Here begins my tale of self-built pc woe. Awhile back I started having signs of PSU failure in that the PC would shut down without warning. I bought a new, identical power supply but the problem went away until Monday, when the PC shut down and then, when I tried to restart it one last time to save something before the replacement operation, the PC failed to do more than power on and then, before anything could happen, power back off again. Oops. Clearly I waited too long to do the changeover.
But I planned ahead! So I went and changed out the PSUs, but then the PC wouldn’t boot at all. No power, no lights, nothing. Utterly dead and unresponsive. Ok, maybe I jarred something loose. I went and tried to reseat everything, and in the process, because I am a hasty, dull-fingered idiot, broke some of the critical pins on the mobo for the various power connectors. Ugh. So now I need a new motherboard, and since the chip’s pretty old, I went ahead and got a newer one to go along with it.
All of which leads up to my question: can I install the new chip/mobo combination and simply hook everything back up the way it was before? My google-fu gives me varied answers, and I trust the people here way more than whatever old threads I find on reddit or tom’s hardware.
Windows 10?
If so I am pretty sure you can slap it all together and boot up, you might have to do a clean OS install though. Or maybe its the OS repair option, I forget off the top of my head. Always try a repair before choosing the other option.
Windows has to re-learn your new components and forget all the drivers / software of the old mobo.
Also make sure your old ram is supported on the new mobo.
Maybe boot up without the SSD plugged in and check out the UEFI to make sure everything looks good before booting from the SSD.
It’s Windows 10. Everything is supported/compatible, at least according to PC Part Picker.
I’ll give the repair a shot once I work up the courage to reengage with the new motherboard (thanks for the 2-day delivery, Amazon). I’d really like to avoid reinstalling everything if possible. This is my third home-built PC but the first time I feel like I’ve actively screwed something up. I can bluff my way through the basics, but once things go sideways, my lack of knowledge looms.
One does not simply swap out a motherboard.
Seriously, though. I would back up my data and then do a fresh OS install.
An update.
I wound up having to do a fresh Windows 10 install. After installing the new mobo/chip, etc, the PC booted up but all the motherboard-related functions (like, say the ethernet port and wifi) were disabled. It did let me move a few things around before I did the install, which I appreciated, and it runs like a dream now. As an added bonus, I got rid of a bunch of little-used programs that were taking up disk space.
Plus, in some small way, upgrading only part of the PC makes me feel more badass than simply building a new one. Thanks for the help everyone.
