Motherboard and CPU change – New OS install not required? But is it recommended?

[gazmatron]

Hello. So I had an Asus Crosshair IV motherboard with an AMD FX-8350 CPU that I wanted an upgrade on. The motherboard was starting to show its age. Important to note is I had ‘Win7 64 Professional’ installed on my 250gb SSD. I bought a ‘new to me’ Maximus VII Ranger board, an i5-4690K and some higher hertz RAM. So clearly making the switch from AMD to Intel. I removed all the existing components and rebuilt the PC using the new motherboard, CPU and RAM. I am reusing the my SSD hard drive, GTX 970, PSU and case etc. This is where it got a bit strange. When I booted the PC up I did not expect the current install of Windows to work, but it did. I installed all the chipset drivers, motherboard drivers, everything I could think of for the new hardware. And it all seems to work fine. I did some gaming and it all seemed happy. Windows has not given me any issues.

1). I was under the impression that your operating system was tied to your motherboard, and that an upgrade such as this would require a fresh install of windows? Or at least some form of reactivation. I have a legit copy of Windows so this should be fine.

2). The new build seems to be working just fine. However I just wonder whether not installing a fresh copy of Windows will cause me issues further down the line. Do you think a fresh install, albeit a nuisance, is the better way to go? I did remove as many AMD applications as I could but now that I think of it I did not do any driver clean up.

I was just wondering what everyone’s thoughts on that would be.

Many thanks
Gareth

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Only OEM Windows is tied to the motherboard, doesn't apply to retail, non-OEM Windows.

With Windows 7 you are advised to re-install Windows and activate it if the motherboard has been changed, because even though you say you are having no problems at the moment, there may well be problems further down the line that you just haven't encountered yet.

Others will no doubt disagree, it's up to you whose advice you go with, but I re-installed after changing my motherboard as that was the advice I was given by most Windows experts and other moderators here.

If you don't and you start getting errors, you will always be wondering if a clean install would have avoided that.
So it pays to clean install from the get-go in my opinion.

 

[Tadeh123]

You will always be running into little issues here and there so you really should do a fresh install

 

[gazmatron]

Thanks guys. I guess deep down I knew a full clean install was always the best way to go but just needed someone else to say so, to give me the nudge.