Replace Motherboard??

[Kev Sharratt]

Hi

It has been ages since my last post. Unfortunately a new job leaves little time for my hobby. I do need some advice however, about a year ago I upgraded my daughters PC, spent a fair bit of effort maxing it out for her.

Now some mobo capacitors have bulged and leaked so I think the mobo is shot. The question is do I get an equivelent mobo & replace the defective one, re-fitting the new bits a bought?

The motherboard is an Imperial G and the pc an e machines but i forget which model. The items I bought when I upgraded were CPU, Grahics Card (AGP), memory & Hard Drive.

So should I replace the mobo, if so what mobo do I buy that can just drop in & replace this one?

Obviously I want to re-use the bits a bought

Also what happens to the windows XP as my daughter has lost the disk, can i just replace the mobo or will i have activation problems

Many Thanks

Kev

[Sterling_Aug]

Activation should not be a problem even if you replace the mobo with a totally different one from another manufacturer. You can activate Windows twice a year without difficulty.

No XP CD means a difficult time doing a repair install if required.

[BipolarBill]

Finding an equivalent motherboard that supports your older parts will be a chore. You should consider replacing the bad capacitors instead. Any good electronics repair shop (TV, radio) should be able to do it.

[Lgbpop]

Finding an equivalent motherboard that supports your older parts will be a chore.

Just as aggravating as that'll be, add expensive as well. Bottom line is, you'd be replacing a worn-out old mobo with a mobo that's the same age.

eMachines mobos were invariably made by TriGem, so replacing any capacitors will be an improvement on the original. No sense buying an OEM replacement that's bound to fail the same way, sooner or later. Also, no need for a recovery CD this way either.