Upgrading Motherboard: Necessary Reinstall of Windows?

Mac On Track

Reputable
Aug 14, 2014
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4,510
Good morning,

I have had my custom light editing/gaming rig for about a year now, and exclude upgrading my Graphics card and chassis, nothing else has been changed. However currently I am doing a lot more work with Premiere and After effects, and would like a more powerful CPU, (The FX 8350) However my motherboard doesn't support it, as it is the MSI A-78-me35 which is using an Athlon x4 760k at the moment. I would like to just upgrade and plug in my hard-drive and just install mobo drivers, but I have been informed it is not that simple.

Do I need to reinstall windows? And would it hurt to try to boot up with the new mother board/cpu, without clean install and see if it works?

Also I have my CD copy of windows 8, but I have been using windows 10 so can I just use the product key from my windows 8 CD with a bootable flash drive iso of windows 10? Or do I need to install windows 8 and upgrade?

Thank you for all of the help.
 
Solution
Yes, you will need to reinstall the OS.
And yes, you will need to install Win 8.1 first, then upgrade again to Win 10. You can't use the Win 8 license key to activate a clean install of Win 10.

New motherboard - reinstall is always recommended, often required.

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Yes, you will need to reinstall the OS.
And yes, you will need to install Win 8.1 first, then upgrade again to Win 10. You can't use the Win 8 license key to activate a clean install of Win 10.

New motherboard - reinstall is always recommended, often required.
 
Solution

Mac On Track

Reputable
Aug 14, 2014
18
0
4,510


For future reference, when install a new cpu, but not mobo, do I also have reinstall windows?
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator


Almost certainly not.