Question about installing a new motherboard

[konichiwa]

Alright, the friendly UPS man should be coming sometime next week (Monday or Tuesday) with a brand new Asus CUSL2, a p3 700E and a new IBM 75GXP hard drive.

Now my question...

1) What is the necessary process for installing a new motherboard? I've never done it before, don't know what needs to be done. Do any of the other system components need to be uninstalled? Or is it just pop-out and pop-in? (It can't be THAT easy :Q)

 

[Vrangel]

Hehe, you better prepare to reformat your HD .

But first I need to know what mobo you are replacing.

 

[Hawkeye_(BEL)]

I've just recently installed my first new motherboard. It took me no less than 4 hours to uninstall everything and put in my new mobo.

Take your time, don't freak out, and write everything down you unplug or put a something on the wires so you remember what they are for.

First, but your case on a table (I'm told preferable a wooden one). Dissharge yourself by touching your case. Open your case, locate everything and take a big breath.

See if you have enough space in you case to install everything without having to remove some things (I had to remove my PS, HD, Cdrom, Floppy). If you do have to remove hardware, take your manual from your case, it will come in handy to uninstall the bays and PS.

After you have a clear motherboard, unplug all the wires (HD led, power, IDE, ATX-power, CD-audio, etc) and mark on them where they were plugged in and what they are for. After that, unplug your CPU and Ram and any PCI or ISA devices you might have. I put all those components on a towel.

Unscrew your motherboard from the case, take it out and put in on another towel. Install your new motherboard. Plug everything back in.

Boot it up and pray it works

Remember to do things very calmly, and you're bound to succeed...

 

[konichiwa]

Abit Be-6. I'm prepared to reformat...but I'm not losing my mp3's. I'll move them to the new drive first if need be, and then back. I was planning on moving my OS/apps/games to the new 75GXP because it's faster, and putting the data/mp3's/etc on the 18gig WD I have in there right now. So reformatting is not a problem...but does that REALLY need to be done? It doesn't seem like it should, but...:Q

 

[zippy]

When i went from BE6 to MSI 6309 (totally different chipsets!) and I didn't need to reinstall windoze or reformat. I just popped it in, booted up, installed the drivers and called it an upgrade.

 

[atom]

I've went Soyo 6VBA133 to a MSI 6309 and I didn't have to reformat, and before that I went from an Asus P2L97 to the Soyo.

Just install the barebones stuff first: CPU, vid card, RAM, hard drive. After all of that is working, install all your other components one by one. Shouldn't take more than 45 minutes.

 

[Ulysses]

Hold everything!

You shouldn't have to reformat. Search for threads on this. I know I recently saw one that explained how to make the transfer without a hassle.

Also check the drive instructions or utility program. If you don't have that yet then check the IBM site for it - they have excellent FAQ's and will answer e-mail questions in 48 hrs.

I'm gonna go look - I might have kept a copy of the thread.

 

[Ulysses]

Here's what I copied from an AnandTech forum around 7/22/2000, but I know there are other threads too:

--------------------

! How to swap motherboards & leave system intact.doc
7/22/00

Q What's the easiest way to change a motherboard and get Windows back up and running like I used to? I got win-dows on a partition by itself but I don't want to lose my file associations and shortcuts and what not. Could I just rein-stall windows without formatting my c: drive? Would Windows set itself up for the new motherboard automatically (in terms of the devices on the board, not sound cards etc...)? Thanks.


A You can try this, it has worked for me..go into device manager and delete all your devices that you have to add driv-ers for...then when it asks you to reboot click ok, but after it starts the reboot shut down your system...swapout mother-boards and I would just install the video card at that point. Boot to Bios, auto detect the HDD, set up your bios parameters, save and reboot with boot disk...at the A prompt type "sys c:" after it says files transfered and A prompt returns type "fdisk/mbr" then when A prompt returns reboot without the boot disk inserted and you should start win-dows and the process of autodetection will then start and you can then once windows goes to desktop, shut down and install your other cards and devices...hope this helps

-----------------

Q But, what does the "sys c:" command do? Also, why would I want to fdisk my master boot record?

sys C: transfers the system files and Fdisk MBR removes corrupted boot records caused by the swap... I know that this works but Im a master auto technician not master computer geek..just know it works from experience and great advice I have recieved over the past couple years working the computer tech board at E-bay..

-----------------------

Q: As a reseller we are often asked to upgrade someones motherboard. Sometimes it is a breeze and other times the only hope seems to reinstall Windows from scratch. Am I missing someting? Does anyone know of a site that has a FAQ on MB swapping or lobotomys ??
I thought a site like this might have people who try this all the time!
thanks

A: This procedure works most of the time, but always backup whats important:
Open registry editor
open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
highlight the ENUM key and delete it

It will remove everything windows knows about your hardware. Reboot, it will say your display adapter is not configured properly. Click OK, run through add new hardware wizard.

It will reboot alot, and after its done load video/sound/modem drivers.

 

[Ulysses]

Also see:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=183054

and maybe
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/solutions/0,8224,2586419,00.html

 

[Nick Stone]

I haven't done this before but I think this is the procedure:
I could be wrong but you shouldn't have to delete hardware related entries in the registry since your using the same hardware, right? You delete those registry entries when you put your old hard drive into a new system, right?
If you motherboards are similar it helps. For example, If both motherboards allow IRQ selection (to match certain PCI slots) that would be nice.
Start with the Bios, use "printsceeen" to print out "hardware related" settings such as IRQ assignments and match with your new MB. For example, if you have a modem in PCI slot 3 using IRQ's 4 then put your modem in the same slot (no. 3) assign IRQ likewise in new Bois, etc.
If old computer doesn't require any settings to match your hardware, then just worry about the new bios. ie, check and see if any settings are hardware related. Download the user manual in advance to get a headstart.
Next subject "Bustmaster drivers" and "PCI bridges" etc. If your using Win 98 then the operating system should correctly install these at the 1st bootup with new motherboard. (Everyone agree???) Of course, things could get a little more complicated if your using a non-Intel MB's and Amd CPU's, and the less popular video cards. So get advice if that's the case.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Like I said at the start, I haven't actully done this before.

 

[Vrangel]

Yeah, it can be done without reformatting.Question is : is it worth it?
For every story of success theres a story of problems that lead to eventual reformat.
I do reformat when changing mobo because everything is under my control at this point.
I dont want system to crash later when I am unprepared.

EDIT
Besides 815E chipset is new. Anyone with firsthand experience?

 

[konichiwa]

Alright well I was sort of half-planning on reformatting anyway. So, here's my procedure:

1) Format new hard drive
2) Insert new hard drive, copy mp3's from old drive to new.
3) Shut down computer, remove all old hardware...remove old motherboard. Insert new motherboard. Insert new hard drive, new processor, etc. Insert all old hardware that is not being replaced. Boot up, configure BIOS to detect HDD.
4) Reformat old hard drive
5) Boot up and install Windows 2000

Sound good?

 

[konichiwa]

Do I have to do a sys c: if the drive is not going to be the boot drive?

 

[Ulysses]

If I understand it you just want to set up your new HDD as your main boot drive, install win 2k on it, install all your other programs on it, and finally copy over your MP3 data files to it. After that you may not even need the old HDD, or you can use it for backups - whatever.

So try this:

1. Before you take the old system apart (!) prepare a bootable DOS floppy (use "sys a:" to do that) also containing files fdisk.exe and format.com. Try to prepare the bootable floppy from the same OS you will be using on the new HDD. And test it.

2. Setup the new system's hardware, but just put in the new HDD, not the old. If I've got it right all you want off the old is your MP3's. Worry about them later, after you're up and running with an operating system. Too many HDD's spoil the setup. But I guess it doesn't matter as long as you keep track of which drive is which when running fdisk.exe and format.com (see below)!

3. Start the PC and boot from the floppy from step 1. Type "fdisk" at the prompt and when fdisk starts follow the prompts to partition the disk as you wish.

4. Next use format.com to format each partition that you've created in step 3.

5. Now install the operating system and applications. This is where you may want to use the utility that comes with the new HDD to transfer everything over from the old drive (including the MP3's). But a clean install is always nice too. Either way install the OS and apps. BTW, a clean install of Win 2K, not an upgrade from Win 98, is to be preferred, especially with the nice system you'll have, where you'll want to minimize bugs. A good rule is no more than 1 upgrade with stuff like MS Office, and no upgrade when going from Win 98 to Win 2000.

6. Finally, if you haven't already, install the old HDD (resetting jumpers if appropriate) and transfer the MP3's to the new. Also transfer any other data you want from the old to the new drive.

7. Then reformat, partition etc. the old HDD to suit your new system's needs. I use my old HDD for backing up all my data, and keep it disconnected between backups (they make removable HDD caddies for this purpose too). But come to think of it - you may not want to reformat the old HDD until you're sure you have all the data from it that you might ever want.

Also, before you start, check the instructions that come with the drive and review the zdnet link I gave you above.

 

[Vrangel]

And the last step:

after everything is up and running koni talks to right ppl
and gets Ulysses 'elite' status.