Can I just switch mobos when I upgrade?

[Primus462]

I currently have a P4 3.0 GHZ HT and an Intel 915GEV board. I'm thinking about upgrading to an X2 because of the great things I've read and I can't OC this board. Will I just simply be able to switch out the out motherboard with the new? Is there anything I need to be aware of first?

Thanks.

 

[mpjesse]

There are a couple things you should be aware of.

1: You'll need to buy new RAM. Looking at your chipset (915GEV), it supports DDR2 DIMMs (240pins). So, unfortunately it looks like you'll need to buy new memory. AMD currently only supports 184pin DIMMs.

2: You'll have to reinstall Windows. When you change chipsets & processors on WinXP, it freaks out and doesn't boot. The only proper way to fix it is to reinstall.

3. Video card. I don't know much about your board, but i'm pretty sure it has PCI-e and the video card is integrated. This means you'll probably need to buy a video card (if you don't already have one). If you have a PCI-e video card in the 16x slot, then ignore this warning. nVidia makes AMD chipsets with integrated video- so you don't have to buy a video card, but these solutions are generally not the best. Seeing how you currently have crappy intel integrated graphics, I'm guessing you're not a big gamer.

Other than that, everything else should work fine.

-mpjesse

 

[Primus462]

Oooh, i forgot about the RAM thing. Yeah, that was one of the reasons I was leary of the AMD boards in the first place. I guess I could wait until the 940s come out, but who knows when that will be. And my video card is a BFG 7800GT OC 256MB. PCI-e of course.

Thanks.

 

[BaronMatrix]

Actually, you can do an "inplace upgrade". What you do is start setup from your current install. Before text mode setup starts, replace the mobo, etc. Setup will ask if you want to repair, say yes and continue. You will be back to your old install. You may have to re-patch some things, though.
It's still alot easier than a clean install.

 

[vladtepes]

I currently have a P4 3.0 GHZ HT and an Intel 915GEV board. I'm thinking about upgrading to an X2 because of the great things I've read and I can't OC this board. Will I just simply be able to switch out the out motherboard with the new? Is there anything I need to be aware of first?

Thanks.

The best move you can do BEFORE installing the motherboard would be to insert your XP CD and choose the UPGRADE option.

In case you CD is not a XP+SP2 one you wont be able to upgrade and you will have to make a XP+SP2 sliptream CD

Check this link to make such a CD
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp
Ther is also a guide in TH but I cannot find it

When the XP installation reboots, TURN OFF you PC before the instalation resumes
Install the new motherboard/CPU/Mems/Video Card and keep at hand you SATA drivers
Try not to use the additional SATA ports like Silicon Image or Promise, use the chipset's SATA ports (they are more friendly for the Windows instalation)
Everything should be ok, just install your new hardware drivers
The only thing you will have to do again is to download the newest XP updates

 

[baracuda73]

Come on, look up a windows utility called sys prep works great to wipe system info from windows.

 

[vladtepes]

Don't know, I know this solution worked for me (and my customers PC's).
Ill try Sysrep nextime, seems a little bit to complicated but I am up for the challenge, you would say that the slipstream XP-SP2 CD creation is not that friendly either, but such CD is a must have.