Thinking of changing my motherboard as the computer is not working and the consensus of opinion is a motherboard problem. As it stopped working suddenly i hadn't backed up my stuff on the hard drive  . Can i change the motherboard and get it started without a clean windows install?

what do i need to know about changing the motherboard - not done this before! thanks for any HELP. If you can find the exact same motherboard and migrate your CPU to it or stay with the same family of CPU it will work like it did before with the worst of it possibly being that you need to reactivate with microsoft the windows os. ( This is assuming that the CPU is fine from the old troubled board and not the cause of the motherboard malfunction to begin with )

If you change from say an Intel to a AMD CPU or any drastic differences between the old motherboard and NEW motherboard you can try to boot and see if it will work. It will either work without a reactivation required, or work, but require windows to be reactivated, or blue screen when it goes to load windows and get stuck in a blue screen boot loop.

If you get the BSOD boot loop you can boot off of the windows CD or DVD and perform a repair installation. This will fix windows to work with the new hardware and your personal data and programs would remain so a clean install should not be required, unless the system was already cluttered or had been infected before and really should have a clean install anyways.

What are the specs of the old board and what are the specs of what you plan to install into it?Depending on the Windows version normally a Repair Install can be done after a MBoard swap without losing any data...
More Details...Nowadays it should work pretty good without too much hazzle, but no matter what you change, better get a good backup of your data!

If you stay with the same brand and socket it should be LOWEST risk at all.I've found Windows 7 tends to behave pretty well even when swapping socket or other major hardware changes, with the exception that reactivation can being required as already mentioned.  The only thing to watch out for is if your Windows was installed with the SATA controller in IDE mode, and the new motherboard is in AHCI by default, you will get a blue screen on startup, so you would just need to change the SATA controller to IDE mode.  Other than that, it should be fairly hassle free!  As stated too though, even though it's usually fine, the same or a similar board still has less chance of something going wrong.I've been able to do this on every Win OS since Win2K...
The instruction set is a bit different for each one...
Which do you have ? ?Indeed, I'm just saying Windows 7 particularly seems to be more tolerant of hardware changes, to the point I've stuck the HDD in a totally different PC - AMD to Intel, AMD to Nvidia graphics, etc, and it didn't skip a beat, just asked for a reboot after starting up.
With Windows 2000 and XP, I USED to uninstall the storage controller drivers before shutting down to remove the hard drive and swap it - it would then boot up with a generic IDE driver and behave a little better, sure cut down on some issues for me anyway.its on windows 7 and i was thinking of using an identical motherboard so sounds hopeful! So basically i just swap them over - plug everything back in and it should work more or less - sounds good! i have disconnected the old motherboard so its ready to come out but not sure how to get the processor off to move it onto the new board - any tips? thanks Quote from: frannieannie on June 30, 2013, 03:14:15 PM

not sure how to get the processor off to move it onto the new board - any tips? thanks