I have switched out my Intel CPU and main board for AMD. For the most part, everything’s fine but I seem to be getting odd, random application crashes.
Is an OS re-install required and/or recommended when switching processor type?
The only things you need to keep an eye on are drivers for your hardware that might have changed.
Plus the microcode update package that updates your CPU: intel-ucode vs amd-ucode which is automatically added to your initrd by your bootloader config.
So…recommended? yes
But not required if you take care of the neccesary changes.
ok, thanks. Are you aware of any documentation on precisely what the “necessary changes” are?
I see that those ucode packages are literal package manager installs. Do I just uninstall Intel and install AMD, or is there more to it?
None. Just keep an eye for hardware changes bundled with the motherboard (such as Wifi/Bluetooth, audio…) that would require installing/changing dedicated drivers. Though most models should be already supported by the kernel.
It will take effect on the next reboot.
So, I followed the instructions here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/microcode
installed the amd-ucode package and updated grub. It’s made no difference to game stability. Guess it must be something else. 
And rebooted?
Be more precise by what you mean here, what exactly do you mean by that?
If they crash, you should see something in your logs telling you what went wrong…
Yes, I rebooted.
ok, the particular game in question is Satisfactory. It was completely stable on the Intel platform. Now, it is crashing after a couple of minutes. It seems to be when the auto-save kicks in. I realise that it seems odd to look at the CPU for an auto-save issue. However, it used to be stable and the only thing changed is the CPU/Mobo.
I have also double checked the NVMe and SATA connections to my drives.
Check with journalctl
The main issues are proprietary drivers. If the old machine run on open source drivers there is no problem. If it was on proprietary drivers you’ll have to remove them first.
My 2008 intel graphics lap died. I put the ssd in a free drive slot of a 2015 nvidia lap, booted in bios mode, installed nvidia driver and it worked flawlessly ever since.
In such a situation, I always backup my personal files and ‘.’ files relative to Browser and Email etc. Then reinstall and import the personal and ‘.’ files etc.
Half the fun is in setting up a new install to the way you want it.
yeah, I looked. They’re not particularly helpful.
However, I think I’ve fixed it. I did what I should have done as a first step. 
I ran memtest86. That failed massively. I had a poke around in the BIOS and realised that XMP was enabled. I have no idea if it was on by default or I turned it on without thinking, but turning it off seems to have fixed the instability.
Overclocking is always a risk and cause of instability if done badly…
That failure of memtest is actually something you should be very careful about and maybe change your memory sticks…
Does it still fail after you disabled the overclocking (XMP)?
Haha, I once accused everyone around me of fuffing around with my computer when the machine didn’t boot because uefi had been disabled.
Turned out that the failing cmos battery had caused the bios to reset to its default when the lap was left unplugged. Keep that in mind whenever a Bios behaves in a weird way.
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No. I re-tested after I switched off XMP and the test was clean.
Then i guess you Topic is solved right?
PS: The post you marked as solution is not actually related to the Title of the topic and thus cant be perceived as the solution of it…
the topic evolved. 
I’ve changed the resolution to match the title.
Thanks for your help.
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