Suggest replacement motherboard for HP Pavilion a350n

[perlmonger]

I've got an HP Pavilion a350n with a bad mobo. It currently has an Asus P4SDLA OEM board. It seems (through web research) it is basically an OEM badged P4G8000-V. I've read of successful bios flashes to the OEM board using the P4G8000-V bios so it must be pretty close. I just need to fix the PC. I don't care about adding functionality or performance.

• Current setup:
  2.8 GHz P4
  512MB PC2700
  NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX 440 AGP 8X

I'd like to just replace the board and not have to do much configuration. Should I look for the P4G8000-V (which seems scarce) or can I just put in another board and "plug and play"?

Thanks for the help

 

[cmrmrc]

i'd go buy another motherboard...same thing happened to me beforce...

i have a pavilion a320n and while updating the bios, something screwed up and i was left with a motherboard without a bios, so i bought another one and installed it...still using it now...

for the mobo, theres plenty of those...i live in canada and there is the asus p4p800-mx for 80$...

 

[perlmonger]

I'm mainly wondering about the board connections for things like the built-in card reader and such. I'd like to find a new board that would just replace the current one without having to change anything. Thanks for the tip.

 

[furballi]

Cheap HP Wal Mart Specials=use it and throw it. The HP OS will probably not load with a new MB. Time for a new rig. ECS NF3 with Sempron 3100 run $70. Add $30 for 512MB PC3200. Easy 2.25GHz overclock.

 

[perlmonger]

I'm not sure what you mean about the "HP OS". If I put in a different board won't winxp boot with windows drivers for the new board and chipset? I could then install mobo drivers from mfr's disk? I would think that windows would identify the new "hardware" and load default drivers for it. Am I over-simplifying this. I've done it before but on home-built rigs (not Dell, HP Compaq etc)

Thanks for the help and sorry for the slow response. (coaching little girl's softball, season in full swing)

 

[furballi]

The HP version of windows may not boot with a non-HP MB. This is by design to prevent folks from cloning the HDD. A registered copy of windows should work with any MB.

 

[tcsenter]

Its not booting but installing Windows from the HP branded Windows disc that could potentially be a problem if the Windows disc is BIOS locked. Otherwise, XP will just reset the activation when it detects a new/different motherboard, which will need to be re-activated within 3 days.

The OEM EULA allows the user to apply his Windows license obtained with a prebuilt OEM system to a new motherboard so long as the reason for replacing the motherboard is due to failure or defect, but not if a working motherboard is 'upgraded' to obtain new features, function, or capability.

When re-activating Windows, you'll have to call Microsoft and do the installation ID thing. When asked the reason for re-activating, say that your motherboard died and had to be replaced.

The HP P4SD-LA (Stingray) is standard Micro-ATX form factor based on Intel 865G (848P for Oxford). Any standard Micro-ATX motherboard should fit just fine, but the I/O backplane shield may need to be replaced (or removed). Also, you won't easily find a non-OEM motherboard that features the same card reader connector because it is only used by large OEMs. Some Intel OEM boards have this connector, though I don't know if it is compatible with your card reader. You may need to ditch your card reader in favor of one that uses standard USB header (internal) or USB port (external).

If you get a motherboard that uses an Intel chipset, you should have little problem swapping without having to re-install Windows. Just boot into Safe Mode by invoking the boot menu (pressing F8 IIRC) the first time you boot the PC with the new motherboard and give Windows a few minutes to load. After a while, it will usually say 'your new hardware is installed' and prompt you to restart. The second time you can boot normally into Windows. If you use a USB mouse and keyboard, I recommend that you find a PS/2 mouse or keyboard because USB devices may not work until Windows finishes installing them on the next restart.

If the new motherboard chipset is based on any flavors of the new 9xx family from Intel, you may want to download the latest chipset INF utility from Intel and install it after the first restart to update support for the newer core logic.