Got a new cpu and motherboard. Any prep before installing?

[kimura410]

Anything that I must absolutely do before taking my old MB and CPU out and putting the new stuff in? I will continue googling but I this place always has some great answers so I wanted to ask here

My current CPU is AMD 8350 and MB is M5A19. New CPU is I7 and MB is ASUS P8Z77-VLK

edit: also is there an application that will check appr. how much wattage my cpu is using? Im concerned that the new additions will use more wattage than my power supply can handle

 

[clutchc]

No Intel CPU will use more power than the FX-8350 you have in there now. You're fine.

Make sure you make a backup of the system as it is now in case the new part(s) is defective and you have to go back. The defect may not show up until after you've got the new system up and running with all new drivers, etc.

When you get the new system together, you may have to do a clean install of Win if it can't boot to the desktop.

What OS are you running?

 

[kimura410]

No Intel CPU will use more power than the FX-8350 you have in there now. You're fine.

Make sure you make a backup of the system as it is now in case the new part(s) is defective and you have to go back. The defect may not show up until after you've got the new system up and running with all new drivers, etc.

When you get the new system together, you may have to do a clean install of Win if it can't boot to the desktop.

What OS are you running?

Im running windows 7 64bit.

as far as backups go, i pretty much need to pick up an external hdd right? i mean thats pretty much the cheapest, easiest way to back up a personal desktop pc, right? ive heard cloud mentioned in backups but that seems to be more for larger scale backups. would you suggest the simple external hdd for a backup in my situation?

 

[Ecky]

When changing motherboards, you'll need to reinstall Windows. Chances are very good it won't boot. You might get it to start up if you uninstall literally every driver, but chances are good you'll have issues if you try.

 

[clutchc]

No Intel CPU will use more power than the FX-8350 you have in there now. You're fine.

Make sure you make a backup of the system as it is now in case the new part(s) is defective and you have to go back. The defect may not show up until after you've got the new system up and running with all new drivers, etc.

When you get the new system together, you may have to do a clean install of Win if it can't boot to the desktop.

What OS are you running?

Im running windows 7 64bit.

as far as backups go, i pretty much need to pick up an external hdd right? i mean thats pretty much the cheapest, easiest way to back up a personal desktop pc, right? ive heard cloud mentioned in backups but that seems to be more for larger scale backups. would you suggest the simple external hdd for a backup in my situation?

A personal ext. ssd is probably the safest way, yes. Especially if you have sensitive stuff on the PC. That's the way I do it, and I just use Win's disk image in Backup to do it. But you can use any piece of software you prefer.

Then once you've got the new OS installation done, just install the drivers for the board, gfx card, and anything else you may have that requires drivers. Although, Win will load drivers for almost everything at the time of installing the OS.

If you want to try the existing installation first to see if you can get it to boot to the desktop, go ahead. If you get lucky, you will want to do a bunch of clean up afterwards. I can get most old Intel builds to boot to a new Intel builds. And most old AMD builds to boot to a new AMD build. But a fresh install is the best way to do it.