Installed New Hardware, Windows Booted Fine

[Sir Topham Hatt]

I rebuilt a PC.

New motherboard, new processor, same RAM.

I wasn't quick enough to get to BIOS but Windows booted to the desktop fine.

To clear out all the old software and drivers, I've reinstalled Windows but is reinstalling now a thing of the past?

[Sulphy]

I wouldnt say that ... no.

If you are sticking to similar hardware (intel, asus mobo etc....) i have successfully posted a few builds over the years, if nothing else, just to grab backups due to failed hardware.

Re-installing the OS, does make a big difference tho, especially if changing mobo! Heck, it may just be a fluke, but i recently changed CPU from 12th to 13th gen Intel i9... and experienced all sorts of issues with Win11 Dev channel.... re-installed from scratch, and my pc has been blistering fast since!

My goto is always re-installing if anything major changes, or if a major new build of the OS is released... that has been the way for Windows, Linux, RPi's etc....

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

In general if you are going from an EFI motherboard to an EFI motherboard Windows generally seems happy to boot and install the new drivers these days. I went from a Sandy Bridge Intel processor to a 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen processor, my old Windows install booted fine and even activated itself again without issue.

I did re install however, simply because my Windows 10 install was 5-6 years old at that point and I wanted a fresh start with my new build.

[Ixion]

I have only seen major issues when swapping between AMD and Intel architectures. Windows is suprisingly good at picking up new drivers and just making things work these days.

Having said that it's often nice to start afresh especially when major system changes are in place.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

I've found Windows in general is pretty forgiving with hardware changes...as long as the essential BIOS settings are the same (legacy, UEFI, AHCI, etc).  When my 3770k system running 10 kicked the bucket, I quickly built a 10700k replacement ... tossed in the boot drive and it worked just fine (I've since replaced that with a 13700k with a fresh 11 install).  Last year I replaced a dead Dell medical computer (some Pentium 4) with an old CPU/motherboard (Xeon E3110) I had laying around, tossed in the original XP HDD and it booted and worked just fine.

 

 

[+devHead Subscriber²]

I hope things go as smoothly for me when I get my new AMD CPU in a few weeks.  I am changing all the main components for the first time in 8 years - from an Intel 4th GEN i5 to an AMD Ryzen 5 5600x CPU, and of course, a new MOBO and RAM.  Along with Windows 10, I also have Fedora 37 and Arch Linux running.  I'm not too worried about the Linux Distros frankly, though.

[farmeunit]

Not sure if this has been fixed but with Windows 11, a lot of Youtubers had performance issues with swaps like this.  I don't remember how much it was, but they said fresh installs didn't exhibit that behavior.  That being said, I have done swaps and they have been fine.  It's always best to do fresh. 

[Noir Angel]

In most cases Windows will reconfigure itself for the new platform a lot better than old versions used to, but in most circumstances you will lose some performance (somewhere in the 5-10% region usually). I'd always advise a clean install if you get a totally new platform (if you do a drop in upgrade like a CPU you should be fine).

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

I would suggest backing up important data and doing a clean install of the operating system.  I have noted all sorts of weirdness with random crashes, problems with video and audio, etc., when this has not been performed.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

[ThaCrip]

On 06/12/2022 at 03:37, Sir Topham Hatt said:

To clear out all the old software and drivers, I've reinstalled Windows but is reinstalling now a thing of the past?

Definitely not. I just can't see how that will be a thing of the past for the foreseeable future since a clean install wipes all data and starts fresh as I figure, depending on how much stuff you install etc (as some people could go longer between clean installs than others), as a good ball park figure, I figure doing a clean install of a OS is probably a good idea to do at least once every few years or so.

even in terms of Linux, in my case Linux Mint, I typically do the following which seems to be the general wisdom to for Mint...

-Minor updates (v21.0 to v21.1 to v21.2 etc) = these are okay/safe.

-Major updates (v19.x to v20.x to v21.x) = clean install is recommended to help ensure nothing is out of whack.

while I mentioned doing a clean install at least once every few years or so, at least on Mint it's nice to have the option to hang into the OS for longer if I really need to for whatever reason since each major version of Mint is basically supported 5 years (it's actually a little less (given they end stuff in April where as upon each versions main release it usually about mid-year(June/July), so it's roughly 2-3 months shy of a full 5 years) would be a little less, but close enough).

another thing, like basically already mentioned... if you do any major things like swap motherboard it's ALWAYS much safer to do a clean install to ensure things are in good running order. but just upgrading smaller things like RAM or GPU and probably even CPU, you can get away with keeping the same installation of Windows for example.

 

On 06/12/2022 at 08:52, devHead said:

I am changing all the main components for the first time in 8 years - from an Intel 4th GEN i5 to an AMD Ryzen 5 5600x CPU, and of course, a new MOBO and RAM.

I am on a 3rd gen and I don't see myself needing to build a new PC anytime soon. in fact, I have had my current motherboard (ASUS) since May 2012 which makes it the longest I ever owned a main PC hands down. 10 years and 7 months and counting vs my previous record of 6 years and 2 months (March 2006 until May 2012). basically I am still using that same PC case from March 2006 though as when I did the May 2012 upgrade, I just swapped mobo/CPU/RAM (and then shifted the board from that into a old case I had from 2001 at a later date etc).

ill likely be using my current setup, barring any major component failure, for years to come. even conservatively I expect ill be using the same basic setup (i5-3550 and a 1050 Ti 4GB GPU etc) until probably at least 2025+, which if that happens, ill be 13+ years on the same main PC.

I would say a 4th gen Intel, while I realize it's got some age on it, it's still pretty good in general. like closer to fast than slow for sure for most tasks.

[Sir Topham Hatt]

Just to confirm - I did a full reinstall anyway.  I think I was just surprised it booted into Windows and seemed to operate fine (for the little that I did). Although the Rufus "don't ask for an online account" didn't work for me (maybe I did it wrong as the "skip privacy questions" did seem to work).

I should have backed up a few more things than I did (like Plex library settings, the desktop background) but as it's a HTPC (yes, that old chestnut again!), there's barely anything on it so pretty straight forward.  It's likely to be good for 10+ years now, so long as I can get the rear fan to slow down by half!