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Motherboard swap tips?

xReptar
By xReptar
in CPUs, Motherboards, and Memory
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I am planning on swapping my hardware into a new case and I am going from a ATX to a Micro ATX so I can fit into my new case. For those wondering its a Corsair Carbide Air 240 and I am upgrading my CPU from an i5 4690k to an i7 4790k. I am running windows 10 on my boot drive which is an SSD. I already have my parts ordered and delivered, I am just trying to get enough information before I start the swap to make sure I don't do anything that is unnecessary. Here are my questions for the swap:

 

Do I have to reinstall windows after I switch to a new board?

 

Is there anyway to avoid reinstalling windows before I swap?

 

I don't believe there are, but are there any performance differences between ATX and Micro ATX assuming that they use the same chipset and you run the same CPU, GPU, Ram, and PSU?

 

Thanks for the help

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There will be no difference in performance. As for Windows, you won't have to reinstall but you will have to reactivate, either by buying a new Windows key or giving a sob story to MS and hoping they'll let you off the hook.

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You might have to reactivate Windows, but when I changed motherboards, everything worked fine. I didn't have to do anything in the software. I reinstalled a bunch of drivers from a clean start though, just to be sure that they weren't interfering with anything, but that's completely unnecessary. 

I'm not SAV1OUR. I promise. | Number of successfully bricked phones: 1 Samsung Galaxy S5 | 01001001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100101 01101100 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110010 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01110011 01100101 00101110

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You might have to reactivate Windows, but when I changed motherboards, everything worked fine. I didn't have to do anything in the software. I reinstalled a bunch of drivers from a clean start though, just to be sure that they weren't interfering with anything, but that's completely unnecessary. 

 

I am going from a MSI motherboard to a Gigabyte one if that changes anything, probably should have listed that.

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I am going from a MSI motherboard to a Gigabyte one if that changes anything, probably should have listed that.

I went from AM3+ to 1155 (whatever socket 4790k is). AMD to Intel, and no problems, so I don't think a brand change will do anything. I would say just go for it and if anything is broken, check drivers and the motherboard UEFI/BIOS version. Update or replace any drivers if needed. Everything SHOULD work correctly after the motherboard swap, except maybe windows.

 

EDIT: 

Windows as in, the activation of windows. As in, you may have to re-activate your copy of windows.

I'm not SAV1OUR. I promise. | Number of successfully bricked phones: 1 Samsung Galaxy S5 | 01001001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100101 01101100 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110010 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01110011 01100101 00101110

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I went from AM3+ to 1155 (whatever socket 4790k is). AMD to Intel, and no problems, so I don't think a brand change will do anything. I would say just go for it and if anything is broken, check drivers and the motherboard UEFI/BIOS version. Update or replace any drivers if needed. Everything SHOULD work correctly after the motherboard swap, except maybe windows.

 

EDIT: 

Windows as in, the activation of windows. As in, you may have to re-activate your copy of windows.

That is crazy that windows worked fine going from AMD to Intel, you were able to login and go to your desktop directly after swapping?

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That is crazy that windows worked fine going from AMD to Intel, you were able to login and go to your desktop directly after swapping?

Yep. Now that I think on it though, it is kind of weird. I guess it's just my luck.

I'm not SAV1OUR. I promise. | Number of successfully bricked phones: 1 Samsung Galaxy S5 | 01001001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100101 01101100 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110010 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110010 01110101 01110011 01100101 00101110

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You will not have to reinstall windows as its in your hard drive, along with all your drivers. All you have to do is to install your new motherboard drivers and uninstall the old drivers. The is no performance difference between motherboard sizes, it just affects features and expandability.

i5 4690k | MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G | Swiftech H240-X | MSI Z97s SLI Krait Edition | Corsair Vengeance Pro 8gb ( 2x4gb ) | Corsair RM750 | Samsung 850EVO 250gb SSD & WD Caviar Blue 1tb HDD | Fractal Design Define R5

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You will not have to reinstall windows as its in your hard drive, along with all your drivers. All you have to do is to install your new motherboard drivers and uninstall the old drivers. The is no performance difference between motherboard sizes, it just affects features and expandability.

 

Should I do this before or after the swap?

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Should I do this before or after the swap?

After you swap the motherboard and get the new one hooked up. It should boot right into windows.

i5 4690k | MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G | Swiftech H240-X | MSI Z97s SLI Krait Edition | Corsair Vengeance Pro 8gb ( 2x4gb ) | Corsair RM750 | Samsung 850EVO 250gb SSD & WD Caviar Blue 1tb HDD | Fractal Design Define R5

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Yep it booted right into windows, but before it installed the drivers for the new mobo which was cool, I didn't have to do any changes as my MSI drivers are all gone and swapped with Gigabyte ones.

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