I purchased an HP Z820 3 years ago and decided to upgrade the CPU to the Intel v2 series. Naturally, my motherboard didn't have the 2013 boot block date. I ultimately ended up building a "new" system with a new motherboard with the 2013 boot block date. I purchased a new chassis ($240.00), a new motherboard ($310.00), and a new heat sink ($99.00). I had already purchased the new processor and ram ($2,300.00 total for E5-2680v2 and 64GB ram) and had the 512GB Z-Turbo and a scad of hard drives. (I've moved most of the hard drives to the new system - leaving one 500GB drive in the "old" system as I plan to sell it - it currently has 32GB of ram and a EVGA GTX 670 graphics card).
So I've got the system up and running Windows 7 Pro 64 great - no issues. However, the "one" issue I now have is any time I boot the new system, it brings up an error "Invalid electronic serial number". On that same screen it lets me boot into Windows 7 after pressing F1.
So the "dilemma" is, if I assign the old serial number to this new machine both machines would have the same "electronic" serial number. The warranty on the "old" machine has expired and obviously there is no warranty on this "new" build, so I'm not sure if two machines having the same serial number would create an issue?
Any thoughts?