Question Hardware Replacement Question

[deauua]

The red motherboard lights for my DRAM and CPU randomly came on and the pc will start (all fans work and lighting works and things seem to be running normally) but my monitors do not detect any connection. This is not a newly built pc, it has been running smoothly with absolutely no issues for nearly 2 years. I tried the basic troubleshooting things I found based on googling the issue, but no luck, and most of the answers seem to be geared toward someone who has a newly built pc where something may have gone wrong in the building process, but that isn't the case here.

Anyway, I'm flat out ready to just replace the cpu and motherboard altogether and hopefully be done with the issue. I don't have super expensive parts (ASRock B550M PRO4 motherboard and Ryzen 3600 processor, will cost me about $130 each to replace) but my (probably stupid) question is: if I get exactly the same replacement components, will I still lose everything on my pc and have to do a fresh windows install? I know this is a pretty basic question but I don't actually know all that much about computers; just enough to follow a guide to build one but not enough to fully understand how it all works lol.

 

[hotaru.hino]

If it's the same motherboard (which is really the only thing that matters, there's no drivers for the CPU), then it's likely that it should work without issue. The only thing you might encounter is Windows thinking it's on a new computer and may ask for reactivation since just the motherboard is considered the computer for licensing purposes.

 

[deauua]

If it's the same motherboard (which is really the only thing that matters, there's no drivers for the CPU), then it's likely that it should work without issue. The only thing you might encounter is Windows thinking it's on a new computer and may ask for reactivation since just the motherboard is considered the computer for licensing purposes.

thanks so much for your reply, just ordered new parts and hopefully it all goes smoothly.

 

[USAFRet]

If it is an exact replacement, it will probably work.

BUT....your data should never be at risk like this.

There are things that can happen other than not booting from a parts swap.


And the OS activation will almost certainly require you to associate the license with this new motherboard.

 

[deauua]

If it is an exact replacement, it will probably work.

BUT....your data should never be at risk like this.

There are things that can happen other than not booting from a parts swap.


And the OS activation will almost certainly require you to associate the license with this new motherboard.

So you think I should just completely wipe everything and start over with a new windows key after I do the swap as if it’s an entirely new computer? I was hoping to be able to back up some of my files before doing that but if there’s a reason I shouldn’t, I won’t.

 

[USAFRet]

So you think I should just completely wipe everything and start over with a new windows key after I do the swap as if it’s an entirely new computer? I was hoping to be able to back up some of my files before doing that but if there’s a reason I shouldn’t, I won’t.

Nooooo...

Probably no new OS license needed.

As said, putting it together with an identical replacement motherboard will probably work.

My comment about "at risk" was aimed at the concept that you should always have a backup of your data.
Consider this - In the process of putting all these parts together, you fumble finger and drop the drive on the floor.
oops....

 

[deauua]

Nooooo...

Probably no new OS license needed.

As said, putting it together with an identical replacement motherboard will probably work.

My comment about "at risk" was aimed at the concept that you should always have a backup of your data.
Consider this - In the process of putting all these parts together, you fumble finger and drop the drive on the floor.
oops....

Ahh, okay I understand, thank you. Thankfully there isn’t really anything vitally important that I would lose if I had to reformat my drives for some reason but it would definitely be a pain. Hindsight certainly is 20/20.

 

[USAFRet]

Ahh, okay I understand, thank you. Thankfully there isn’t really anything vitally important that I would lose if I had to reformat my drives for some reason but it would definitely be a pain. Hindsight certainly is 20/20.

So, put it all together, and see what happens.
It might work.

Then again, it might not...