Motherboard replacement Procedures??

[John Prophet]

What are the techniques etc for upgrading a motherboard CPU combo in a system. In other words, do you have to do a fresh install of the OS? Is there unforeseen danger of losing info off the hard drive? Should you reinstall the cards one at a time and let each be "PNP'd" seperately? If you dont do fresh install, how are changes to the registry etc handled? Is it do-able without a fresh install? With all the board buying I see in this forum, IM sure we have many experts in this area. Thanks...

[SPEEDO]

When you are ready to make the change.
Go to device manager & remove everything that it will allow you to, Remove the mouse last. Then shutdown & remove Motherboard and anything else you want to change.
Check power supply should be 300 Watts if not replace.
install new MoBo, CPU, Fan & Heatsink.
USE MANUAL and double check everything.
Connect all cables and power plugs.
install video card only.
Connect power cord, mouse, keyboard & monitor.
power up, Enter bios, select auto detect for hard drives.
Save & reboot.
Machine will start finding devices,
You will probably need your OS disk.
After Finished Booting install new MoBo Drivers.
Shutdown
Install modem 1st., Have drivers ready!
Startup, Install driver when prompted.
Shutdown.
Install Soundcard 2nd., Have drivers ready!
Startup, Install driver when prompted.
Shutdown.
Continue with this procedure until you have all your cards installed.
Most of the time this will work just fine.
If I missed anything someone will pick up on it!
Good Luck!!

[John Prophet]

Im still a lil foggy sometimes on this whole notion of "drivers". I know that sometimes it's very easy to go online..find a driver..load it etc. But sometimes a device has several "drivers" listed in device manager. I understand about loading new drivers..but how do you go about completely removing the old drivers? Where is the one spot I can go to and say "there is the file to be removed"? Would I just do that in the device manager? Obviously I couldnt remove the drivers for the old mobo while the comp is booted. Oh well, guess Ill have to practice on some old comps before I try it on my sisters machine...Id never hear the end of it if something went wrong hehe.

[SPEEDO]

You don't want to remove the drivers off of the computer.
Just remove them from the device manager they will still be on the system just not being used!
When you are finished with the swap and start the computer Windows will find and install as many drivers as it can find.
You will have to install the ones that Windows will ask you to install.
Check with your sister and see what software she has, She may have everything you need!

[John Prophet]

Thanks for the advice. Its all just speculation at this point but Im looking ahead. She had the best comp..then I got into comps..amd my mom..now my sisters 450Mhz PIII is the slowest of the lot. She has a TON of software on her comp, it would take days to back it all up and days to put it back on there if something went wrong. I see now why people put windows in one folder or partition and all of the applications in another partition. It would make it easier to do upgrades knowing that a fresh/reinstall would be that much easier.

[AV8R]

Speedo, I also am upgrading mobo/cpu. When I received them there was a warning sheet included. I'm upgrading from an Intel 466 Celeron/Abit BM6 to an AMD T'bird 1.133GHz/Abit KT7A. The included instructions clearly state not to install a hard drive that contains program information from another computer. It also states never to boot your system with a hard drive that has an operating system or installed programs from another computer. They say, when booting the system for the first time to enter bios and set the first boot device to match the location of your operating system and underlined state: in virtually all cases this should be the CD-ROM. DO NOT BOOT OFF OF A FLOPPY DISK THAT WAS CREATED ON ANOTHER COMPUTER. Failure to properly install the O/S can corrupt the bios of the motherboard and neither clearing CMOS, nor flashing the bios can fix it. O.K., then how do you get CD-ROM support without using a floppy? Isn't that what you would normally use first to get the drivers? Puzzled????

[Mixam]

AV8R U can set your computer to boot from your cdrom from within the system setup/bios so you don't need a bootable floopy. Just remember after installing the new operating system to change it from boot from cdrom back to what it was.

[SPEEDO]

AV8R

Then how would you have setup a new machine before, When the bios allowed booting only from a floppy or C drive????

[This message has been edited by SPEEDO (edited 08-07-2001).]

[AV8R]

SPEEDO,

Exactly! Someone's pulling my chain.

[SPEEDO]

If you are installing win 98 or newer you can set the boot order to CD rom, IDE 0 and then Floppy if the bios allows this.
The system will boot to the CD Rom if you have the CD inserted.
I do believe it to be Win 98 or newer if not someone will correct me.

[Toddly]

AV8R, that is something new to me. I have installed ABIT boards with hard drives from previous installs and luckily there were not to many problems. I did make sure that stuff I needed was backed up before hand. So Has anyone else heard that the BIOS can be corrupted upgrading this way?