swapping motherboard and cpu

[GoldenbanjoDJ]

hello lovely people!

i'm swapping my old crosshair iii formula and amd phenom ii 955 for an upgraded system - 2600k with asrock fatal1ty (i like the colours

) and some new g-skill ram too.

in terms of swapping the my ssd boot drive and my storage drives over, is there anything i need to be mindful of? it won't need a fresh install or wipe the drives, right?

will it just run straight off the bat no problem?

 

[Lollipop]

DON'T GET ASROCK!!11oneelleven!!1!1 And imo just get the 2500k

 

[kilobravo]

You need a new installation of windows and drivers.

And i would find a better brand like asus,gigabyte or even msi.

 

[KaraMurat]

I always thought you had to do a fresh install when switching out motherboards but recently, I did a motherboard upgrade for my brother without wiping the HDD and it worked without any problems. As he already had Windows 7 installed on the HDD, when we first booted-up windows downloaded all the drivers and necessary updates, restarted and worked perfectly.

I thought there would be driver conflicts or errors but to this date his pc has been fine and hasn't had any problems. Give it a try, if anything goes wrong just format, nothing to lose.

 

[GoldenbanjoDJ]

thanks for responses so far!

i have been doing my research and have also seen someone just do the straight swap with success. his system was going from intel to AMD and he described results similar to yours, Kara.

however, I've also seen MANY people recommending the fresh install. I would do things this way if I had time, and if I didn't have so much stored on my computer...

if i try the straight swap method and it doesn't work, my drives will still be ok right?

also, I'm running my current SSD Drive in AHCI. Will I have to go into the bios of the new board and set the SATA type to AHCI before putting the drive in, or will it automatically set to AHCI? Will having multiple drives (2 SSDs and 1 HDD) be a problem?

Sorry for n00by comments! I get nervous about these things lol! u can probably tell haha!

 

[I Hunta x]

The storage drive will be fine to drop into what ever machine as it is (if it has any programs on they might need to be reinstalled but its generaly ok).

As for your ssd (im assuming that drive has windows on) just copy any files off it and format it and do a fresh install once its in the new machine, i transferred a windows drive from my old server to my new one and it worked, but ended up being a hastle with pretty bad performance/some software being a right arse about it (java mainly), after 5 days of trying to sort the problems i just formated and did a fresh install and had zero problems after that.

IMHO just save your self the possible hastle and do a fresh install of windows straight away.

 

[KaraMurat]

Yeah your drives will be alright if anything does go wrong (hopefully not), you will just have to format it (just like a fresh install). Just remember to back-up your important stuff just in case.

Can't really help you on the other question as I have no exp, but I would imagine you would have to attach the drive anyway as (I think) you can't change sata types if there's nothing to change (i.e. if the drive ain't plugged in). Not sure if it will be automatic though and I can't imagine why having multiple drives would be a problem.

 

[KING_OF_SAND]

Yea, i don't think you will need a new install of windows. I went from my crosshair formula III to a Sabertooth 990fx and the only thing i had to install was the motherboards driver and the peripherals again.

 

[sheroo]

Also Tom's recent "Shinobi mod challenge" build he swapped his current board with the Gigabyte X58A-OC board and didn't need to re-install windows. He just used his current ssd with his os on...

 

[Scoob]

Hi,

Fresh install is cleaner as you/windows is only installing the drivers needed. I recently changed motherboards in my rig from an MSI G45 to my ASUS and I did not re-install windows. Windows handled this fine, though I did have updated drivers for the new board all to hand on a USB key (network different, so non-functional at first boot)

As you're going AMD to Intel chipsets it might be better to to a full re-install, though you lose nothing by trying just a swap first - I've found Windows 7 to be pretty robust, IF you have the drivers it needs ready.

Cheers & best of luck,

Scoob.

 

[BrandonR-NZ]

I used the same boot drive from my old rig into my new one, just had to install new drivers and re activate windows, had no issues at all.