Upgrading MB...a few questions

[HAH]

Hi all.

I have a five year old system (althon 1333 Win XP pro) and want to upgrade with a motherboard CPU combo and stick it in my old case (ATX). And use all my old/new hardware ( HDD, CDRW, DVD, Power supplly 500W, and RAM 1 gig PC3200)

Probably going with AMD XP 3200 or AMD 64 3200

#1 Are all the screws that hold the MB in standard? Will it just be pull the old one out stick in the new one?

#2 Will there be any problems booting up from the HD or wil I need to reinstall?

Would appreciate any comments and heads up on any problems I might encounter.

Thanks
Heath

 

[jarchow]

1) holes should be standard, as long as you get another ATX motherboard.
2) As you'll be installing a new motherboard and processor, you will need a new installation of windows. If you have information on the old hdd that you need to keep around (docs, pr0n, etc.) you may want to just get a new hdd for the new processor. Then you can use the old hdd as a secondary drive until you have everything useful off of it.

 

[HAH]

Thanks for the reply.
I have 2 HD's the second really doesn't have much on it so I could copy everything to that or just put the OS on it and swap it.

Another question I just thought of.
All these new MB have front mounted USB ports and the such. Can these be left unconnected? Any problems?

Thanks
Heath

 

[jarchow]

You don't have to connect anything ot the front of the case from the motherboard. The motherboard doesn't care whether you do or not. It is really just for your ease of use.

 

[bliq]

1) holes should be standard, as long as you get another ATX motherboard.
2) As you'll be installing a new motherboard and processor, you will need a new installation of windows. If you have information on the old hdd that you need to keep around (docs, pr0n, etc.) you may want to just get a new hdd for the new processor. Then you can use the old hdd as a secondary drive until you have everything useful off of it.

This is not technically correct- you could use a microsoft utility called sysprep to set your installation on your current hard drive to OEM mode, meaning it will redetect all system components at next reboot. Once it's in OEM mode, plop in the new components and boot up. You'll go into the familiar detecting hardware screens.

This is the best way to install a new motherboard/CPU while continuing to use the old hard drive and data that's on it. Using sysprep is simplicity itself but the instructions are complicated.

here's a hint- the command you'll most likely want to use is

sysprep -pnp