Question Swapping old motherboard for exact same motherboard/ windows 10?

[rcsverige]

Just to make things short, I need to replace my mobo (prime b550m-a) and I just bought the exact same model (prime b550m-a) and brand because it worked great before. I was wondering g about whether it is necessary to reinstall windows? The reason I am asking this is because I am finishing a research paper and can’t afford to lose time but I also really need to replace the mobo and PSU. Is it really necessary to reinstall windows the moment I swap the new mobo especially when it is literally the exact same? I know I might need to authenticate windows but I’m not too concerned about that per se.

 

[tennis2]

Should be fine without reinstalling.

 

[geofelt]

If time is sensitive, can you finish your research paper first?
Or, has your system failed and you need to recover?
You should have no problem swapping in the same make/model of motherboard.
Windows will still be activated and all drivers will remain the same.

Why do you need to replace the psu?
Can that be deferred until your paper is done?

 

[rcsverige]

If time is sensitive, can you finish your research paper first?
Or, has your system failed and you need to recover?
You should have no problem swapping in the same make/model of motherboard.
Windows will still be activated and all drivers will remain the same.

Why do you need to replace the psu?
Can that be deferred until your paper is done?

Well recently I had been having some issues with my PC where I would get crashes in Nvidia Control Panel when trying to change my default color settings to Nvidia Color Settings (under the resolution tab) and I began seeing error codes such as OpenAL crashes, Hardware errors, and so on in my reliability and event viewer history. A person suggested that it might be a failing PSU (4 years old)... since both my Motherboard and Psu are 4 years old I decided, way before this happened, to change them out but this sort of sped things up... Now I am worried about using my PC to work on this research and then have my PSU fail and potentially ruin my hardware which would most certainly leave me without a computer as I cant afford a full replacement. So basically I dont have a ton of evidence to suggest my PSU is failing but rather this rests on a person suggestion and my own paranoia about the only two pieces of hardware in my PC that are actually old in comparison to the rest. I still am going to replace them regardless but I am trying to figure out if I can actually wait and if it is worth the gamble to do so or if I should just replace them both as soon as possible.

 

[geofelt]

Finish your paper first.
If you can, make a backup of what you hold dear.
Changing anything introduces risk of causing a problem where there was none before.

Most likely your issues stem from the software side and not the hardware side.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Just to make things short, I need to replace my mobo (prime b550m-a) and I just bought the exact same model (prime b550m-a) and brand because it worked great before. I was wondering g about whether it is necessary to reinstall windows? The reason I am asking this is because I am finishing a research paper and can’t afford to lose time but I also really need to replace the mobo and PSU. Is it really necessary to reinstall windows the moment I swap the new mobo especially when it is literally the exact same? I know I might need to authenticate windows but I’m not too concerned about that per se.

There's no such thing as "Identical". Windows plug & play will detect the new motherboard via the unique PnP signatures on the board and will reinstall all drivers in its library. Be prepared for this as it has (from time to time) been known to fail. Have all media for reinstall (including full backup of your files) along with all license codes at your fingertips just in case.