If new Motherboard and CPU are installed.....does windows need to be reloaded??

[Rabbitrunner51]

I was wondering if like when you build a new system by just changing mobos and CPU... is it necessary to do a clean install of windows???

Also... What other needs to be done or changed... in regards to this or oher HW??Thanks! LOL

[steves]

Strictly no - however there can be problems so it's a good idea to be perpared to do this and a re-install every so often helps keep the machine tidy (having said that my win2000 machine is on it's third motherboard without a re-install - come to think of it I think the case is the only orginal component!)

One of the most common problems is different IDE drivers e.g. when going between intel/nvidea/sis chipsets. This may result in the machine blue screening with a disc boot error when you start it up first time. To avoid this re-install the generic microsoft IDE drivers before shutting the old machine down - these will cope with any chipset.

Also I tend to remove all the drivers for sound and non-essential PCI devices before doing the upgrade - even though you may put cards back in the same physical slot this may be a different "logical" slot on the new board and you will end up with devices with #2 at the end of their name as windows thinks this is a different card to the one it already knew about.

HTH

Steve

[leprechaun_40]

Not with xp or 2k, but I'd recommend a repair install so that it detects all the new hardware on the mobo. Personally, I'd do a complete just to clean it up but from what I've seen, you don't have to everytime.

[rmanet]

I've had pretty good luck if working on system with high quality components that aren't outdated - if you're only swapping out the mobo and cpu then steves right - you'll have good luck and I've been successful by making sure I stick with a similar chipset (i.e VIA v. SIS v. Intel) - get familiar with your bios so you have it handling your ram, cpu , etc. properly.

You may not need to pull the other components because the xp install should have the right drivers, maybe an IRQ conflict or something weird once in awhile because of the new mobo. If you have a different onboard sound device and you plan to use it (check) old v. new, I would uninstall that driver to use the new one that comes with the mobo.

But I always install all the the newest drivers that come with the mobo (that are needed, chipset, IDE, if using onboard sound, if not using onboard video don't bother but disable it in bios if the board doesn't automatically detect your card) if it boots up and runs okay - good luck

[Midknyte]

it's not an absolute must, but you'll probably have to do at least a repair install if the chipset changes between vendors as RMAnet said.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;824125

[Rabbitrunner51]

Thanks guys.... i read all of your posts and i get it... yes drivers and registry may be the bigest thing as well as chipset..as integration is key here...

Thanks for that link Midknyte...its saved for ref.....

[telcart]

I just upgraded from an Athlon XP to a P4, one would think that this would make Windows unbootable, but prior to upgrading, I simply removed every single Windows driver. Upon rebooting, Windows simply reinstalled everything. However, at this point, I'm about to do a format and clean reinstall because even at 4 GHz, my system is terribly slow. Im assuming this is due to a combination of fragmented files and the fact that I upgraded to something completely different. The system went from AMD CPU/NVIDIA Chipset to P4 CPU/Intel Chipset, from 2.53 GHz to 4.0 GHz.

[Rabbitrunner51]

That thing should fly...regardless Fragmenting is always a good idea

A clean install is always a good idea..providing you move things first like waht you want or make some shadow copy maybe.... I usually just move things I want to save to another drive and reload everything else..like the normal programs you have and like... it alsys takes not long to be up and running with evrything in there as before ( uncorrupted ) and the system will fly like a cheetah going for kill. LOL

Why the upgrade..??? I would think at 2.5GHz + that AMD with a Nvidia chipset would be fast enough.... 4GHZ... ?? Must have gotten the biggest P4 out on the market...

Post your total specs.. I would like to see those...

So you think its a good idea to unistall the windows drivers before rebooting the first time with a new build??

[Midknyte]

When you change the motherboard, that affects the HAL. That is the interface between the devices and the OS/drivers. If you didn't at least do a repair install, then you would have old/wrong HAL info in the registry. Merely removing drivers will not fix this. I would recommend that you do a clean install, but you can get away with doing a repair install.

[telcart]

Here are full system specs:

P4 3.2E at 4.00 GHz (1000 MHz FSB)
(http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=56042)
Thermaltake Sonic Tower w/Vantec Stealth 120mm Case Fan
ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe
2 GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (Kingston/Micron, 2x 1 GB DIMMs) at 500 MHz DDR
Vantec Iceberg DDR Copper Heatspreaders
BFG Geforce 6600 GT OC 128MB DDR3 AGP8X at 600/1200 MHz
Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer
Sound Blaster Live! 24-Bit
Leadtek Winfast TV2000 Expert PCI TV-Tuner
ALi PCI USB2.0/Firewire Controller
Western Digital WD120JB 120 GB 7200 RPM 8 MB (Primary Master)
Samsung SpinPoint 80 GB 7200 RPM UDMA133 (Primary Slave)
Seagate Barracuda 80 GB 7200 RPM UDMA133 (RAID Master)
Western Digital 40 GB 7200 RPM (RAID Slave)
LG 16x DVD-ROM Drive (Secondary Master)
BenQ 16x Dual Layer DVD Writer (Secondary Slave)
Enermax UC-9FATR2 Multi-Function Panel
Enermax 450 Watt Dual Fan Power Supply
Enermax Full-Tower Server Case (Black)
6x 80mm LED Case Fans

http://2basic.ca/CIMG3827.JPG
http://2basic.ca/CIMG3822.JPG
http://2basic.ca/CIMG3826.JPG
http://2basic.ca/CIMG3820.JPG
http://2basic.ca/CIMG3825.JPG
http://2basic.ca/CIMG3824.JPG

[telcart]

Wow, now that I've done a format and clean install things are running great. Although I had a large hand full of problems while attempting to install SP2, everything seems to be working nicely now.

[Rabbitrunner51]

telcart..... Nice pics. and nice tower indeedy.. Its funny.., because I also have a full tower that looks almost exactly like yours... same layout to a tee... it is a TT and I like it alot. Provides more room and I beleive more cooling also.
A friend upstairs took some pics for me one night..but I did not like the looks of them so much ...so I may take some more and post somewhere in this forum.

yes..I believe I will also do a clean install when I get the new Mobo and CPU installed... its about timeI think as I have had this current one running for quite some time in my own opinion... No matter waht i do I always seem to have more stuff installed than alot of people who have more to do. Over the few years i have been computing I have gotten ahold of alot of useful programs and with us all alot of personal stuff and it just gets cluttered.
A clean install just provides a clean uncorrupted registry and that is why it runs fast. The more stuff over time we install the more it becomes a bit slower..and this also affects the HD...

Oh ...and by the way... That CPU cooler is a MONSTER LOL