Switching Guts

[Keegan]

Here's the deal. My grandfather needs a new computer, so I offered to give him my old motherboard and processor when I get my new ones, and now I need to know if there's anything I should do before swapping out the motherboard and processor. Any help you could provide would be much appreciated.

[Nighthawk]

I'd just make sure that it'll work in his case. Most new motherboards (since 1997/8) have been ATX, which is physically incompatible with the AT form factor cases that were sold earlier.

[FrozenLiquidity]

Nighthawk has a point.

However, you may run into other problems when attempting to swap motherboards, and to help you we will need to know the system specs, what you are trying to do and what went wrong.

Just a reminder if anything goes beserk.

FrozenLiquidity

[DaveLewis]

Back up all of the irreplacable data on both systems. Pull off your letters, school papers, financial information, etc. and then use the opportunity to reformat both system drives. Then go ahead and reload your software and finally the data. You'll get rid of lots of junk that way and probably end up with a faster machine.

[DaveLewis]

For some reason my Netscape 6 is double and triple posting. I don't think I'm hitting the "submit" button that many times ! Sorry folks

[This message has been edited by DaveLewis (edited 01-25-2001).]

[Keegan]

It's all ATX. The only difference is that my new motherboard will have a Socket 462 (Socket A) thing on it instead of a PGA370 socket.

[JimG]

Only thing you might want to do (especially if you're not planning to reinstall Windows):
Boot to Safe Mode. Go to Settings>Control Panels>System (or hold down ALT and double click my computer on the desktop). Under System Devices, delete everything. Basically you're deleting all the drivers that interface with the mobo. I did this moving an HD from one system to another. Worked fine when I did it, Windows really didn't know the difference.
**Just do the above procedure as your last step before ripping the system apart.
Good luck!