Motherboard Change - Reinstall Windows?

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sKHiii

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May 23, 2013
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Hi guys,

I'm changing my motherboard over tomorrow, from a DFI board to a Asus rampage three.

My question is will I have to reinstall windows? Or can I just uninstall old drivers and reinstall new ones? I have never had to change a motherboard over before!

If I do have to have to reinstall, im remember reinstalling before (no hardware changes) and it saves all the files on In a folder called "Old windows" or something like that? If this is not the case what's the easiest way of transferring back my old files?

Many thanks for all your help!
 
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Dashman9000

Dashman9000

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May 16, 2009
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You will have to re-install windows for sure. I would back up any documents, pictures, music, whatever you want to keep to an external drive or some kind of media. You can load all of that back in after the OS install. You may have to get a new license key from microsoft since you are changing out the mobo
 
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bryonhowley

bryonhowley

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Oct 24, 2011
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Well when you change motherboard in general you need to re-install Windows unless you are replacing the board with the same make/model. If you are not reformatting the HDD then your old Windows install will be moved to Windows.old. So that would be were your old user folder and files would be located something like C:\Windows.old\Users\"username"\. As for app's games and such you will have to re-install those of course. But I would still backup any important files you do not want to loose. You can do that with a USB Stick removable drive DVD what ever you have before the re-install.
 
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jwesley

jwesley

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Oct 12, 2012
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You do not need to reinstall Windows. After you reboot with the new mobo, Windows will detect a bunch of new hardware and you will want to have your driver disc(s) standing by. I've done it more than once; no need to reinstall Windows.
 
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sKHiii

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May 23, 2013
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Thanks for all the reply's guys!

I don't have any discs as the mobo was bought as an OEM so nothing included. Any essential drivers I will need from here?
http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1366/RAMPAGE_III_EXTREME/#download

 
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sKHiii

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May 23, 2013
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Jwesley - I've done a little reading and Ive seen a few places that there can be conflicts with old drivers or incompatible ones that can lead to crashes etc.

Is this the case and is it just the gpu and hardware drivers etc or the Mobo/chip drivers?

 
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jwesley

jwesley

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Oct 12, 2012
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It's hard to say. I would download the latest BIOS, chipset, audio, LAN and SATA drivers from the Asus site and have them ready on a USB drive or CD or somewhere accessible. Boot into safe mode, open the device manager and delete everything with a red 'x' next to it, then reboot and let Windows load whatever default drivers it can, then install the downloaded drivers, beginning with the BIOS. Hope this helps.
 
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