Replacing my motherboard

[josuemora111]

Hello guys, I'm new to the world of PC building, so i'm hoping I could get some advice from the pros. I'm about to buy a new motherboard since my old one doesn't seem to be able to detect ram anymore and it just gets my PC stuck on a boot loop. It's a gigabyte GA-H170-D3HP, and I'm planing on replacing it for an Asrock Z170 Fatal1ty gaming K4.

Anyways, my questions are, Will I have to reinstall windows? Will files like games, programs, game savefiles etc. be just the way i left them? Are there any steps i should do before taking my system apart and install a new motherboard?

I'd appreciate any and all help! Thanks for your responses!!!


My specs are:

motherboard: GA-H170-D3HP
CPU: intel i5- 6600k
GPU: rx480 8gb
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 750 B1 80+ BRONZE
RAM: Hyperx DDR4 8gb 2133mhz ram (2 sticks bought separately)
Hard drive: Seagate 1TB Desktop HDD (ST1000DM003)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Case: Corsair Carbide Series Black 300R

 

[Darkbreeze]

Are you getting the Z170 or Z270 version of the Fatal1ty gaming K4?

 

[josuemora111]

The Z170, since its my only option for my CPU i believe

 

[unclebun]

You might be able to swap the motherboard and be able to get Windows running from your old hard drive on it. But you need to be prepared to have to wipe out the hard drive and start over with a clean installation of Windows.

 

[josuemora111]

You might be able to swap the motherboard and be able to get Windows running from your old hard drive on it. But you need to be prepared to have to wipe out the hard drive and start over with a clean installation of Windows.

Really? So would you reccomend i format my harddrive before installing a new motherboard?

 

[unclebun]

You might be able to swap the motherboard and be able to get Windows running from your old hard drive on it. But you need to be prepared to have to wipe out the hard drive and start over with a clean installation of Windows.

Really? So would you reccomend i format my harddrive before installing a new motherboard?

I'm saying you could try putting the hard drive on the new motherboard as-is, but chances are less than 50% it will work and run properly.

 

[Darkbreeze]

The Z170, since its my only option for my CPU i believe

No, it's not. Z270 supports Skylake CPUs. Kaby lake CPUs will work in Z170 chipset motherboards and visa versa. I was thinking it only worked in one direction, but it works both ways. I was thinking about Coffee Lake when I said that earlier if you read it before I corrected this post. You need a bios update to run Kaby Lake in a Skylake board and you can run Skylake in a Kaby Lake board right out of the box.

If you are using a motherboard with the same chipset, in this case, Z170, then you CAN get by without reinstalling the operating system, but it is STILL recommended to do so, because there can be significantly different storage controllers which use totally different storage controller drivers depending on the board model. The chipset drivers and configuration are not the only concern during an upgrade. It's is the primary concern though. Storage controllers can and do cause issues when they are different in some cases, but more often than not when it's the same chipset motherboard, turns out well enough.

For you though, if you stay with Z170, I'd say you don't fully need to do a clean install. If you move up to a Z270 chipset motherboard, I would recommend the clean install. If you have problems AFTERWARDS, then I would do the clean install regardless of which board you go with.

If you DO a clean install, which is never a bad idea when you change major hardware, you can do so as follows, and there should not be any activation issues so long as your current Windows 10 activation license is tied to YOU, through a Microsoft account or other means of identifying your copy of windows to you. If you have upgraded to Windows 10 from another version of Windows, or purchased hardware that came with Windows 10 preinstalled, you should be fine.

Windows 10 Clean install tutorial

 

[Darkbreeze]

I updated that last post to correct some misinformation I gave you.