Switching CPU and Motherboard Types. Prep work required?

I'm making the switch from AMD (FX-6350) to Intel (i5-4690k). Is there anything that needs to be uninstalled (drivers or whatever) in windows before doing the swap? I have a ton of experience building and upgrading PCs, but this will be my first CPU/Mobo switch on an existing rig. Anything I may not be thinking about? Any recommended preparations I should do before hand? Anything I should do while I'm in there?

Waiting for my new cpu cooler to arrive (tomorrow). I got the CPU on Sunday (Only $189 right now at Fry's). Motherboard came in today. As tempting as it is to do the swap now, I don't want to have to pull the motherboard again tomorrow to install the cooler.

You will most likely need to format your system partition and reinstall Windows since you are making a drastic chipset change. You may get lucky and Windows may detect the changes and be fine, but this type of thing rarely works out so well.

You can back up your data and try to change out your motherboard and CPU and see if Windows handles it itself, but be ready to format and reinstall.

@thatonedudenick: What version of windows are you using? If it's 8 or newer I think it's usually tied to your motherboard so you might need to move the licence. Also it really is best to format & reinstall windows fresh as @mb suggested, it's going to be a lot less hassle & avoid a bunch of conflicts you might not necessarily detect initially.

If you really, really don't want to format and want to take shot at it. Then, make sure you remove the mobo drivers from your os before installing the new one.

I very much doubt you will be able to keep your Windows install.

That said, I changed out my MB yesterday and was ready to go reinstalling everything, turned on the machine and the old install said a bunch of stuff about preparing devices for a couple of minutes and then worked flawlessly. Blew my freaking mind! However, I transferred every piece of hardware to the new MB, CPU included. Going from AMD to Intel, I imagine your experience will be different.

I'll let you guys know how it goes. Going to see if my current installation wants to play nice. I'm making backups of my data and I have a copy of Win10 preview on a USB ready to go. My Win7 key is OEM, so I can't transfer the license if it doesn't want to play nice.

How in the fuck....Youre just talking crazy! CRAZY!

Well, I did still have to call Microsoft tech support and punch in a 63-digit installation code on my phone that then got me a 54-digit activation code to re-activate my Windows install since it thought I had installed Windows on a different machine. It would have been less trouble if I were just pirating the OS. Other than that, everything is running fine and my mainboard isn't a outdated Foxxconn PoS anymore.

Back on topic. OP, make sure you get any game saves off your drive that you might want to keep. I backed up a bunch and then ended up not having to, but it really would have sucked to have lost them.

You really shouldn't swap mobo and cpu without doing a full reinstall, you're asking for a lot of problems. It's also a good habit to run things on a minimal install if you can in the future to avoid stuff like this. You can also try to separate your system partitions from your installed stuff and documents as a preemptive measure for next time. Some people go as far as making installing everything to a separate partition leaving only what is operating system necessary on a separate, main partition. I only have my games and large files on a separate hdd entirely and default my steam folder to there which makes it a lot easier to do upgrades. Alternatively you can buy a new hdd as the prices have dropped significantly and make that your new main drive allowing you to pick at your old one for anything you may have left behind.

Now is the time to think ahead if you're going down this road. Any preparing work you do now will save you loads of time in the future.

I have been lucky i guess, i've switched computers about 4 times with a single hardrive, swapped out motherboards and processors etc and never had any issues. I always backed up my stuff just in case though.

@thatonedudenick: Everytime I do a motherboard swap, I clone my boot drive and then sysprep it. I use it at work to create images of computers that'll end up being deployed on hundreds of computers, and while we have SCCM here to automate the whole process, you can use it at home, too. (Unless you've upgraded from a previous version of Windows. Then, I'm pretty sure sysprep won't work.)

Start an escalated command prompt and run sysprep from %windir%\system32\sysprep\

Out of box experience it,generalize, and choose shutdown under shutdown options. Generalize is important, as it strips out all system specific items so that they can be added back in upon boot. Its important to select shutdown. If you walk away from your PC and sysprep finishes, upon first boot, it will start the out of box experience - you don't want this, not on your old pc. Once Sysprep has finished generalizing, put your old drive in your new PC and boot it up. It'll boot into the out of box experience, install whatever base drivers it needs to get going, and after a few reboots, it'll act like a whole new Windows installation.

At this point, you'll need to create a new user profile, but it's just a throwaway account. Your old profile is still there. Your old software is still there. Your bookmarks. Everything. Just make sure you have the network drivers for your new motherboard handy so you can install the rest of your drivers.

You'll also need to reactivate Windows which is no big deal - 5 minutes on the phone and you're done. Even if you have an OEM windows key, I'd try this method as you'll have learned how to use sysprep.

All done. Windows freaked the hell out when I tried to boot it up with the new hardware. Just wiped everything clean and started fresh. I didn't back up any of my games, so I've got nearly 300GB worth of downloading to do tonight. Luckily my ISP doesn't trip.

First few games I've tested show a significant performance boost, especially CPU intensive games like ARMA3 (framerate doubled after the swap). Now for an SSD and I'm done with upgrades for a while. :)