What do I have to do when swapping the installing new m/b and cpu?

[Tekk]

I have a Abit BF6 and a celery 433 that I am going to put in my computer this weekend and want to know what exactly is involved to make everything as smooth as possible (without having to reinstall win98). Any info on the matter would be very beneficial to me. I am, obviously, new to the installing the m/b thing so any help would be great, THANKS!!!

BUBYE!

[Dave_H]

Couple of things off the top of my head.
Better safe than sorry,
Do a compleate back-up of all your data.
Get all your drivers handy, and your windows disc, your new motherboard may cause things to be re-detected or the drivers re-installed. At the very least, get what you need to be able to get back online.

Look over the bios in your old board, write down the settings. This will help you later on your new bios, or if you have to put the old board back in.

The last time on your old board remove the drive controllers from the device manager in windows before shutting down.

As for your new board, I myself would start with only the hard drive, floppy, and vidio card. As soon as I got that working, the modem (if you use a dial-up) would be next.
Some people go for all of them at once, it's up to you.

Do not attempt this unless you could comfortably be O.K. with loosing everything and starting fresh. There is really a small chance of loosing data, but expect a few small problems.

Also, don't take my advice alone, there are many people here who know more about this than me, wait for a lot of input.
Dave

[tlwhite76]

Tekk: Good advice. I think your question is "will I have to reload my operating system"? Follow the ABIT manual for getting the BIOS set up. I think as long as you get your HD detected, you should be OK. Because your "original configuration" will be changing, windows will have to redetect all your devices and reinstall your drivers to accomodate the new "original configuration".

Anyone else confirm this, it's been awhile since I swapped motherboards. Let us know.

[OuTpaTienT]

Last time I swapped a m/b & cpu I did absolutely zero prep work. I just shut down the machine, extracted the old m/b & cpu, installed the new m/b & cpu, powered up the machine, and it worked. Got into Windoze and it found a few devices on it's own. I then just had it redetect new hardware (maybe a couple times to make sure) and that was about it.

Now, I'm in no way advising that you do as I do, certainly not. Dave's advice (backup's, etc.) is always the best course of action. I just wanted to let ya know that it shouldn't be a difficult proceedure. If I can do the opposite of all that should be done and still have success... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif IOW, I did no backups, no needed drivers at hand, no removing old hardware settings, connected all devices to new m/b immediately, etc. Hell, I remember I even put the case cover on, including screws in back, before the initial power-on. (I must have been feeling really cocky.) http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

But I'll have you know that this plan of attack, or lack thereof, often backfires and I end up spending many, many hours retifying a situation I could have avoided. But having my system in a state of dis-repair is almost enjoyable for me. (?!) I relish the learning period that ensues as I go about repairing my willful carelessness. It's all perspective I guess.

So there you have it. I have to wonder why I even responded to this post. (but I've typed too much to delete it, I gotta post it.) I've provided absoluted no helpful information at all. Other than just letting you know you shouldn't worry too much, just do it. It's kinda like swimming, you gotta just jump. But do take precautions as Dave advised. Your first swimming lesson shouldn't involve doing a triple backflip w/a 520° twist nude from the 50 ft. platform...that's my style.

(anyone who read all that, sorry for wasting your time, but I missed my psychiatrist appointment this week and had to dump on someone. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif)

[Underclocked]

My experience in trying that has always been several blue screens before doing a full reload. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif

[Susan]

WIN98 doesn't handle MB swaps as well as WIN95 does from what I've seen.

I tend to swap out my boards like OuTpaTienT does and a couple of times have paid the price - always a learning experience. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

If your old board is anything other than an Intel Chipset, make sure you remove the MB software from Add/Remove before you shut down to make the swap.

Other than that, just do a reliable backup (always good anyway).

[Eli]

I've done this once without any problems. I just removed everything in device manager first, shut down, swapped the motherboard (a PCChips board to a Giga-Byte board), and installed W98 on top of itself. Everything in W98 was where the owner had left it, and the system was much faster and more stable. Good luck.