[SOLVED] Changed mobo & cpu but pc still runs without installing new OS

[jicgshaw]

Hello everyone. i need some clarification/advice on this. first off, here's my PC specs. sorry in advance if the list is somewhat vague.

Gigabyte GA-H81M-DS2 mobo
Intel i5 4460
Leadtek Nvidia RTX 970
Kingston RAM 8+4GB
PNY 250GB SSD (C
WD 2TB HDD (D
WD 500GB HDD (E

I decided to upgrade this machine of mine after a few years and the parts i bought are:

Gigabyte b450m Auros M
Hyperx Fury 16GB 3200
Ryzen 5 3600

My plan is to keep all the existing parts aside from the 3 components mentioned above. based on my individual research and a few points from friends ive found out that after changing the mobo & cpu, my old OS (windows 10 pro installed in C drive) would be obsolete and i'd have to perform a fresh install on my ssd which will subsequently render every existing software which are tied to the OS obsolete (games,software,etc). its safe to say i was ready to wipe out everything and format my C drive.

but to my utter surprise, after ive done assembling the new machine the pc works just as it did before. the auros logo appeared after booting which means the mobo was installed correctly. i checked my system and every new component has been correctly detected. CPUid, Benchmark, Control panel all displayed the new components. i didnt have to install a new OS on the machine, all the games are running fine if not better because of the CPU upgrade, every single file in all 3 hard discs was intact and it baffles me to no end that the machine will just work after changing 2 major components.

can someone tell me if im doing something wrong here? i didnt even have to install any drivers for the new components for goodness sake.

 

[rgd1101]

test with some game.

 

[jicgshaw]

test with some game.

i did. all the games that stutters before runs smoothly now.

star wars jedi fallen order stutters on medium settings before, now runs great on epic setting
borderlands 3, stutters on high, now smooth on ultra

i havent tested on more demanding games yet (modern warfare, black desert). will update on this later

 

[Mickieg1994]

Windows will not like being moved from one brand of cpu to another, it does matter and you should definitely reinstall windows, it might not be a problem now but it almost certainly will be in future, it's the little things, when you install windows on a machine, it maps and talks to all of the different components and changing them can cause issues, at the moment your windows is still convinced you have a 6/6 intel chip, it might not even be using the hyperthreading on your cpu becuase it has no idea it is there

Also a question, if you already had a 6 core chip, why did you go for another 6 core? it would only be a light upgrade for you and a reasonably expensive one at that

 

[jicgshaw]

is there any other way i could see and check whether my windows are communicating correctly to these components? because all the benchmarking softwares i ran to test the system did detect them correctly. but still my judgement is weighing heavily on reinstalling windows. just to ease this disturbance im feeling

im planning to build a 2ndary pc from all the remaining parts but thats a story for another time. not in the near future

 

[Mickieg1994]

If you have booted into windows then i think you can manually remove the old drivers and windows will sort itself out with a reboot, supposedly, when i upgraded my pc recently my old windows 7 installation did not work at all, i have never tried this method myself, so i cannot say whether it will work or not

If everything appears ok in windows task manager, download and try HWMonitor too, if your cpu looks like it is being utilised properly then you may be alright for now, conflicting drivers and updates may cause issues in future though

 

[jicgshaw]

thank you so much. will definitely look into this method when i get the chance. i'll update this post if anything new pops up. frankly id rather sort everything out at this early stage than dealing with it in the future.

but just to be sure, if i actually reinstall windows and format my ssd, do i need to reinstall all my softwares from the other 2 HDDs? since they are somewhat linked to my previous OS. ie Registry stuff

 

[Wolfshadw]

I seem to recall that Windows 10 was actually designed to work this way. You could move the OS drive to a new computer and it would correct itself. This first implementation of this isn't very reliable and even when it does work, I still recommend a clean install, but it's not impossible that it actually worked this time.

-Wolf sends

 

[jicgshaw]

I seem to recall that Windows 10 was actually designed to work this way. You could move the OS drive to a new computer and it would correct itself. This first implementation of this isn't very reliable and even when it does work, I still recommend a clean install, but it's not impossible that it actually worked this time.

-Wolf sends

well if this is the case then i seem to have made history. lol
but regardless, i'll still take a look at some other detection softwares to make sure all parts are functioning as intended. if a clean reinstall is not required then i'll be the luckiest man alive because god knows how much work it takes to download and reinstall everything back