I have installed a new cpu same brand Intel from an i3 third Gen to an i5 4690k. I swap motherboards too from an msi .....some

[syaoran91]

I have installed a new cpu same brand Intel from an i3 third Gen to an i5 4690k. I swap motherboards too from an msi something p45 to a msi z97 g45. I also got a msi gtx 970, had a gigabyte before of that same kinda but it started to malfunction.i also swap ram sticks from corsair to hyperx along with the power supply.
Would I have to reinstall windows now or do anything else??? Or is my pc good to go

 

[Midguards]

Chances are you will but you COULD escape clean if you have win 8 or 10, but if you roll 7 bad news.

 

[bgunner]

Any time you swap out motherboards from one model to a different model you really should reinstall the OS as it could cause errors and be hard to track down OR just not start at all.

 

[theyeti87]

You will need to reinstall Windows because of the new motherboard.

RAM, GPU, CPU swaps don't require you to reinstall Windows. This is different for motherboards because the individual components (such as the chipset) likely won't be the same and the "old" installation of Windows will not be able to boot.

 

[boosted1g]

The new motherboard will have different chipsets and will require a windows reinstall for everything to be stable.

Now you might run into an issue if you did not specifically buy a retail version of windows. OEM/System Builder copies of windows are tied to the motherboard so installing windows on the new motherboard will not activate (it might activate initially but will revert to not genuine in a few days).
Many people have had luck calling Microsoft and saying their motherboard died and thus they replaced it, and Microsoft did give them an alternate activation code; now as I stated many but not all people have had luck doing this.