Upgrading motherboard and CPU do I need to reinstall windows?

[Nathaniel02]

Upgrading motherboard and CPU to Ryzen 1600. According to most resources online i need to reinstall windows, do I need to wipe my current hardrive that I will be using before I reinstall windows?

 

[androbourne]

Yes. Any time you make a major change to hardware, you need to reinstall.

The OS has drivers for specific hardware such as motherboard drivers. The only way you can get around not having to reinstall. Is by replacing it with a very similar hardware.

But going from something like an old FX board to a new Ryzen board. For you, reinstall.

in theory you could clone it over, but that can get messy and still have old drivers\firmware installed for the old system isnt a great idea.

 

[USAFRet]

Upgrading motherboard and CPU to Ryzen 1600. According to most resources online i need to reinstall windows, do I need to wipe my current hardrive that I will be using before I reinstall windows?

What OS is it? If Win 10, read and do this before changing any parts:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/20530/windows-10-reactivating-after-hardware-change
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3164428/windows-build-1607-activation.html

Reinstall? May be needed, maybe not.
Prepare for if it does need a reinstall.

You wipe the drive during the new install, not before.

(anyone who says you never need to simply hasn't done it enough to see it fail)