Finally have the new motherboard running completely with Windows 10. Good lord it sucks to go to Windows 10. You can't just install Windows 10 if you get the free upgrade--they literally make it impossible even if you hang out on the phone with them for 2 hours (I tried).

You have to install your previous version of Windows, then likely you will have to get all of the latest updates (I had to this time, I didn't last), then you can install Windows 10 on top of it. What a pain. I guess this is how they're going to sell copies (make you give up after a few reinstalls).

Now... I don't have a DAC to plug those fancy ports into. I had to sell all my best crap for now so I'm just using a sound card.

I've been having motherboard problems, so I used my protection plan to replace my motherboard with a Gigabyte Z97X Gaming GT.

It has USB DAC-UP on two ports.

I thought that just meant clean 5v power to them, but I was happy to discover another bios setting: You can turn off the power on those ports!

If you have a self-powered dac, you can give it a super clean signal. That's awesome.

That is very cool. I thought it just had some slightly cleaner power as well.

Well ... you do get Win10 for free. And once you have performed the upgrade from a running Win7 or Win8 system you're free to install Win10 from scratch as many times as you want. Turns out (shocker!) Microsoft isnt in the business of giving their product away for free to just about anyone, instead they only give it away for free to users who have bought from them inside the last six years (!). How dare they, right?

Sadly this is only half true. First, you can't clean install Windows 10 ever if you upgrade for free. You always have to upgrade from an activated installation of Windows 7 or 8, which is a hassle (especially if you have to get the latest updates, which I did this time. It takes like 4-8 hours to install Windows 10 because of it). We also don't yet know what happens after the 1 month expiration of your previous install that they've talked about (you can downgrade back to your previous Windows for a month after installing 10). Does it eat your key and you can never install Windows 7/8/10 again? That's the suspicion. Nobody knows because they won't give a straight answer.

In any case, it's a cool idea and nice move to get people to try Windows 10. I just hope it isn't a kiss/curse. First crack is free. Want to reinstall Windows 10 OR the version you upgraded from? Oops, you have zero Windows keys now and owe use $200 this time.

Sadly this is only half true. First, you can't clean install Windows 10 ever if you upgrade for free. You always have to upgrade from an activated installation of Windows 7 or 8, which is a hassle (especially if you have to get the latest updates, which I did this time. It takes like 4-8 hours to install Windows 10 because of it). We also don't yet know what happens after the 1 month expiration of your previous install that they've talked about (you can downgrade back to your previous Windows for a month after installing 10). Does it eat your key and you can never install Windows 7/8/10 again? That's the suspicion. Nobody knows because they won't give a straight answer.

Thats untrue. Here is how it works:
Somewhere deep inside the OS internals is your windows serial key. That serial key determines which version of windows you're authenticated to run (e.g. 7 Home or 7 Enterprise or 8 Professional etc. [it is agnostic towards x86/x64 however].) Once you run the upgrade routine for the Windows 10 upgrade, this very routine reads the windows serial key from your system and changes it to a Win10 serial (and authenticates it as such with Microsoft). From this moment on your old Win 7/8 serial is a Win10 serial. (I dont think there's any going back therefore, but I'm not certain about that). Then the upgrade installs. NOW the windows serial key deep within your system is a Win10 serial. What you have to do if you want to perform a fresh install is that you simply have to find that serial by using one of the many applications that allow you to read out such things or by locating it yourself in the registry/sysinfo. Once you got your serial written down somewhere, you can format away and install fresh from USB (not sure if optical disk is even an option, but you'd want a bootable USB stick for conveniences sake). Once Win10 is installed it asks for your serial, you type in what you've written down and you're good to go.

I tried to exactly that. Two different apps to grab the serial before fresh install and it wouldn't authenticate.

I'll look into it again next time I have to reinstall.