Switching Motherboards

[Jaimie]

Hi, my motherboard, a Soltek SL-K8AN2E-GR, has failed me and Soltek wants me to RMA it. However, they will not pay for shipping to Taiwan. Considering this is an $80 fee, and the motherboard presently retails for about $75, it is not worth the hassle. I have decided to purchase a new board, in particular the DFI LanParty UT nForce3 250Gb. My current motherboard is of the same chipset.

What issues will I encounter upon a motherboard change, providing all other components stay as is? I am running Windows XP Professional SP2, rest of rig can be seen through the link in signature.

Is this simply plug and play? What errors should I be prepared to deal with? I have two SATA drives in a non-RAID configuration.

Help is much appreciated,
Jaimie

 

[powerMarkymark]

I did the same with one of my rigs and other than a few random drivers, everything worked after the switch.

I was surprised in the result, however I did do a clean install as soon as I could.

M@rc

 

[azel]

I upgrade my mobo around once a year and it's always a "swap and pray" process.
The latest one failed despite uninstalling all drivers beforehand, but a repair-installation fixed everything.
Other times I simply needed to install the new drivers to get everything working.
Sticking to the same nForce chipset probably yields better results than switching chipsets.

 

[n0cmonkey]

There is a FAQ on this.

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.aspx?i=113