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Upgrading some hardware

Forum Homebuilt Systems : General Homebuilt - Upgrading some hardware

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steve finley   09-11-2009 at 07:21:39 PM

I'm about to upgrade my PC. I'm keeping my disk drives, power supply, case, sound card, and 2 HDDs (one for storage, one for installs). I will be upgrading my MB, CPU, video card, and RAM.

My question is about the drivers. I've installed new cards and was just able to install the new driver with them, but I'm not sure how this will work with a new MB. I know it would be best to just wipe my HDD with windows on it and do a fresh install with all the new drivers, but that would just be a pain.

Will I run into problems booting off the new gear with a OS that has the drivers from the old gear? Should I rollback all the drivers before I install the new gear then install the new drivers?

Thanks.

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Bronze Home Brew badge wathman   09-11-2009 at 07:34:00 PM

Once you change the motherboard, you really should be doing a brand new install. There's drivers not only for your video card, but every single component on your motherboard needs drivers too. Technically it's possible to go back in using the windows repair tool to fix the OS, but it really is better to just bite the bullet and do a fresh install.

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steve finley   09-11-2009 at 07:43:57 PM

I was planning on installing all the new drivers. I was just hoping that once the new MB was installed I could still boot up windows and use driver cleaner to clear out old ones then install the new ones.


Message edited by steve finley on 09-11-2009 at 07:44:55 PM
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Bronze Home Brew badge wathman   09-11-2009 at 07:57:17 PM

since the new hardware on the motherboard is probably drastically different than what's on your old one, Windows will at worst, blue screen on you until you do a new install, or at best, boot up into a crippled state that might maintain stability long enough to run a program. Either way, there are still a number of drivers that will need to be updated in a pre-boot environment, since they can't be accessed while windows is running. Eventually you might get it working, but you'll probably waste more time fixing it than you would on the reinstall.

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