question, installing a new mother board w/ processor

[le Tigre 0]

Hi guys, Ive come across a mother board with processor from another computer going to the trash, however, saving this machine out of curiosity I've discovered that the mother board and processor are both about 2x better than what I currently have on this machine (a P3 500)

Both my current and new processor are intel, and both mother boards have onboard video, can I simply add the new stuff to my old computer? or will that cause problems?

[Dannik 43]

Assuming the rest of your components are going to work (RAM, etc) with the new board, in theory it's a straight swap out, however there is a very good chance that your OS install will bug out, possibly fatally. When swapping a processor only, that's trivial. A motherboard, however, contains dozens of hardware entries, and changing them all in one fell swoop is like major surgery to your system.

I have no information on how well Windows (assuming you're running a version of Windows) in general survives this process pre XP, but I have done just such a swap on two computers here, fairly recently. On one, I automatically did an XP repair install on first reboot, and it worked just fine, once I manually installed a couple of drivers. On the other one, an OEM XP Home install, I didn't have a suitable XP CD (stupid OEM hidden partition), and on first boot, it was incredibly unstable. I rebooted again, and it was much more stable. I installed the new drivers needed, and it worked absolutely fine.

In other words, if you're running XP, keep a copy on hand just in case, and if things look bad on first reboot, that's probably normal. After you (and Windows) finishes installing all the changed hardware, a reboot should bring you back to normal. Note again, though, that it may not work that simply, and there is legitimate risk of hosing your OS if you're not prepared.

Oh yeah, and make sure you get the latest drivers for the motherboard in question before doing this, as it may be difficult to get them mid-stream. Nothing like not being able to download drivers because you don't have drivers for your network device.

[le Tigre 0]

Thanks Dannik

[ROCO*AFZ* 0]

If it is the same chipset... epecially intel (the mainboad) usually the swap goes well in xp. But via to intel for example and vice versa may end up being a reload.