Hello gurus. Can I upgrade my base system cpu/mobo/ram only without formatting or losing any data? And if it's possible, what should I clean or Uninstall first? I have a trash internet connection and I feel coward at the moment. Every help is much appreciated, thanks.
That's how I've done it but it will trigger activation which can be a pain but usually can be sorted. You're going to get a lot of clean install opinions on here but personally I don't feel like setting up everything for days afterwards as I run across things I've forgotten I've even done. I haven't done a clean install since I bought 8 for 39.99 I'm on 10 (1809) now with no issues.
So, even if I activate windows again legally, I still would encounter issues? No way to just copy 100% registry keys and apps(no device drivers and software) installation for a new windows setup from scratch? Everything would still need reinstalling? Thanks.
If you are going that far you might as well do a clean install I'm lazy so I didn't bother. I think I must live a charmed life because I have always just switched stuff out with no issues plus none of the issues that people on here have mentioned when they have upgraded versions of 10.
I have done an upgrade from a Intel 2600K Z68 chipset to a Ryzen 7 + x470 and and had really weird problems with cores sometimes being disabled, high cpu load when idling just to name 2. Even went so far to manually removing all the previous drivers before upgrading the hardware and still had random crashes and whatnot.
As noted by above poster. If changing the motherboard, a new OS install is usually necessary. You could always give it a try and uninstall all drivers just before changing out the motherboard (for e.g. individually in device manager).
if you have a windows 10 install, the swapping of a motherboard is generally piss easy, you just have to remove any vendor specific utilities and applications, or upgrade them before hand if you're retaining the same vendor. even in windows xp you could do VIA to nforce swaps if you knew what you were doing with no stability ramifications.
If you do upgrade and try to save the OS, first know what you are upgrading to then down load and save all drivers so in case you can not get online(you'll have what you need to get online). Good luck let us know.........
Just reinstall the OS, what's the big deal? If you don't know how to do it, there are a gazillion of videos on the web showing you exactly what to do. Backup the data you need, download drivers for the new motherboard from Motherboards developers website, download the latest GPU drivers and you are set. Better learn the process, instead of attempting to fix a broken system on a new hardware.
I have just upgraded a i7-6700k with a Z170 board to a i7-8700k with a Z370 board on Windows 10 recently. After replacing the components, I booted the system up and Windows started installing the base drivers for me to get on so I can install the chipset, and other drivers and to reactivate Windows. No crashes at all. I think it is doable only when you are upgrading from one Intel chipset to another and not from Intel to AMD or other way around.
These kinds of upgrades can work with any system, but it's highly recommended to do a clean reinstall to avoid any potential issues. This isn't an absolutely mandatory thing, but it's good practice. It's like using DDU when upgrading a GPU - not necessary but highly recommended.
I wouldn't say it will work with all sort of configurations... a few years back, I had an old Phenom 1090 and upgraded to the i7 6700k with a Z170 board and it wouldn't boot properly. I remember taking the precaution by uninstalling all AMD stuffs before shutting down/hardware swaps and it would still blue screen/restart so I end up having to install a flesh copy of Windows 10.
If you have Win 10 retail it should work. Ofc OEM too but needs reactivation. I did this when switching to Ryzen from Core i5. Though I did clean install right after but on-the-fly went surprisingly smoothly. PS: if you haven't yet, create a separate partition for storing data. This way you can format only system partition when clean installing. Naturally you'll still need to reinstall your software and reconfigure everything but if your games for example are installed on this separate partition Steam / Origin / UPlay can discover the existing content once you point it out. Origin and UPlay have discover installed content function per game and Steam should find the games once you re-select your game library location. Ofc Steam has backup content function for backup / restore as well. No need to redownload anything (but you need a separate drive / partition for storing the backups to be able to format your system partition).