Hi,
I’ve seen a few people say it’ll be fine, I’ve heard that it is a terrible decision. Could I take my m.2 SSD out of my current AMD PC and put it directly into my new intel system? Should I reset it to default windows first and get rid of programs and drivers? Could use some advice. Thanks!
Absolutely do a clean install. Rule of thumb is motherboard change = clean OS install. you can freely switch CPUs on same motherboard with no issues but switching platforms without a clean install is asking for trouble.
I think you should always go with a fresh install when changing boards.
Yes
To avoid issues I’d install fresh windows.
The answer is yes. Not only CPU you change, also motherboard as well because different chipset. Fresh Windows install is recommended to eliminate bluescreen error issue.
Irrespective of the vendor of the CPU–and irrespective of SSD vs. spinny hard disk–if you take a boot disk from a first PC to a second {different} PC, it is possible that the disk will not have the correct drivers for the second PC.
Whether it operates enough to actually get to the point where you can download the correct drivers is unpredictable. It all depends how much work was done to optimize the disk in the first PC. If there was a lot of vendor effort to remove unneeded software for that context, there might not be enough generic support left to run on the second PC.
The most successful path is to install Windows to an empty new disk, which installs a very generic and broad set of minimum drivers. This gives a context where the new machine can boot and access the internet for any hardware-specific improvements needed for the new PC.
Then use a migration solution to move any apps and data from the original disk to the new machine. These are usually hardware+software combinations that allow one to either copy live from old PC to new PC via a cable or wireless network, or one takes the old disk out of the old PC and plugs in a cable that allows it to appear as an external drive to the new PC.
Theoretically you can.
But you open many cans of worms for issues to occur, worst part is that you won’t know where to look for them.
New system, new install.
I switched out an Alienware motherboard (Intel CPU) to an AMD B450 and AMD 3100 without an issue. After Windows had loaded it installed all the necessary drivers and was good to go.
I would normally have done a new install of Windows but in this instance it didn’t need it.
I think gone are the days of Windows XP etc where you had to do a full reinstall of Windows.
But if you want piece of mind? Sure do a new install.
Problem is some commercial software may be linked to your hardware ID. But that is easily changed. You will just need to know what your current hardware ID is before installing Windows…
Absolutely need a fresh install. Every single AMD driver that was downloaded is still on there and can cause issues. Even today there have been posts of people only getting 16-20k in cinebench when they should be getting 39k because they switched but didn’t fresh install
If you have a modern os I think you don’t need to format, but on the long run, it’s probably better to do it.
It’s a no brainer. Fresh install of windows. Anyone who says otherwise are looking for problems.
It won’t hurt you if you try. Windows comes with all the drivers for the basic functionality. Just backup your data before trying. If it boots, then go in and uninstall all the AMD stuff. If it doesn’t or you see horrible performance issues then you’ll need to reinstall windows.
Windows naturally has the basic drivers ready to use any CPU. For example, I have an Intel system and never had AMD, yet the AMD K8 processor driver and AMD processor drivers among other AMD drivers by Microsoft are there and ready to go when needed.
Wipe it, start fresh.
If you dont, youll just end up with a buggy system that you end up wiping in 6 months time anyway.