My system has had issues ever since I upgraded my CPU from an Intel Sandy Bridge i5 to an Ivy Bridge i7. I like the performance of the i7 so I finally threw in the towel and upgraded my motherboard from a Z68-based board to a more compatible Z77-based board. For good measure I also reloaded Windows 7 so that I have a fresh OS running on the new board.
Most people believe that reloading your OS requires that you wipe your C drive, reload the OS and then have to reload all your applications. Not so. If you do the reload as an 'upgrade' all the applications, data and settings will be preserved. There are a couple of tricks involved and I tried this on a cloned C drive before doing it on my live drive. A full set of instructions is available at
http://www.winhelp.us/non-destructive-reinstall-of-windows-7.html.
While I've not had a chance to fully evaluate the new board, it appears that all is well and the new motherboard / OS are doing fine. All my applications are present and no system settings appear to have changed. This process is time consuming. The 'upgrade' process takes about three hours and then the service packs have to be added, which takes another two hours or so. Still, it is much better than having to reload all your applications and then try to figure out how to get all the settings back to how you like them.