ry4540

ive never changed a motherboard b4 and umm.. the new computer i have has a really low end acer motherboard running high end stuff, lyk quad core and 8800gts. i am thinking of replacing the mother board with an msi motherboard. just wondering, if i were to change it, do i just unplug n plug the new one bak in and its going to work? cuz i heard for xp, everything on the harddrive would be kept. and i am using windows vista home prenium 32bit. do i have to lyk reinstall everything i have? or even restore or wutever?

ps: anyone would lyk to recommend any msi or a good brand small sized board dat costs roughly around a hundred bucks? cuz my tower can only take those 9.5"x9.5" or smaller ones. thanks

mortonman1

i dont know much about your first qustions, i think it will work unless the BIOS change. windows is strict about that stuff. i waas thinking about taking an old HD with xp on it and use it in a new build, though i have heard that changing the motherboard will be detected by th system and xp will not load. but i dont know. just what ive heard before, dont take my word... im a "newb". for the motherboard you dont have to get MSI. but this may be good: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131237 its 134.99, pay attention to the amout of PCI slots, not to many. count how many cards you currently have. its a pretty good board.

i think this is extactly what you are looking for: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130120
People complaind about ports on the I/O panel not working(LAN, sound ports, ect...) though one person solved the problem by updating the BIOS on the manufacturers website. do what ya got to do though

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Gigabyte 630i 7100 HDMI series
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Seagate 250GB
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Thermal controller
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E4500 @ 2.2GHz(soon to be OCed!)with liquid nitrogen! lol, i wish

bigbird

1. Uninstall everything in Add/Remove Programs that has anything to do with the currently installed motherboard's manufacturer. That means all Intel drivers, any nForce driver sets, built-in sound utilities, lan, etc. If it came on the driver CD with the old motherboard or you downloaded it from the old motherboard's manufacturer's website, uninstall it.
2. Go into Device Manager and change all of the system drivers from the specific hardware to "standard". This includes hard disk controllers, pci to usb host, agp contoller, pci bridge, etc. Reboot! Once the system is loaded with the generic drivers, shut down, then you should be able to remove the motherboard replace with your new one and boot up. Now load the hardware drivers for the new system, voila! This worked for me when swapping motherboards/cpu. Good luck!

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oscaryu1

He could just install the motherboard and do a reformat or repair.

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bigbird

of course a format would be best, however i just gave an option if he wanted to keep his windows settings and programs intact!

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Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

oscaryu1

And there was the Repair part I was talking about.

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ry4540

umm how do i repair windows vista if i dun have the vista installation disc? i bought it from futureshop with it installed already. all i have is the backup. i dun c repair options or anything when m going in windows

oscaryu1

I am not sure about Vista, as it is completely different. I was talking about XP. Since you're using Vista, you are best off with BigBird's advice, as it can be used for all OSes.

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