get a new mobo? reformat?

[sackynut]

Hi all, I currently have a k8SLi motheroard from albatron. It is very small, but seems to perform well. I have had some problems with it and such, and from reviews I have read it uses 3% more CPU when using the hard drive than a normal mobo. it also doesnt overclock my 3200+ past 2.4, and doesnt support dual core.

Im thinking about getting a new mobo, either: the Abit Fatal1ty SLi motherboard

or the MSI K8n Diamond x16 Sli mobo. I am thinking i may go dual core soon (thats a maybe) and I want one that supports dual core. I dont know if the fatal1ty does or not, but i know the diamond does, it also supports full x16 SLi (even thought I know it doesnt help much)

1. is it worth the upgrade to go from my k8sli to the k8n diamond?
2. if so, do I need to reformat my hard drive when switching these mobo's?

 

[pengwin]

yes you should upgrade

would get the MSI just cuz its x16 over SLi if you ever plan to go SLi
if not the Fatality was more "bells and whistles"

yes you will need to format the harddrive/parition which has the OS on it

 

[INeedCache]

I'm assuming you're using Windows XP as your OS. If so, it would probably be best for you to reformat and reinstall Windows with your new motherboard. However, you don't have to if you don't want to. You could put the new board in your machine, then boot to your Windows XP install CD and do a repair of your current installation. It's as time consuming as a reinstall (without the reformat), but you wouldn't lose any data or programs (altho I still would back up any important data just to be safe).

 

[pengwin]

yes forgot about repair

but who uses that

yah new copy of windows will also keep your system new and fast i usually format every few months just to kinda reset my system

 

[sackynut]

I have SLi and dual vid cards, but is it really worth 200$ for the new mobo? from the k8sli

 

[apache_lives]

MSI - dont go there

 

[pengwin]

whats wrong with MSI?

 

[apache_lives]

whats right with MSI? iv owned bout 8 of there boards, a video card and a cdburner and all were just plain crap - got one board replaced couple of times before the company gave me an old asus board, other boards didnt see the end of the waranty (3 months anyone), my MSI video card (WTF A RED NVIDIA CARD?) had a masive cooler - the fan was noisy and it overheated so i replaced it with a tt G4 cooler 1/2 the size and it fixed it (still living sofar, msi uses underrated modules so by default the ram is overclocked cause there skimpy) and finally the msi cd burner (48x16x48) - toasted bout 5 discs over half a year (didnt use it much at the time) and after that 6 months it refused to burn once cd after another without having to restart, and a month later wouldnt even detect cdr's but it would pick up cdrw's, it always has read issues, i updated the firmware and it burned another ~3 cds and then totally went back to crap.

 

[shamoo]

yes you should upgrade

would get the MSI just cuz its x16 over SLi if you ever plan to go SLi
if not the Fatality was more "bells and whistles"

yes you will need to format the harddrive/parition which has the OS on it

the second you need to reformat is inorrect
before you swap mobos
go and uninstall any utitlities that came with the motherboard
next insert driver disk that came with new mobo and install everything driver wise
then shutdown dont restart
swap mobo
start back up you should have a fully working system you can clean older drivers out of system mannel.

 

[sackynut]

yes you should upgrade

would get the MSI just cuz its x16 over SLi if you ever plan to go SLi
if not the Fatality was more "bells and whistles"

yes you will need to format the harddrive/parition which has the OS on it

the second you need to reformat is inorrect
before you swap mobos
go and uninstall any utitlities that came with the motherboard
next insert driver disk that came with new mobo and install everything driver wise
then shutdown dont restart
swap mobo
start back up you should have a fully working system you can clean older drivers out of system mannel.

thank you! also, is the only thing I need to uninstall the chipset drivers and all that? if I have sound card should I reinstall those after the new mobo? what about video drivers?

 

[shamoo]

the sound and chipset can be uninstalled if you want to but you dont need to it should autodetect hte chipset and load appraote drivers try just leaveing the drivers and swaping mobo