Motherboard + GPU Swap

[Markbnj]

Hi guys. Have been running an NF3/939 board w/AGP, 6800GT, and needed to step up to a PCIe-16 GPU solution, so I have ordered an MSI NF4 board and a 7600GT. I want to swap out the board w/o reinstalling Windows, for various reasons. Here's what I'm thinking:

- Will have recent full backup of system drive
- DL the latest NF4 chipset drivers from nVidia
- Uninstall the current NF3 chipset driver suite
- Uninstall AMD dual core optimizer (just so I can reinstall on current bios and chipset later, not sure on this)
- Shut down
- Swap board and GPU
- Start up
- Flash mobo bios if needed
- Install NF4 chipset drivers and reboot.
- Reinstall AMD dual core optimizer

Not sure if I will need to reinstall nVidia GPU drivers since I am staying in the family. Any thoughts?

 

[Mr Fox]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
Hi guys. Have been running an NF3/939 board w/AGP, 6800GT, and needed to step up to a PCIe-16 GPU solution, so I have ordered an MSI NF4 board and a 7600GT. I want to swap out the board w/o reinstalling Windows, for various reasons. Here's what I'm thinking:

- Will have recent full backup of system drive
- DL the latest NF4 chipset drivers from nVidia
- Uninstall the current NF3 chipset driver suite
- Uninstall AMD dual core optimizer (just so I can reinstall on current bios and chipset later, not sure on this)
- Shut down
- Swap board and GPU
- Start up
- Flash mobo bios if needed
- Install NF4 chipset drivers and reboot.
- Reinstall AMD dual core optimizer

Not sure if I will need to reinstall nVidia GPU drivers since I am staying in the family. Any thoughts?

They are a Unified Platform Driver..... It should pick up all the new hardware........ I have done it a few times with no issues. All the driver dlls are there ... it just may take a few minutes to run thru the hardware wiz's


No reason to do all that stuff. Unliss it is a RAID array... and then if the Controller is the same and you number your cables... it will swap also. Just remember to set your boot order. and activate the RAID in the BIOS.

 

[Markbnj]

Thanks for the reply. No RAID array. So you're saying that the NForce drivers are unified, and I don't need to swap them for NF4? That will simplify things, for sure.

Edit: checked the nVidia site and they show two different packages for NF3 and NF4, so I'm guessing you meant the graphics driver. I am pretty sure I won't have to reinstall that. Running 91.33 at the moment.

But for the nForce 3 driver suite, shouldn't I uninstall that before I swap for the nForce 4 board?

Thanks.

 

[Seekermeister]

I'm not the person to ask, but I understand that if you swap with a motherboard with a different chipset, that it may not work properly, without some preparation in advance. All that I'm saying that you should wait for a clear answer to your question. Depending on what else you may have updated since you installed your OS, you may have to reactivate it, assuming that it is XP. But I understand that usually is not a problem.

 

[Markbnj]

I'll almost certainly need to reactivate, but no it shouldn't be a problem. I've swapped motherboards before, and Windows has figured things out. I'm just hoping to make it as smooth as possible.

 

[rudder]

You may want to install the new drivers while the old os and old motherboard are still in place. Mainly the SATA drivers Just use device manager. It will give you a message about the drivers not being correct, but ignore it. Just don't reboot. Once the proper drivers are installed then shut down, replace hardware and turn on the PC.

I have done this with servers going from a smart array 5 to smart array 6i from HP. Otherwise I would have gotten an inaccessible boot device BSOD.

 

[Markbnj]

Thanks for the reply, rudder. I didn't have to install any SATA drivers to boot initially in XP when I built this box. The two drives are WDs, one Raptor and a larger Caviar. The Raptor is the boot drive, and it came right up after I installed the O/S. I think what I may do is get the drivers, and burn a boot CD with the appropriate chipset and SATA drivers on it. Can you use a CD to install drivers during install? I'm assuming so, but have never done it.

 

[Trader05]

Everytime i did it, i uninstalled everything from the System Devices, IDE, Video, USB, and anything else that is onboard the motherboard in the device manager. Swtich everything power on and it should detect everything, just need the drivers. I haven't done this in a while though, it was definitly pre-PCIE. Good luck, back everything up just incase

 

[Markbnj]

Thanks for the help guys. Did the swap tonight and everything went pretty well. Had one tense moment when Windows seemed to freeze on start, but it was only a dead mouse due to lack of chipset drivers. I relearned the Windows keyboard shortcuts and got it working.

One strange thing: the BIOS has autodetected my Corsiar TwinXMS and set it to 3-3-3-7 at 156 Mhz. SPD is 3-3-3-8 at 200 mhz. Gonna mess around with it a little and see what's up.

Edit: they popped back to 3-3-3-8 @ 200 when I disabled auto config and set it to manual. I had one DIMM in the wrong slot and was getting single channel, so I think that may have been the issue.

Edit 2: One little bit of advice in case someone refers to this later: Uninstall the chipset drivers, shut down, swap, restart in normal mode, and let Windows do the hardware dance, then when it is done install the chipset drivers and reboot. I made a small mistake in that I restarted Windows in diagnostic mode, which is what I normally do when restarting after major system changes, but that prevented Windows from redetecting all the hardware and devices.