New System Build Little Bitty Question

What was the old motherboard? What hardware are you missing? Did the new board come with any software to be installed?

What was replaced? What hardware did they hide?

There is a freeware program called DeviceCleanup that will remove those entries.

Tools for Windows

The entries are normal, and harmless.

Example from one of our systems -

Attachment 286679

Well They Replaced Old Motherboard, and Processor, Don't think came with any software to install that i can see.

Shows in Hidden items in Device Manager old DVD Writer that isn't in this PC, Asus wifi adapter in hidden items, ethernet from the old Asus, and bunch of other items that was in the old system, and not in this one


is 239 Entries Harmless? I may just leave alone til i can afford a M.2 drive, and then do my clean install perhaps--not sure 100 percent though lol

Also does my msinfo32 part look right?

Device Manager will keep track and show every piece of hardware that's ever been installed in Windows if you select Show Hidden Devices. This is actually all of the entries in the Windows Registry.

It is not going to hurt anything to just ignore these phantom entries if you know why they are there, which you do. Windows is ignoring them also, that's why they are hidden. Device Manager only shows active and existing hardware in normal mode.

Every USB thumb drive you've plugged into your PC will show as hidden when they are not plugged in, and they will be revived to the Active list if you plug them in again. I think that is the logic of this. If you ever "plug in" your old motherboard everything Windows needs will be right there and waiting. As if you would ever do that!

There are good reasons for doing a Clean Install, this is not really one of them. You will go along just fine as is.
If you do decide to Clean Install that would be a good time to experiment with uninstalling hidden devices that you know are connected to the old motherboard and processor. That way if something gets messed up it is not a big loss. There are lots of minor System Devices associated with a motherboard in Device Manager and some of the current motherboard's devices can be in the hidden list. So the idea of cleaning the list and registry out manually does have risk.

Hope that helps

For overall system security with Windows 10, Secure Boot should be enabled in BIOS.
Do you know why it is off? Meaning, did you do that or the folks that set up the re-build?

Haven't been into the Bios myself, so assume the shop switched it off for some reason, what reason i have no idea. But guess will venture in there and turn back on, hopefully that causes no issues if i do that in a few here

Secure boot On

XMP Profile Disabled as well, but i guess since CPU-Z shows ram at 2400 Speed, maybe i don't need that enabled, unsure on that part, so left alone lol

Have DDR 4 2400 Ram installed currently