Swapping mobo, CPU & RAM - do I need to uninstall anything first?

RampantMark · 3 Nov 2019 at 16:48

Our home PC needs an upgrade - so I've ordered a few bits for my gaming rig and will use the swapped-out parts to upgrade the other home PC...

What I have at the moment:
Gigabyte B450 Auros Elite; Ryzen 5 2600X; 16Gb Corsair Vengeance 3000 C16. (with Rx 5700 XT Nitro+)

What I have ordered:
Gigabyte B450 Auros Pro; Ryzen 5 3600; 16Gb Corsair Vengeance 3000 C15.

I figure that moving everything together, intact, to the other PC will pose its own issues, but for the first project I was wondering whether I ought to uninstall anything from Windows on my current game rig prior to disassembly… like mobo drivers or perhaps the Radeon GPU software and drivers? Or should it just be a case of leaving the Windows install as it is now and then re-install new mobo drivers after reassembly.

First job after reassembly is probably to enter BIOS and configure the memory and boot device priority and keep updating the sequential BIOS updates using Q-Flash up to the latest BIOS set, prior to booting to Windows for the first time.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

m4cc45 · 4 Nov 2019 at 11:17

I would always reinstall Windows on a new build. It's not as much of a problem with Windows 10 (on the assumption you are using that). I find it's a far better experience and will rule out a lot of issues (i.e. if your PC blue screens then you are guessing between hardware and software where as if you do a new install and it blue screens then you can immediately start looking at hardware).

M.

bremen1874 · 4 Nov 2019 at 11:36

Windows 10 will probably handle the move between platforms without any problems. They're running the same chipset which will make life easier.

I'd image the drive first (Macrium Reflect) just in case.

Whether it's worth it will depend on how complicated your software configuration is. Reinstalling Windows itself doesn't take long.

RampantMark · 4 Nov 2019 at 13:10

Realised after I posted this that I don't think the mobo is out-of-the-box compatible with 3000 series Ryzen.

That means the process will now involve installing the mobo and new RAM with the existing 2600X, then a combination of sequential BIOS and chipset updates prior to removing the 2600X CPU and replacing with the 3600.

I'll run the final BIOS update and reinstall the chipset drivers after swapping CPUs.

Only then will I know whether Windows needs to be "repaired" for the new processor.
Is it really so intrinsically embedded that a Windows installation will be picky about a change of processor to a similar processor?

bremen1874 · 4 Nov 2019 at 13:28

RampantMark said:
Is it really so intrinsically embedded that a Windows installation will be picky about a change of processor to a similar processor?

No.

RampantMark · 4 Nov 2019 at 14:17

bremen1874 said:
No.

That'd be helpful if that's going to work.

Thanks

pastymuncher · 5 Nov 2019 at 08:01

You can go straight to the latest bios unless the bios notes state that a certain version has to be installed first. You don't have to update every bios version to get to the latest. Same with the drivers.

RampantMark · 5 Nov 2019 at 08:52

pastymuncher said:
You can go straight to the latest bios unless the bios notes state that a certain version has to be installed first. You don't have to update every bios version to get to the latest. Same with the drivers.

Reason I mentioned it is that with the Aorus BIOS updates, there are a couple that allegedly, in the notes, require another BIOS to be updated first, and one BIOS update that actually requires an updated chipset driver installation first.