Windows 10 CPU upgrade without BSOD?

[SizZLeR]

Like the title says, will upgrading the CPU of a desktop computer cause Win10 to BSOD and call for a reinstallation?

Im considering upgrading from an AMD Phenom II x4 965 to an AMD FX-8370 X8 4.3GHz, but ever since XP, Ive had nothing but problems upgrading CPUs. It caused the computer to start up in to an infinite reboot loop, either by Windows crashing while loading or load in to a BSOD and restart.

Each and every time, the only solution that worked, was to format the harddrive and reinstall. :-(

So Im thinking that now its been 15 years since this "bug" was introduced, maybe, just maybe, Microsoft has finally fixed it?

 

[kemical]

Hi SizZLer,
can you post which moBo you have and if the bios updates are current?

 

[SizZLeR]

Asus M5A97 R2.0 with Bios 2603 (most current).

 

[nmsuk]

That should go smoothly, before switching the CPU. Goto device manager and uninstall the old one. Shutdown and do the swap. That way has always worked for me.

 

[Neemobeer]

As long as the board will support a given CPU then there shouldn't be any issues.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

If you've done CPU chip swapouts for 15 years, you already are aware of all the major pitfalls. A big one here that Gamers and self-builders forget to do is to properly remove the Thermal Paste on the old CPU and apply new good quality Thermal Paste when putting in the new CPU chip. Then they get overheating problems, and lots of other nasties including BSODs, Black Screens, Anthrax virus (kidding), and Freezes/Shutdowns. That's the #1 problem I see; the #2 problem is that many self-builders don't know about anti-static protection and don't wear a anti-static wrist-bracelet, OR forget to wear one and are therefore not properly grounded. Many of my students in my Computer repair courses fried many CPU chips when they forgot or didn't know about this simple protection method, and some of them zapped $600 CPU chips because of it. This usually occurred prior to the Students signing up for my course. They then learned a very expensive lesson. Hopefully, you are aware of both of these. Just thought I'd mention it to keep you out of trouble.

Best of luck with your upgrade,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[kemical]

Asus M5A97 R2.0 with Bios 2603 (most current).

M5A97 R2.0 - Support
As you can see it shouldn't be an issue unless your short on something like power from the PSU.

Please post the make and model of your PSU.

 

[Jimbo22]

Each and every time, the only solution that worked, was to format the harddrive and reinstall. :-(

Yes....this is correct. With any major hardware change...(mobo/CPU).....MS recommends a clean install of the OS. This is to sort out the BIOS/chipset driver/standard mobo drivers. Otherwise you're using the OS with the old CPU drivers and setup....which 99.9% of the time will cause a BSOD.

 

[SizZLeR]

Thx for all the advices and its great to come to a forum where ppl care to deliver good and serious answers.

Ive been building and selling computers for a living for more than 10 years, so all the basics isnt the issue, the only thing ive been struggling with is that Windows do a BSOD when upgrading MOBO and/or CPU, but imma try nmsuks suggestion and uninstall the current CPU before upgrading and then see if that works.

The reason Ive never investigated this issue much is because Ive never had any customers who needed upgrades without reinstalling the OS.
When I upgraded my own rig, it was usually time to do a fresh OS install anyway, as earlier Windows versions didnt really work too well after running for a couple of years.

But after win 7, the OS is more stable and keeps working, so now im on win10 and it doesnt really call for a reinstall atm, so id rather spare myself the trouble. :-D

Thanks again, ill be backing up the system and then try upgrading the CPU.


Cheers

 

[nmsuk]

Please come back once completed, would be nice to hear how it went.

 

[SizZLeR]

Absolutely nmsuk, Ill make sure to update this thread as soon as I got some results.

Cheers.

 

[SizZLeR]

Just to let you guys know, I didnt forget about updating the thread here, I just didnt get around to order the CPU until today and I expect it to arrive on Tuesday.

I really hope your suggestion works for me nmsuk, so I wont have to spend next weekend reinstalling my computer. X-)

 

[nmsuk]

It should do. Not had a problem doing that myself. But as with everything YMMV

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Windows Forums mobile app

 

[SizZLeR]

Picked up the CPU today and things are halfway fine as it appears my PSU is now too small.....its a LC 8700 Hyperion with 4x 12v@18A each, so its hard to believe it isnt powerful enough.

However, heres how it went down:

1. Uninstalled old CPU in Windows
2. Shut down the computer
3. Switched off the PSU
4. Replaced old CPU with new one (incl. cooler and fan), both are box versions
5. Switched on the PSU
6. Turned on the computer
7. Screens all remained black
8. Turned off computer
9. Used the auto-detect boot switch on MOBO to turn it back on
10. Beeps and bleeps occured and finally. the sound of a happy highpitched "bip!".
11. The computer now botted up and windows started to load
12. The desktop now appeared and everything were working like it used
13. After everything had loaded, the computer restarted by itself
14. Windows started, apps loaded and bam, spontanious restart and this time it didnt run for as long as the first time.
15. Tried auto repair and finally went into safe mode
16. While safe mode worked, I decided to remove the GFX driver (deleting the driverfiles)
17. Now the computer started fine, windows loaded up and started to install the gfx driver (the one that comes with windows)
18. Shortly after, the computer spontaniously restarted again.
19. Went to safe mode and removed the driver again and rebooted
20. Once windows started, i went to hw management and instantly removed the driver
21. That did the trick, the computer is now running stable.

In the good old days, this behavior meant that the PSU was too small, but now so many other things can intercat in odd ways and the PSU is a rather powerful gaming PSU which has 4 12v outputs, from which you can draw 18A, thats 216W per 12v output.

While the new cpu is rated at 125w vs 95w for the old one, I dont see how that shd be a problem, as its running off its own 216w 12v output.

This really puzzles me and if the PSU wont pull it, then im fine with that, ill just get a new PSU, but i really dont wanna buy a new one if it turns out i dont need to.

Anyone know of any other reason this would happen? the issue does seem to be directly related to the initialization of the GPU (GTX970) as far as the problem stops once the GPU doesnt initialize but only runs in generic mode.

Cheers
Jacob

 

[nmsuk]

Picked up the CPU today and things are halfway fine as it appears my PSU is now too small.....its a LC 8700 Hyperion with 4x 12v@18A each, so its hard to believe it isnt powerful enough.

However, heres how it went down:

1. Uninstalled old CPU in Windows
2. Shut down the computer
3. Switched off the PSU
4. Replaced old CPU with new one (incl. cooler and fan), both are box versions
5. Switched on the PSU
6. Turned on the computer
7. Screens all remained black
8. Turned off computer
9. Used the auto-detect boot switch on MOBO to turn it back on
10. Beeps and bleeps occured and finally. the sound of a happy highpitched "bip!".
11. The computer now botted up and windows started to load
12. The desktop now appeared and everything were working like it used
13. After everything had loaded, the computer restarted by itself
14. Windows started, apps loaded and bam, spontanious restart and this time it didnt run for as long as the first time.
15. Tried auto repair and finally went into safe mode
16. While safe mode worked, I decided to remove the GFX driver (deleting the driverfiles)
17. Now the computer started fine, windows loaded up and started to install the gfx driver (the one that comes with windows)
18. Shortly after, the computer spontaniously restarted again.
19. Went to safe mode and removed the driver again and rebooted
20. Once windows started, i went to hw management and instantly removed the driver
21. That did the trick, the computer is now running stable.

In the good old days, this behavior meant that the PSU was too small, but now so many other things can intercat in odd ways and the PSU is a rather powerful gaming PSU which has 4 12v outputs, from which you can draw 18A, thats 216W per 12v output.

While the new cpu is rated at 125w vs 95w for the old one, I dont see how that shd be a problem, as its running off its own 216w 12v output.

This really puzzles me and if the PSU wont pull it, then im fine with that, ill just get a new PSU, but i really dont wanna buy a new one if it turns out i dont need to.

Anyone know of any other reason this would happen? the issue does seem to be directly related to the initialization of the GPU (GTX970) as far as the problem stops once the GPU doesnt initialize but only runs in generic mode.

Cheers
Jacob

What are the cpu temps in the bios. Is the cfan on the cooler working. Also while in the bios what are the voltages looking like. One more thing you did load optimised defaults in the bios after the switch right?

 

[SizZLeR]

CPU temp (41c), voltages (3.3 and 5 is a little above and 12 is 11.94) are fine.

i tried the optimized defaults, which set everything to "Auto" in the BIOS and also switched my SATA to AHCI mode which caused a BSOD with stop error of "Inaccessible boot device" because I normally run them in IDE mode.

After setting the SATA to IDE mode, windows boots normally, but only runs for about 1-2 mins before it restarts.

I tried and lower the ram clock just in case; my modules are rather old DDR3 and one is 1333 while the other is 1666, the auto detect had set them to 1333, so i lowered them to 1066 just to be sure.

Now the OS would run for maybe 4-5 mins before a restart occurred, but lower clock means lower power consumption, so that again points me towards the idea, that my PSU simply isnt powerful enough.

Ill try and go pick up a greater PSU tomorrow and see if that resolves the problem.
Heck, after all ive need a bigger PSU once I upgrade my GPU. :-D

 

[nmsuk]

Have to admit the PSU as I've never heard of them worries me. Hopefully tomorrow after replacing it, you'll have good news. But if not we'll continue helping until it's up and running smoothly.

 

[SizZLeR]

Thanks nmsuk.

Well ive had a lot of issues with PSUs being inferior at the time I chose to upgrade my computers with either CPU or GPU.
I dont upgrade that often anymore, I tend to get some descent hardware by the time I upgrade, to prevent myself from constantly replacing parts to keep up.

The reason im upgrading the CPU now from x4 3.4 to x8 4.0 is that I plan on be running some HTC Vive on it and also, some games (like Mafia III) is starting to demand better CPUs.

But my GTX970 still pull most games like a charm, even in 5760x1080 and its prolly bottlenecked by the x4 CPU.
The last time I did an upgrade, the PSU had to go as well when I went from GTX470 to my current GTX970.

I checked some more on that LC8700 PSU and despite it saying that itll carry 18A on each 12v supply along 30A on the 12v mainboard supply + some on the 5v and 3.3v parts, it says 700w total peak, which is way less than if you add up all the claimed amps per part.

Just like the 4 18A parts at 12V, thats 12*18 = 216 Watt pert part, which by far exceeds its rated total peak power.

Besides, when PSU power by wattage is rated as "peak", it usually means it will only be able to deliver that amount of power in short bursts, just like when you have RMS and Peak wattage on your stereo amplifier, which basically is a PSU as well, where RMS is the continuous power, while peak is usually twice the RMS output, which is what the amplifier is capable of delivering for short amounts of time, normally a couple of seconds and hence will work for sound like bassdrums which due to their low frequency pulls a lot of power.

Finally, there's also the efficiency rating of the PSU and the combined wattage of a PSU, usually refers to how much power itll draw at the wall socket, but 700w at the socket, doesnt account for the losses during its way to the components in the computer; again, like for instance the very common class AB stereo amplifier that may be rated 100W, will be able to put somewhere around 80% of that thru to your speakers.

Maybe im so "lucky" that those factors are the very reason that my PSU isnt up to the job after all.....at first I didnt expect it to be a problem, but that was before i noticed it saying 700W total peak, as I never use the total as a reference, because the PSU has that summed up from 3.3, 5 and 12 volt parts and subparts.

Ill be going to pick up a new PSU later today when the store opens, hopefully itll fix it. :-D

 

[SizZLeR]

Small update....it seems right now the issue is both temp and PSU related, because the PSU fan didnt appear to be spinning.
I removed the PSU and topok it apart.

The fan was stuck to the extend than you could spin it, but now way it would be able to run by itself.
It had heavy traces of heat on the bottom of the motor, so it seems its been like this for some time and the motor had burned out.

Just to be sure, I blew it clean with a compressor, then sprayed lots of WD40 in between the rotor and stator, turned it with my fingers and eventually, used compressed air to make it rotate causing the dust to come out with the WD40.

Ive done this a lot of times and it always works for cleaning out a fan and in the end, it spun like new....however the motor did burn out and so it wouldnt go by itself.

Not so long ago I thrashed a lot of spare parts because I had so many and didnt really use any of it no more.....among those were a perfectly good 140mm fan that couldve been used as replacement in my PSU.....dang, just so typical.

So imma start withy getting a new PSU and see where it takes me.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

I noticed also that your LC Hyperion PSU is only rated BRONZE level for the 80Plus spec; you should spend a bit more and buy a PSU that has an 80Plus level of GOLD or PLATINUM. This makes a big difference, as the brand you have is not included in the TSF Gaming Build Guide here: SEASONIC SS-750KM3 750W 80 GOLD CERTIFIED.
This is an extremely well-written tech article written by Gaming experts for rig builders. I am in the process of building a custom-rig, not having built a rig from the ground up since 1998. It's worth noting that the 80Plus rating of Bronze only delivers 82% efficiency versus the 87% for Gold rating and a whopping 90% for Platinum. This I understand makes a HUGE difference in delivering power to 1 or more high-performance GPUs. Hopefully, you'll get a chance to read this article before you run out and purchase your new PSU. You should only buy from their list of recommend PSUs there!! I'm not a Gaming guy, but last year when my 2008 Dell Studio540 desktop lost it's 3rd power supply, I started doing research to find something that would work better and last longer. I was also convinced that my Dell Mobo was on it's last legs and it was causing the PSUs to die, and so it was looking like I really needed to replace my Mobo!

After getting my new PSU, a SEASONIC SS-750KM3 750W 80 GOLD CERTIFIED, [SEASONIC SS-750KM3 750W 80 GOLD CERTIFIED]I immediately noticed my old desktop running better; I didn't get nearly as many BSODs and crashes, freezes, and reboots. They are not completely gone, I still get them occasionally; but the whole machine was rejuvenated; all due to running Clean power. Previously, I never considered spending more than $35 or so for a PSU for a non-gaming rig, and I don't have a Gaming PSU; it has a factory supplied ATI Radeon HD 3400 card with a paltry 256MB RAM. This SEASONIC PSU, I spent about $145 for and have never seen a better built unit; and back in the day, I used to build my own PSUs from scratch.

I think it will make a big difference in your machine, plus you might not have to upgrade your Mobo for awhile yet too if you spend a little more money to get a High Quality PSU. It worked for me. I think if you read that Gaming Build Guide on PSUs it may also convince you to give it a try.

Let us know how it goes for you.

Best of luck,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>