Swaping Out a Mobo

[AJBob]

Okay, i want to swap my current mobo for another one, this is however like swaping a chassis out on a car, i have exactly no idea as to how to go about this without destroying my computer however, subtle hints would be nice.

Tech Spec

2500 Barton
Currently MSI kt3 ultra, swaping for A7NX Deluxe (Dual lan)
512 Meg 2700 ram
1 40 gig int, 1 80 gig int, 1 80 gig ext
GF Ti4200
audigy sound blaster
Wintv card
1 DVD RW
1 CDRW
1 Non functional Floppy drive (i should realy replace it)

Water cooling for increased performance
Vodka cooling for increased enjoyment

 

[HardWareBoss]

Be carefull when you take everyting out. Make sure you are grounded. Make sure when you put new Mobo in that you use those little brass pins. At the bottom of your old Mobo.

 

[AJBob]

I can do the physical stuff fine, i've already moved the rig from one case to another and more or less every component except the mobo and the 40 gig have been replaced by yours truely since i've had it. What i do not know is what software alterations i have to do to get the system up and running, i've tried jsut swapping the mobo, blue screen of death occurs, i think that i have to reinstall Windows, but i don't want to have to wipe my hard drive doing a full reinstall... especialy as it may not be needeed in the end.

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Vodka cooling for increased enjoyment

 

[ChipDeath]

Re-install windows is the best option, but if you <i>really</i> have to keep your installation, you could try booting into Safe mode, removing ALL chipset drivers, then powering down again, swapping mobos, powering back up into safe mode, and installing new mobo drivers....

If you don't want to go thru that pain, you may get away with simply re-install a fresh install over the top. You'll keep the start menu & all the data, but your registry will be overwritten so many programs may not work properly.

I fairly recently did this myself, but I was upgrading from one VIA chipset to a newer one, and seeing as they use unified driver sets for all their chipsets, I just installed the latest version and it was relatively painless.

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<font color=red>The preceding text is assembled from information stored in an unreliable organic storage medium. As such it may be innacurate, incomplete, or completely wrong</font color=red>

 

[AJBob]

Cheers, now all i have to do is track down my Windows CD, and since i've moved house two (or is it three) times since i built this thing it should be interesting...

May comment if it works, but don't hold your breath

Water cooling for increased performance
Vodka cooling for increased enjoyment

 

[lunitic]

I upgraded a via chipset recently: no go, I had to reinstall everything. Funny, it took me days to rebuild my configuration (although I keep all updates and downloads well organised, I keep serial numbers and passwords neatly in a box (i'm proud of myself!)) but still my system looks different.