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Does a new motherboard require a clean OS install?

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chedderslam1976   10-15-2009 at 10:51:40 PM

I know that normally, the answer is yes. However I think this might be an exception.

I currently have a Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz on a P4SD-LA motherboard. My friend just upgraded his system, and is giving me some of the parts. So I am getting a Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz on a P4SD-LA motherboard.

Since the motherboards are the same model, can I get away without doing a clean install? Can I just switch them out and boot?

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Bronze Home Brew badge wathman   10-15-2009 at 10:59:24 PM

yeah, I've done repairs in the past when boards have gone bad and just swapped them out for identical models. Since you and your friends systems are probably not 100% identical, you might run into some issues with stuff like graphics card drivers, though if you completely uninstall the old drivers and then put on your own it should take care of that. I'm finding with newer hardware and OSes you actually can get away with moving a hard drive to a completely foreign system and get it to boot, though the drivers and registry are so unoptimized that it will take forever to load each time at boot up. Clean installs are always a good idea if you have the time.

But otherwise, I don't think there will be any huge incompatibilities with your idea.

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chedderslam1976   10-15-2009 at 11:05:07 PM

I was planning on running the same graphics card when I swap out. The only change will be the physical motherboard.

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dark_lord69   10-15-2009 at 11:08:39 PM

Yeah, if it's the same motherboard you don't have to do a re-installation.
If you were switching from an Intel cpu setup to an AMD setup, then yes for sure you would need to do a re-installation.

Even if the motherboard was different there would still be a slight chance that you could boot it up without a re-installation. (But that would depend on chipset differences) Just not a different brand of CPU.

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JackNaylorPE   10-15-2009 at 11:22:57 PM

The reason a "new motherboard" requires a new install is because components are different.....a replacement motherboard is not a "new" MoBo....just a replacement.

------------------------------ If a man speaks in the forest and no woman hears him, is he still wrong ?
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