could rent one from Best Buy too.

 

[4745454b]

Hmmm, I get the feeling your not going to like my next idea in this case. If it works fine in safe mode but not normal, then you either have a bad driver, or yes, something from the old board interfering with the new one.

 

[murdakillemall]

It ended up being a bad driver. Once realtek updated their network drivers, I used those and the problem went away.

 

[murdakillemall]

Best answer selected by murdakillemall.