Change motherboard and CPU

[kateka]

Hello I have and old HP Pavilion a820n that I was considering upgrading it as a 2nd PC.
Presently it has a motherboard with socket 775 and a Pentium4 (3.2 GHZ) and 4GB RAM

I am thinking about changing the motherboard (around $65) and CPU (something like a i3-2100 that cost around $110).

1) As I am not a techie I was wondering whether this is a complicated thing to do.
2) Could I keep the memory cards I have?
3) Would I need to change video cards?

Thanks

 

[popatim]

1: not hard. bunch of screws and connectors. Your problem is that
a: the HP case may be proprietary and another non-hp board may not fit
b: the operating system is tied to the HP motherbd and will not transfer to a non-hp motherbd.
2: nope
3: if you have a pcie GPU then no. If you have an AGP gpu then yes you will need a new one

 

[kateka]

1: not hard. bunch of screws and connectors. Your problem is that
a: the HP case may be proprietary and another non-hp board may not fit
b: the operating system is tied to the HP motherbd and will not transfer to a non-hp motherbd.
2: nope
3: if you have a pcie GPU then no. If you have an AGP gpu then yes you will need a new one

Thanks for your comments. I will likely leave it the way it is.

 

[Guest]

If you have an OEM version of windows 7 you don't have to buy another copy as long as it hasn't been turned on in I think 1 week.

 

[popatim]

^^^^ totally wrong adam.
HP, Dell, Toshiba... all tie their oem versions of windows to the bios. they will only reinstall on the same motherbd or a couple of others (from the same maker) at most.

 

[Guest]

But I bought a copy of windows oem from amazon and changed my motherboard (asus to asrock) and cpu. All I had to do was set it up normally.