Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

Locri · 2009-04-15 14:06:14

I wasn't sure where to post this, but I figured it's probably not a difficult question so the newbie corner is as good as any. I'm planning to upgrade from my current Core 2 Duo to a Core 2 Quad. No motherboard changes or anything else. Would this require a reinstall to work and to properly handle the increase in cores?

I tried searching online, but almost every question was CPU + Mobo and that's pretty much useless to me as if I'm going to change the Mobo I'll reinstall every time (IMO).

toad · 2009-04-15 14:15:09

Nope.

Locri · 2009-04-15 14:17:18

Thanks!

lucke · 2009-04-15 14:55:42

Don't really need to reinstall whatever you change.

brazzmonkey · 2009-04-15 15:11:31

Hardware upgrade are critical when you need a different set of drivers. This mostly applies to mobo, video and audio changes. You don't have to worry when CPU, RAM, cd drives, etc. are concerned.

I once plugged my Arch hard drive into a completely different hardware setup (mobo, video, audio and so on). It booted with a few errors (due to hardware drivers). It took me less than 5 minutes to fix them and get a fully functional machine. Windows quickly gave up with BSOD, and I've never been able to fix it, no matter what I tried. I haven't been using Windows ever since (well, except on virtual machines...).

Skripka · 2009-04-15 15:21:09

brazzmonkey wrote:

Hardware upgrade are critical when you need a different set of drivers. This mostly applies to mobo, video and audio changes. You don't have to worry when CPU, RAM, cd drives, etc. are concerned.
I once plugged my Arch hard drive into a completely different hardware setup (mobo, video, audio and so on). It booted with a few errors (due to hardware drivers). It took me less than 5 minutes to fix them and get a fully functional machine. Windows quickly gave up with BSOD, and I've never been able to fix it, no matter what I tried. I haven't been using Windows ever since (well, except on virtual machines...).

FYI:

Windows XP really cannot deal with changing out the mainboard. It just cannot. You have to reinstall-you cannot even repair the install IME. CPU or GPU etc, it can handle-grumpily.

Vista will boot with a new mainboard-with lots of errors, and most things will not work, until you manually go through and reinstall drivers. It doesn't require a full reinstall though.

Arch handles it just fine, for the most part.

Grimn · 2009-05-01 09:26:37

I'm buying a new mobo, cpu, ram and harddrive (this implies the configuration of the current hd will change).
So according to you guys ram and cpu won't affect a thing but mobo will and a new hdd and configuration means reconfiguring grub to load the system properly.

What do I need to do to run my system with a new mobo?
I plan to add a SATA hd and install arch there but until I complete this (since I don't have much time to fully dedicate to it) I want to have my old system up and running wihtout problems so I would prolly put the new sata master and this one slave? Or yet, since this one is IDE I'll put this one master and cd rw drive slave on the ide and new SATA master on sata thing? I'm a little dumb regarding hdd internal config but Im assuming master-slave is related to the type of the hd first (IDE, SATA) then I just need to say in BIOS which one to run first and hopefully reconfigure grub right.

Also, for a 4GB RAM and quad core system is x64 arch crucial or can I keep i686 arch?

Last edited by Grimn (2009-05-01 09:29:43)

Grimn · 2009-05-01 10:41:29

Also I was thinking in copying .kde folder so I wouldn't have to reconfigure, thats safe right?

Mr.Elendig · 2009-05-01 12:29:16

Grimn wrote:

I'm buying a new mobo, cpu, ram and harddrive (this implies the configuration of the current hd will change).
So according to you guys ram and cpu won't affect a thing but mobo will and a new hdd and configuration means reconfiguring grub to load the system properly.
What do I need to do to run my system with a new mobo?
I plan to add a SATA hd and install arch there but until I complete this (since I don't have much time to fully dedicate to it) I want to have my old system up and running wihtout problems so I would prolly put the new sata master and this one slave? Or yet, since this one is IDE I'll put this one master and cd rw drive slave on the ide and new SATA master on sata thing? I'm a little dumb regarding hdd internal config but Im assuming master-slave is related to the type of the hd first (IDE, SATA) then I just need to say in BIOS which one to run first and hopefully reconfigure grub right.
Also, for a 4GB RAM and quad core system is x64 arch crucial or can I keep i686 arch?

Boot the fallback (it should work even after you replace the mobo) and then just rebuild the normal initcpio image.

dbb · 2009-05-01 14:07:36

Skripka wrote:

brazzmonkey wrote:
Hardware upgrade are critical when you need a different set of drivers. This mostly applies to mobo, video and audio changes. You don't have to worry when CPU, RAM, cd drives, etc. are concerned.
I once plugged my Arch hard drive into a completely different hardware setup (mobo, video, audio and so on). It booted with a few errors (due to hardware drivers). It took me less than 5 minutes to fix them and get a fully functional machine. Windows quickly gave up with BSOD, and I've never been able to fix it, no matter what I tried. I haven't been using Windows ever since (well, except on virtual machines...).
FYI:
Windows XP really cannot deal with changing out the mainboard. It just cannot. You have to reinstall-you cannot even repair the install IME. CPU or GPU etc, it can handle-grumpily.
Vista will boot with a new mainboard-with lots of errors, and most things will not work, until you manually go through and reinstall drivers. It doesn't require a full reinstall though.

Arch handles it just fine, for the most part.

XP and Vista can handle motherboard changes, it just requires that you uninstall any hardware specific drivers prior to making the switch, Windows will revert back to its generic drivers and then you can install the proper drivers when the switch is complete.

See: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/20 … indows.ars

R00KIE · 2009-05-01 14:49:45

Well yes, but if you have a genuine copy you will still have to deal with a new activation of the product, mobo, cpu, ram and gfx card .... that's way too many changes for it not to call back home and report it .

Thats a lot bigger hassle than with linux, just boot with the fallback like Mr.Elendig said, then if you don't know exactly how to rebuild the initcpio image just do pacman -S kernel26 and it should be taken care of for you.

Then just a few more changes in config files to change some modules that are being loaded and some drivers and you are good to go (if you keep the same hard disk or clone the partition to the new drive).

Unless something terribly bad happens, linux will still be able to to boot, just take usb installs or live cds as an example, they boot almost anywhere and almost everything works without any need to reconfigure anything

Grimn · 2009-05-01 16:56:31

Thanks.

Concerning the x64 arch, should I change to it since I'm getting 4GB ram and a quad core cpu or i686 arch works fine and take the most of the hardware?

brazzmonkey · 2009-05-01 17:42:44

dbb wrote:

Skripka wrote:
brazzmonkey wrote:
Hardware upgrade are critical when you need a different set of drivers. This mostly applies to mobo, video and audio changes. You don't have to worry when CPU, RAM, cd drives, etc. are concerned.
I once plugged my Arch hard drive into a completely different hardware setup (mobo, video, audio and so on). It booted with a few errors (due to hardware drivers). It took me less than 5 minutes to fix them and get a fully functional machine. Windows quickly gave up with BSOD, and I've never been able to fix it, no matter what I tried. I haven't been using Windows ever since (well, except on virtual machines...).
FYI:
Windows XP really cannot deal with changing out the mainboard. It just cannot. You have to reinstall-you cannot even repair the install IME. CPU or GPU etc, it can handle-grumpily.
Vista will boot with a new mainboard-with lots of errors, and most things will not work, until you manually go through and reinstall drivers. It doesn't require a full reinstall though.

Arch handles it just fine, for the most part.
XP and Vista can handle motherboard changes, it just requires that you uninstall any hardware specific drivers prior to making the switch, Windows will revert back to its generic drivers and then you can install the proper drivers when the switch is complete.
See: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/20 … indows.ars

Maybe, but when your hardware upgrade is the consequence of a hardware failure, the only way out with Windows is to re-install...

R00KIE · 2009-05-01 17:45:55

I'd say that if you have the time to setup arch64 then you should. 4G+ of ram can be used with arch32 but it's not as simple and fast as pacman -S and go.

The stock arch32 kernel will only use 3G out of 4G+ but apart from that I believe you will not see much difference (you can recompile the kernel to support up to 64GB but you need to do it for every new kernel that comes out and you will also need to recompile some other packages, like I said, not pacman -S and go).

Check this wiki page http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch64_FAQ it will answer some of your doubts, for the rest search the forum .... I guess pretty much every most common topic about 32bit vs 64bit has been discussed already

LeoSolaris · 2009-05-02 01:01:23

I would vote for the swap to 64 bit, but I am biased.

I've tried them both on my laptop, and the 64 feels just slightly more responsive to me.

Besides, now that java and flash have 64 bit support, I'm golden.

Grimn · 2009-05-02 06:52:41

Thanks guys, I'll give it a try. First thing I'll do is install all 32-bit libs necessary for some apps compatibility and hopefully everything will be just fine

Grimn · 2009-05-02 22:30:34

I already regret my decision, the ftp install of x86_64 didnt have all package categories so it only installed the base. Result: I installed nvidia drivers, xorg and kde4 and tried to execute kdm in rc.conf (which btw is pretty much empty) and nothing works :\
I don't recall arch being so hard to configure but I did a fresh install like 2 years ago.
Let's see what a sleepless night brings...

I also can't find a way to go to console, Im stuck at login screen with no keyboard or mouse

Last edited by Grimn (2009-05-02 22:31:19)

Mr.Elendig · 2009-05-03 00:15:06

Boot to singel user mode and fix the xorg config. See the wiki page about hotplugging.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-15 14:06:14

Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#2 2009-04-15 14:15:09

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#3 2009-04-15 14:17:18

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#4 2009-04-15 14:55:42

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#5 2009-04-15 15:11:31

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#6 2009-04-15 15:21:09

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#7 2009-05-01 09:26:37

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#8 2009-05-01 10:41:29

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#9 2009-05-01 12:29:16

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#10 2009-05-01 14:07:36

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#11 2009-05-01 14:49:45

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#12 2009-05-01 16:56:31

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#13 2009-05-01 17:42:44

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#14 2009-05-01 17:45:55

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#15 2009-05-02 01:01:23

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#16 2009-05-02 06:52:41

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#17 2009-05-02 22:30:34

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

#18 2009-05-03 00:15:06

Re: Does a processor upgrade (not Motherboard) require a reinstall?

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