Changing Motherboard while not reinstalling windows?

[RedyD]

Hey guys, I recently switched cases from NZXT H200i to a Lian Li PC-O11 Dynamic cause the airflow and cooling was just not great in the NZXT and I often switch HW or add or remove components for other ones, and I still use Mine ASUS STRIX ROG I Gaming Z390 Board and it just looks ridiculous in the Lian Li, haven't bothered with cable managing it anyway cause ill still see all the cables and I'm planing on buying Asus Prime Z390-A or a Strix ROG Gaming E not sure which one yet, but likely the Prime one for Color Matching the build and want to know if I will have to reinstall windows? I mean its the same chipset. The rest of the system is- I7 9700K, Corsair Vengence 2x 16GB Ram, NZXT Kraken M22(Will switch to corsair H100X later) RTX 2070, Corsair RMX750, Kingstone 250GB Sata SSD and a Seagate Barracuda 2TB  HDD

[Dubba]

Having just swapped from H87 platform to x470, yes you can boot from the old boot drive no problem. You just need to activate Windows again. It depends on the type of your license whether you can use it again on a different motherboard or if you can deactivate it from old system and activate on your new one.

[Caennanu]

Theoretically you can, but it is always wise to remove all mainboard specific drivers from the installation prior to swapping it out. This goes for any piece of hardware really.

You can do this after the fact too if you wish, but this generally requires you to load into a save mode type of state to do succesfully.

 

If you do not wish to do either, after you swap you could plug in the OS USB install 'disk' and perform a 'repair installation' if you do encounter issues.

[RedyD]

I mean I know its possible but Ive read that there might be instability and some other funky bussines, and I overclock a lot so instability is not my friend  But I personally have already switched a couple of time from a Z170 TO Z370 Without and aftewards from Z370 To X470 And still worked fine, I ran into some weird USB Glitches while Playing VR but Nothing major never bothered me, but better to be safe than sorry, I mean its the same chipset, same manufacturer the only difference in the drivers as far as I can tell is a different Audio Driver, No Wifi, No Bluetooth

[Caennanu]

12 minutes ago, RedyD said:

I mean I know its possible but Ive read that there might be instability and some other funky bussines, and I overclock a lot so instability is not my friend  But I personally have already switched a couple of time from a Z170 TO Z370 Without and aftewards from Z370 To X470 And still worked fine, I ran into some weird USB Glitches while Playing VR but Nothing major never bothered me, but better to be safe than sorry, I mean its the same chipset, same manufacturer the only difference in the drivers as far as I can tell is a different Audio Driver, No Wifi, No Bluetooth

It is true, windows loading the wrong drivers could cause instability and crashes. That is why i would always recommend to do a new installation when changing hardware like mainboards. Simply because it is 1 component combining multiple components to work together, each requiring their own set of drivers to operate. It is a slightly different story for a video card, as generally issues are easily fixed. If it cannot load the proper drivers it will take a default windows one and you can install the correct one anyway.

 

Having the wrong drivers for a mainboard can cause a multitude of problems. But the keyword is 'CAN'. no guarantee's of instability, but also no guarantee's it will work flawlessly.

 

p.s. don't forget to quote people if you wish them to further respond to your reply. Else they will not get a notification and probably never see your reaction.

[Constantin]

In some you can and in others you can't.

Mine, i have to reinstall Windows even if i Update the BIOS