How can I upgrade my cpu and motherboard without reinstalling Windows 8.1?

[Chaingunchris]

I read this http://superuser.com/questions/523737/do-i-have-to-reinstall-windows-8-when-upgrading-my-motherboard-cpu-and-memory
And people have been saying there are ways to do it, I don't know what to believe. My dad wants to upgrade his machine but he dosent want to start over. Please help. He would be coming from a Bloomfield chip to a Intel I7 4790k

 

[Dunlop0078]

No I highly doubt it your system will not boot with the drivers from your old motherboard. So you wont be able to install the proper drivers for your motherboard. You might be able to image your current OS then add the right drivers to the image (there is a tool to do this but i cant seem to remember the name) but that would be much more complicated than a reinstall and could possibly cause issues. Your best option is a reinstall.

 

[Chaingunchris]

No I highly doubt it your system will not boot with the drivers from your old motherboard. So you wont be able to install the proper drivers for your motherboard. You might be able to image your current OS then add the right drivers to the image (there is a tool to do this but i cant seem to remember the name) but that would be much more complicated than a reinstall and could possibly cause issues. Your best option is a reinstall.

But there's all these programs that my dad has that he can't get back, and if he reinstalls he'll lose all of it :/ that's what's keeping him back from upgrading.

 

[Dunlop0078]

No I highly doubt it your system will not boot with the drivers from your old motherboard. So you wont be able to install the proper drivers for your motherboard. You might be able to image your current OS then add the right drivers to the image (there is a tool to do this but i cant seem to remember the name) but that would be much more complicated than a reinstall and could possibly cause issues. Your best option is a reinstall.

But there's all these programs that my dad has that he can't get back, and if he reinstalls he'll lose all of it :/ that's what's keeping him back from upgrading.

Well you could buy a new hard drive install a new OS on it then connect your old hard drive. You would have to go in and manually reinstall his programs onto the new OS but they would all still be there. Im not entirely sure if that would work properly but I dont see why it wouldn't. Worst case it doesn't then you can just return your new parts and the hard drive and go back to your old setup.

 

[Eximo]

I did that very thing with Windows 7, i7-950 -> i7-4770k. Just had to re-activate. Only recommend using a new hard drive or SSD and cloning the old one so that if it does fail you can re-build the old system.

As long as you are keeping the configuration simple, Windows is more then smart enough to recognize new hardware, especially similar hardware. If you are using a non-Intel RAID controller I wouldn't recommend it.

I have also done the following recently:

Athlon X2 -> i7-950 (yes the very same build has migrated quite a bit, only did a full wipe when I went to SSD)
AMD e350 -> i3-4130

 

[Dunlop0078]

I did that very thing with Windows 7, i7-950 -> i7-4770k. Just had to re-activate. Only recommend using a new hard drive or SSD and cloning the old one so that if it does fail you can re-build the old system.

As long as you are keeping the configuration simple, Windows is more then smart enough to recognize new hardware, especially similar hardware. If you are using a non-Intel RAID controller I wouldn't recommend it.

I have also done the following recently:

Athlon X2 -> i7-950 (yes the very same build has migrated quite a bit, only did a full wipe when I went to SSD)
AMD e350 -> i3-4130

I have tried it as well, I switched from a gigabyte GA-78LMT to a asus M5A99X using the same cpu a couple years ago I tried to booth up the OS i installed with the gigabyte board and it would not boot. The chipset drivers were totally different as i imagine his would be.

 

[Chaingunchris]

I did that very thing with Windows 7, i7-950 -> i7-4770k. Just had to re-activate. Only recommend using a new hard drive or SSD and cloning the old one so that if it does fail you can re-build the old system.

As long as you are keeping the configuration simple, Windows is more then smart enough to recognize new hardware, especially similar hardware. If you are using a non-Intel RAID controller I wouldn't recommend it.

I have also done the following recently:

Athlon X2 -> i7-950 (yes the very same build has migrated quite a bit, only did a full wipe when I went to SSD)
AMD e350 -> i3-4130

How did you do it? Did you use a certain type of software or did you do a certain command in command prompt like the people in the link I provided were doing :|

 

[Eximo]

I have tried two methods with completely equal results.

1) Boot into safe mode and remove as many drivers as possible. Shut down. Swap hardware. Boot. Install new drivers.
2) Shut down. Swap the hardware. Boot. Install new drivers.

ASUS M2N SLI Deluxe (nForce chipset) (AMD) -> ASUS Rampage III Formula (X58) -> ASUS Maximus Hero VI (Z87)
ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe (APU) -> Gigabyte GA-Z87N

Each time I have used clonezilla or acronis true image to make a clone of the system, but I have yet to need any of my backups. On the X58 to Z87 swap I actually had my drives in a raid array. Intel to Intel RAID and it picked it right up with the right BIOS settings. AMD e350 was interesting in that the two boards use the exact same audio chipset, so it didn't even bat an eye and I had audio when I logged in.

Been doing swaps like this since Windows 95 and have never really run into any problems. These days the licensing is more of a concern but generally I have either already had the retail copy of Windows (e350 -> i3) or used licensing loopholes (like upgrading from a trial Win 7 to 8 for $15 when I installed my SSDs, not sure how they missed that one)

If at any point you have had to use a "Install third party driver" prompt during Windows installation or have a special hardware configuration I would probably not make the attempt. Simple single drive systems, not really a big deal.

I can honestly say the move from an i7 900 series to a Haswell chip isn't a huge improvement. Maybe 30-40% on CPU bound applications. General use I didn't notice a change. I was really after PCIe 3.0 and SATA III. Power savings are slightly worth it (but I had my 950 undervolted since my memory couldn't keep up with the overclock)

 

[Chaingunchris]

I have tried two methods with completely equal results.

1) Boot into safe mode and remove as many drivers as possible. Shut down. Swap hardware. Boot. Install new drivers.
2) Shut down. Swap the hardware. Boot. Install new drivers.

ASUS M2N SLI Deluxe (nForce chipset) (AMD) -> ASUS Rampage III Formula (X58) -> ASUS Maximus Hero VI (Z87)
ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe (APU) -> Gigabyte GA-Z87N

Each time I have used clonezilla or acronis true image to make a clone of the system, but I have yet to need any of my backups. On the X58 to Z87 swap I actually had my drives in a raid array. Intel to Intel RAID and it picked it right up with the right BIOS settings. AMD e350 was interesting in that the two boards use the exact same audio chipset, so it didn't even bat an eye and I had audio when I logged in.

Been doing swaps like this since Windows 95 and have never really run into any problems. These days the licensing is more of a concern but generally I have either already had the retail copy of Windows (e350 -> i3) or used licensing loopholes (like upgrading from a trial Win 7 to 8 for $15 when I installed my SSDs, not sure how they missed that one)

If at any point you have had to use a "Install third party driver" prompt during Windows installation or have a special hardware configuration I would probably not make the attempt. Simple single drive systems, not really a big deal.

I can honestly say the move from an i7 900 series to a Haswell chip isn't a huge improvement. Maybe 30-40% on CPU bound applications. General use I didn't notice a change. I was really after PCIe 3.0 and SATA III. Power savings are slightly worth it (but I had my 950 undervolted since my memory couldn't keep up with the overclock)

which one would you recommend? My dads also after Sata 3 because he had to put his main ssd on a JMICRON controller which is Sata 1 I believe and he's getting terrible performance with that. Come to think of it, will that be a problem? Going from a JMICRON controller to an Intel controller?

 

[Eximo]

That could be an issue. X58 boards should all have Intel ICH10 onboard which is SATA II (About 200MB/s per channel) So if you can swap it to that before you make the move you will probably have better luck with the drivers. I doubt they would have included a SATA I controller on that motherboard. That is going back quite a ways, 2002 or 2003 if I recall correctly. (Actually remember the early cables and drives, very poorly manufactured, some of the plastic would split or break with insertion force.)

On my board I had two choices, Intel or Marvel. Marvel was SATA III, but it was a very early version. While it could handle a single drive at about 300MB/s it couldn't handle two and would end up sharing. Effective speed became worse then using two SATA II so I opted for the Intel.