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XP reinstall after CPU change?

B

BespinReactorShaft

Diamond Member
Hi all,

If I swap my existing 3 GHz Prescott processor for a 3 GHz Northwood, will I need to reinstall my O/S (winXP)?

Generally when do we really need to reinstall XP? It seems an XP installation seems to be somehow "locked" in some way to the hardware configuration, and refuses to work if that configuration changes in some way.

Just wondering, since I needed to do the same thing when I tried to use my old boot drive from my old Pentium 3 system in my new P4 system.

Thanks.

ming2020
 
While I've seen a couple of posts here saying they have had to reinstall XP after a cpu change, normally it shouldn't be an issue. A motherboard change will require it virtually every time, however.
 
Mine's no simple reactivation. The thing just got stuck during startup (in the dos text mode) with some error message and would go no further, even after selecting "safe mode." Maybe they wish to protect against piracy, but to have XP refuse to recognise your own PC after a perfectly valid thing like a CPU change is ridiculous. Then again, it's Micro$oft we're talking about here.....
 
Originally posted by: ming2020
Mine's no simple reactivation. The thing just got stuck during startup (in the dos text mode) with some error message and would go no further, even after selecting "safe mode." Maybe they wish to protect against piracy, but to have XP refuse to recognise your own PC after a perfectly valid thing like a CPU change is ridiculous. Then again, it's Micro$oft we're talking about here.....
Click to expand...

That's not piracy protection. If it does think it's pirated, it boots up completely, and when you try to log in, forces you to activate (no 30-day grace period). The only hardware changes that I've seen cause failure to boot is a motherboard chipset / IDE controller change, and it blue screens with some message saying something like "can't mount boot drive". That can be fixed with a repair install.
 
I've had the same experience when I upgraded my son's unit. But instead of re-installing I just did the repair installation. It still required re-activation and downloading all those darn updates. But at least I kept all my other programs and profiles.😎
 
A CPU change may trigger activation but it won't require a reinstall. Now if you had changed the mobo and the CPU that's a different story.
 
Originally posted by: redbeard1
While I've seen a couple of posts here saying they have had to reinstall XP after a cpu change, normally it shouldn't be an issue. A motherboard change will require it virtually every time, however.
Click to expand...

It shouldn't. Typically unless your HAL changes you can work around the STOP 7B that can happen if your MB IDE/SCSI controller changes.
 
Originally posted by: ming2020
Mine's no simple reactivation. The thing just got stuck during startup (in the dos text mode) with some error message and would go no further, even after selecting "safe mode." Maybe they wish to protect against piracy, but to have XP refuse to recognise your own PC after a perfectly valid thing like a CPU change is ridiculous. Then again, it's Micro$oft we're talking about here.....
Click to expand...

Was it a blue screen of death? If so, put in the original CPU, configure it to do a kernel mode dump, put in the new CPU, start it up, let it crash with the text mode screen, wait a bit, power it off, put in the original CPU, power it up, and send the c:\windows\memory.dmp file (zipped) to MS and they'll tell you what's wrong.

But changing CPUs without changing MBs shouldn't impact boot. I suspect the more likely scenario is your MB doesn't support the new CPU.
 
No, it wasn't a BSOD. Just black and white regular dos mode screen with text message saying that the bootup had failed please try again blablabla or somesuch. I forget the exact message though.

BTW just to clarify again, this thing happened when I tried putting my HDD from the old P3 system, into the new P4 system. I wanted it to just boot up and let me tackle whatever changes XP detects in the hardware.

Quite clearly now it seems XP doesn't like the big changes in hardware configuration (exactly what constitutes "big" is open to debate I suppose).

So basically I'm now just banking on XP being tolerant of something less dramatic like a simple CPU swap on my current P4 system. If that doesn't happen, that's where repair install might do the trick.
 
Originally posted by: ming2020
No, it wasn't a BSOD. Just black and white regular dos mode screen with text message saying that the bootup had failed please try again blablabla or somesuch. I forget the exact message though.

BTW just to clarify again, this thing happened when I tried putting my HDD from the old P3 system, into the new P4 system. I wanted it to just boot up and let me tackle whatever changes XP detects in the hardware.

Quite clearly now it seems XP doesn't like the big changes in hardware configuration (exactly what constitutes "big" is open to debate I suppose).

So basically I'm now just banking on XP being tolerant of something less dramatic like a simple CPU swap on my current P4 system. If that doesn't happen, that's where repair install might do the trick.
Click to expand...

Well, I think it might be wise to post the exact error message so we can help you a little more....

If it was DOS mode, XP didn't boot, because XP isn't DOS. If XP had loaded and had a problem you'd have gotten an ACPI error message or a STOP 7B Inaccessible_boot_device error message.
 
actually I did not mean "dos mode" as in the OS, but that stage of XP startup when it's still in text mode (i.e. before that 320x240 8-bit colour splash screen thingy).

nevermind then. in any case, i'm going to find out hopefully this weekend if that vendor allows me to swap the CPUs at all.

cheers.

ming2020
 
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