Need to reformat after upgrading mobo and VGA?

[shamrock1313]

I purchased a 7800GT and new PCI-E motherboard. Will I need to reformat for the hardware to work properly or can I just plug and play?

Right now I have a 9800 Pro.

 

[Spike]

If it was just a vid card then no, with a mobo definitly yes. You can survive without it but I can almost garuntee you that there will be stability issues. A mobo is about the only piece of hardware that pretty much requires a re-install. Even a CPU can be changed without issues but a mobo... definitly redo it.

Just for the record I did install a new mobo once and did not re-install windows. That was the only time I can remember when my computer rebooted all the time and my system was unstable. A simple wipe fixed it. Good luck!

-spike

 

[YoshiSato]

What operation system are you using? What are you moving from GPU and MOBO wise?
If your using WinXP it's a little hard to say.

When I built my new Athlon 64 rig(this was a total rebuild except the Hard Drive) I had to reinstall everything because the Windows installation from my Old system (Intel CPU, with a Asus mobo and a AGP ATI GPU) did not like the new mobo or video card. Was a royal pain in the fracking ass.

Before I formated I put the HD in the old machine and tried to remove all Intel, OLD Asus and ATI references. This did not work and had to still do the format.

I recommend doing a backup of everything important before making the switch.
Also, if your smart you would have your hard drive partitioned in such away where C drive only contains your OS and D has all of your apps.(This is for cases like this. You lose your OS installation but your APPS are OK for the most part. Would need a reinstall for Windows registrary but your data is still there un affected. Unless your MBR goes bye bye.)

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: YoshiSato
What operation system are you using? What are you moving from GPU and MOBO wise?
If your using WinXP it's a little hard to say.

When I built my new Athlon 64 rig(this was a total rebuild except the Hard Drive) I had to reinstall everything because the Windows installation from my Old system (Intel CPU, with a Asus mobo and a AGP ATI GPU) did not like the new mobo or video card. Was a royal pain in the fracking ass.

Before I formated I put the HD in the old machine and tried to remove all Intel, OLD Asus and ATI references. This did not work and had to still do the format.

I recommend doing a backup of everything important before making the switch.
Also, if your smart you would have your hard drive partitioned in such away where C drive only contains your OS and D has all of your apps.(This is for cases like this. You lose your OS installation but your APPS are OK for the most part. Would need a reinstall for Windows registrary but your data is still there un affected. Unless your MBR goes bye bye.)

This is a good idea except that windows is so annoying that even if your apps are still around half the time they won't load as there are no registry entries. I keep my games on a seperate drive but all my main programs (like office) are on the C as they need to be reinstalled anyway.

-spike

 

[Jiggz]

If you can afford to reformat, you'll be better off. If you cannot afford to reformat back up your data only and then reformat anyways. In short, you can't go wrong with reformatting not to mention a good conscience which will prevent you from looking back just in case you experience problems along the way.

 

[DimZiE]

i don't think won't even boot... so you better back up your important data...and do a format.

 

[grimdeath]

while you CAN sometimes get it to work w/o a reformat, your best bet is always to reformat, but you can do something that will help you down the road. ive heard several people mention either using two hard drives of splitting the partition on a single drive and having one partition for your OS install, and the rest for you gaming and stored files...that way you dont have back up EVERYTHING each time you reformat

hope this helps

 

[pontifex]

interesting...i always heard that you had to reinstall windows over itself after upgrading cpu and mobo. but, the last time i upgraded my mobo and cpu it booted into windows fine, found new components and stuff and ran fine. i reinstalled windows over itself again anyway to be safe though. previous upgrade to that i just reinstalled windows

 

[redhatlinux]

Take a look at arstechnica, there is a sticky thread about changing mobos without a re-install, it works if you follow the process.

 

[woodchuck69]

I tried to boot windows just for fun when I upgraded from Nforce2 to Nforce 4 ultra with 9700 pro to 7800GTX ---- Windows immediately laughed at me and bluescreened.

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: woodchuck69
I tried to boot windows just for fun when I upgraded from Nforce2 to Nforce 4 ultra with 9700 pro to 7800GTX ---- Windows immediately laughed at me and bluescreened.

Hehe, too true. I notice swapping mobos and using original boot drives works if the chipsets on both mobos are similar. While I have only used mobos with Intel chipsets I have swapped mobos 3 times in 2 years and still use the boot drive from the first mobo. Over 2 years on the same WinXP sp2 drive.

 

[MrDudeMan]

it is stupid to do it without formatting. nothing like the speed of a clean install...

installing a motherboard and trying to use an old install of windows is like picking 1 ply toilet paper over 2 ply. you just dont do that if you have common sense.