Swapping mobo, any Do's or Don'ts??

[randomboy]

Going from an Abit KT7A non-raid board w/ 512mb of some generic pc133 ram, to an Asus a7v333 w/ 256mb of mushkin hi perf ram And switching power supplies and putting in an Enermax whisper 431w psu.

Basically all I'm planning on doing is unplugging everything (power connections, IDE cables, sound/vid/NIC cards, putting the new stuff in, and plugging it all back in I know that part of it should go OK, but what I'm worried about is if theres any chance I could run into software/boot issues when I put the new mobo in? Are there any steps I should take to prep the PC for the swap, or is it basically just old hardware out, new HW in??

I'm gonna do a search, but just in case I dont find anything, I have this here and hopefully someone will reply to it so I dont go into this completely blind and end up having to swap the OLD mobo back in. LOL, that would suck

Thanks in advance.

Jeff

 

[gtd2000]

what I'm worried about is if theres any chance I could run into software/boot issues when I put the new mobo in?

There are different thoughts on this - there is a possibility that you may get boot issues.
I have done numerous (perhaps 3 or 4 ) motherboard transplants VIA to VIA, VIA to Intel and Intel to VIA also.
In each case I let the hardware wizard detect the new components.
It always worked out fine for me - but there are people out there who will have the opposite experience


In all honestly - I usually eventually format and re-install months later just to make sure everything is OK - but it has never been necessary yet

Are there any steps I should take to prep the PC for the swap, or is it basically just old hardware out, new HW in??

Essentially - yes
Just make sure you have everything at hand and you take your time - it should then go flawlessly

You can also re-boot in safe mode once everything is running smoothly and check for "extra" devices that should not be listed - just remove them.

 

[KF]

VIA to VIA transplant should go OK I think. If it doesn't work 100%, reboot in safe mode (F8) and delete every device in Device Manager. It is tedious, but I have had to do this in an Intel BX to VIA KT133 transplant. The symptoms were that everything supposedly was working normally (no red or yellow marks in Device Manager) but a couple of things did not actually work. For whatever reason, I had to do this twice before it all worked.

 

[randomboy]

Whoops, forgot about my post here after deciding to go with the full format/OS reinstall when I swap. I dont really have anything crucial on here besides some games which I can reinstall, and some text/photos I can save to cd anyways.

Basically now all I'm wondering is WHAT to get for drivers before I do the swap? If worse came to worse I could find another PC to d/l stuff from to get onto this, but I really only have this PC for now, so I want to be prepared. I mean, what will I need for drivers besides your basic stuff (vid card, sound card, cdrw). Will I need drivers for my HDD?? Mobo? Stuff like that, I really dont know what devices there are in a PC that you'd need to get drivers for.

So at this point, I have install/driver cds for cdrw, zip, soundcard, vid card and thats about it.........

Help please, its all being *attempted* tomorrow

Jeff

 

[KF]

>Basically now all I'm wondering is WHAT to get for drivers before I do the swap?

If your modem needs a special driver, you need to get that. Windows comes with a lot of generic drivers for modems, and you may be using that now. Having the drivers for the sound and video while you are installing Windows makes it convenient, but Windows doesn't need sound to work, and all video boards have a basic VGA mode that Windows will automatically use if doesn't have something better to use in the standard drivers.

The drivers for the HD and CD (as a reader) are built into Windows. The VIA drivers for their chipset mainly improve performance and stability, and Windows works with its built in drivers, although maybe not 3D video games. The VIA chipset drivers normally are on the CD that they give you with the motherboard. I'm pretty sure ASUS will have a convenient automatic install on the CD so you just have to put the CD in and choose. You can also get the latest "4in1" drivers from the VIA site.

Some mice use extra drivers for extra functions and more buttons. Normally every mouse works for the basic functions that Windows needs just with the built in driver. If you have a network card, it needs a driver. Windows has some built in.

One thing some people recommend is to install Windows with only the video card, and later add any other cards. It's more time consuming, but in odd cases this works when the other way somehow goes wrong.

One thing you can do after Windows is completely installed is to enable DMA mode for the CDROM and HD for better performance.

 

[Chaotic42]

There's a FAQ for this.

Anyway, went I went from a KT233 based board to an AMD 761 board, Windows XP told me in no uncertain terms that it was not happy. I had to wipe it out completely.

Even if you could get it to work, I'd feel better with a fresh install. Just to make certain.

 

[randomboy]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
There's a FAQ for this.

Anyway, went I went from a KT233 based board to an AMD 761 board, Windows XP told me in no uncertain terms that it was not happy. I had to wipe it out completely.

Even if you could get it to work, I'd feel better with a fresh install. Just to make certain.

Yes, I read the FAQ about swapping w/o a fresh install, and it just seems a heck of alot easier to just reinstall everything, hence, I'm asking for help on what I'll need

Thanks KF, so basically I'll have everything I need to get everything functioning with what I already have, and then it'll basically be tweaking after that Off I go into the unknown..........

Jeff

 

[novice]

FWIW, I just swapped a via KT3Ultra board into a system that had a Via Apollo Pro 133a board in it previously. I didn't even bother removing the devices, just to see what Windows 98 would do. It had me reinstall a bunch of the drivers, but it booted up just fine. Made the switch from the Celeron 600@900 to the new Athlon XP 1700+ without a hitch. Even booted right up to the same settings on the Geforce 3 Ti200! Not even the settings changed. Now I am not recommending that you try just "plugging the new board in and see what happens", but it worked for me. Then again, I am fortunate to have 3 other systems here at home, in case something did go wrong, I have 2 others with ADSL access and my wife's system upstairs has good old reliable 56K. Good luck,
Chuck

 

[KF]

>... It had me reinstall a bunch of the drivers, but it booted up just fine. ...

The system I am working on now, my main system, started out on a 16MHz 386SX mobo from Elite Group (ECS) with a 45MB Mitsubishi RLL HD and Windows 3.0. It has been copied to different HDs and transplanted to different mobos since. It has been through at least 6 mobos.

I just switched a new mobo to a HD downstairs with XP on it. XP took a little longer to boot, but that was about it. Nothing needed to be done, it just worked.

 

[jackwhitter]

if you are using win9x/me, then you will have no problem... win 2k/xp is much more finicky about switching entire motherboards... if you are using different ide bus/drivers, it may give you a BSOD and a "boot device unavailable error". try it, the worst that can happen is you have to reinstall everything... most likely, windows will just install some "new" devices it detected (same devices, new locations.)

oh, btw, make sure you ground yourself, often.