Mother Board Swapping?

[ElrichMeister]

OK im gonna change my whole mother cpu and ram, where do i uninstall all the drivers for my mobo, i know its in the device manager, and i dont want to reformat my whole hardrive, and how many drivers rely on the mother board

[Ginsu543]

Go into device manager and delete all the system stuff. Then reboot and allow new mobo settings to be detected. You may have to install any drivers that came with the mobo. It took me a lot of patience to swap my Abit NF7-S nForce2 board for my old Pentium III Intel 815E board, but I was able to do it without reformating my hard drive and losing all my programs/data.<BR><BR>I suggest that you make a backup of your hard drive as you have it so that you can always start over if you mess up.

[TranceJunkieXL]

What onboard features will be remaining the same? It is my understanding that all you need to do is install the HDD with the new mobo, go to the device manager and update drivers for anything with a yellow question mark or exclamation point.

[LTRLPH]

I must be very lucky! All I did was stick everything in turned on the computer and installed the mobo drivers. I didn't know I was supposed to remove any system board drivers! <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif" border="0"> Maybe XP Pro is a miracle OS for ignorant people like me. <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0">

[BAM!]

you are a lucky bastard!.. many modern motherboards requires a new copy of registry entry replaced upon swapping a HDD( that has previous installation of OS). glad it worked out for you <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

[Avid6eek]

I had no problem swapping my old Gigabyte KT333 Mobo with my new MSI K7N2 when I first got it. All it asked for was new drivers <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0"> Guess that was luck as well.

[ElrichMeister]

so should i uninstall all the drivers or just swap and hope for the best?

[Ginsu543]

I say uninstall all the mobo drivers. That way you can get a clean install. I've seen too many people have problems because their install interfered with or didn't work with the previous version on their hard drive.

[ElrichMeister]

ok sorry for this late reply. This what it looks like in my device manager under system devices, is this where i uninstall all of the mobo drivers, or only certain ones. <img src="http://mywebpage.netscape.com/StRiFeNeRdStRiFe/systemdevices.jpg">

[TranceJunkieXL]

Exactly. Start with anything that has "VIA" in front of it. I probably wouldn't worry about anything else. At least if you are moving from a VIA chipset to an NForce2 set-up.

[ElrichMeister]

i would also have to remove the sound drivers too, right. and install the nforce2 sound drivers.

[TranceJunkieXL]

Anything relating to the hardware included on your current motherboard. Sound drivers, AGP drivers, NIC drivers, PCI drivers, etc.

[ElrichMeister]

so i basically just uninstall everything thats hooked up tp my motherboard right, like video card, nic card, tv card, and etc?

[TranceJunkieXL]

Not what I meant. If you are going to be using the same PCI NIC card, video card, and TV tuner, why would you uninstall those drivers? You want to uninstall the motherboard drivers that run the onboard things, like onboard video (if you have that on either), onboard LAN, onboard sound, the PCI drivers and AGP drivers independent of the videocard, etc. Uninstall the drivers that were supplied on the CD that came with your old motherboard.

[ElrichMeister]

ooh ok thanks

[TranceJunkieXL]

My pleasure.<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"> Just hope I didn't confuse you too much earlier.<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">

[mmcduff]

what do all you people have against reformatting your hd? Back up all your crap, and then it only takes an afternoon to reinstall all your programs and get your settings back to norm, then your computer runs 500 times better.

[Ginsu543]

To be honest, I'm just too lazy. Besides, it would take me *WAY* longer than an afternoon to reload all my programs because I have my system tweaked up the yinyang. I have my Windows environment so customized that I have to keep records of all that I've done because I can't remember them all. If I were running standard Windows and main 3rd party software, I could imagine reinstalling after an upgrade (or just for maintenance), but as things are I shudder at the prospect. I'm sure that I would get a faster system if I reinstalled, but it's not worth the headache for me.

[GNXtreme]

heh...Ginsu that is the main reason that I don't tweak windows like that...I am always changing something here or there and I like to have a fresh install of XP to go along with it...and I do agree with you that it is way too much of a headache to redo the windows tweaks...I like to format and reinstall windows...lol.

[Ginsu543]

To each his own, LOL!!! I hate reformatting and reinstalling so much that I keep two copies of my hdd (my main hdd and one backup). If anything goes wrong, I just copy the backup copy over to the main hdd and I'm back in business! I have two other computers (they're older, one at home and one at the office) and all of them have backup hdd's.

[mmcduff]

your a lot like my dad, he wouldn't reformat to save his life. Despite being a computer genius he never gets rid of old crap and so his comp runs like a slug...

[Avid6eek]

Reformating is like computer exercise. Sure it's a lot of work, and seems to take up a lot of time....but in the end it makes the computer faster.

[Ed]

Back when I installed a new mobo into my system without removing any drivers or anything, the damn thing kept freezing at the windows logon screen. It sure gave me a scare.

[Ginsu543]

I've upgraded from a Pentium III 500 MHz Slot A system to a Pentium III 933 MHz FC-PGA system to an Athlon XP nForce2 system, all without reinstalling, and I've never had any problems. My Win98 has always been very solid.

[Viper409]

You don't really have to re-install with Win98. It will find the new hardware and install the drivers for it. WinXp, on the other hand, can't handle it. Re-installing is probably the best idea to get around it. You get a fresh, fast install, and don't worry need to worry about it freezing while loading.

[mmcduff]

<br><br><< <i> I've upgraded from a Pentium III 500 MHz Slot A system to a Pentium III 933 MHz FC-PGA system to an Athlon XP nForce2 system, all without reinstalling, and I've never had any problems. My Win98 has always been very solid. </i> >><br><br><BR><BR>well, for the other 5.9999 billion of us... <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif" border="0">

[Avid6eek]

<br><br><< <i>I've upgraded from a Pentium III 500 MHz Slot A system to a Pentium III 933 MHz FC-PGA system to an Athlon XP nForce2 system, all without reinstalling, and I've never had any problems. My Win98 has always been very solid.</i> >><br><br> That's IMPOSSIBLE! Half of the times I installed Win98 I'd get a blue screen of death during installation! Win98 is an inherantly unstable operating system. It trips over it's own feet consantly. So far I feel that WinXP is easily Microsofts best OS. It can be a bit much to handle on older systems, but it's a great OS. It sucks that Longhorn isn't going to be out for a while, because I'm sure that will be even better.

[Viper409]

Tom's Hardware had an <a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20030617/index.html">article</a> a little while back on the new file system that will come with Longhorn. It sounds pretty interesting, cause they are gonna use server technology (i.e. relational database, can't tell you what that really means tho) to manage the disk. We aren't gonna be using directory structures anymore if it works well.

[Avid6eek]

I read that article a while back. Didn't it also say that Longhorn was still going to support NTFS?

[Ed]

Are you guys talking XP Pro, Home, or both? I'm thinking of upgrading to XP Pro, but I've heard that 2000 is better than the XPs.

[TranceJunkieXL]

<br><br><< <i>Didn't it also say that Longhorn was still going to support NTFS?</i> >><br><br><BR>It was my understanding that Longhorn used an entirely different file system. By "support," do you mean recognize? If I remember correctly it will recognize both FAT and NTFS partitions.

[TranceJunkieXL]

<BR><< <i>The new file system is designed to store files based on various content criteria, e.g., author, contents, names, source medium and the most recent user. The folder structure shown in the Windows Explorer is thus reduced to a virtual map. Directory structures provide some guidance but do not say where data is actually stored, how the system organizes files or the nature of any data pointers stored with them. </i> >><BR><BR><BR>Great article Viper. So does this mean WinFS will create a file structure so that most recently/often used files will be accessed faster, like data in a Cache is?<BR><BR><BR><BR><< <i>In its latest build (M4), Longhorn contains few hints of the technology's imminent implementation. One of those is more than 20 MB in size and bears the name winfs.exe. This file stands for the upcoming Storage Engine. Currently, however, all existing system files have no function or produce nothing more than error messages. In the end, Win FS will probably emerge as an optional file system beside FAT and NTFS. It's also possible that Win FS will supersede its predecessors, however. That would most likely produce problems for multi-boot systems, since the only way Windows XP, Longhorn and Linux would all be able to access one and the same volume would be through complex methods - if at all.</i> >><BR><BR><BR>I guess it's ability to read FAT/NTFS partitions hasn't been ironed out yet.

[Viper409]

<br><br><< <i>Currently, however, all existing system files have no function or produce nothing more than error messages.</i> >><br><br><BR><BR>What's so new about that? Ain't that always the case?<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0">

[mmcduff]

<br><br><< <i> Are you guys talking XP Pro, Home, or both? I'm thinking of upgrading to XP Pro, but I've heard that 2000 is better than the XPs. </i> >><br><br><BR>talkin about both, its a common misconception that XP home is upgrade of ME and XP Pro is upgrade of 2000, which is bs<BR><BR>2000 is better for workstation stuff, but its had some compatibilty problems w/ some games (or so i've heard, no 1st hand experience) so thats why i run XP (home)... ME is so crappy i think they abandoned most of that crap

[TranceJunkieXL]

WindowsME......<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-disgusted.gif" border="0">

[Ginsu543]

Well Shiz, I swear to you that it's true (for me anyways). Each time I upgraded, I just used PowerQuest Disk Image 5.0 to copy the contents of my old hdd to the new hdd, booted up, deleted the mobo drivers (and any other driver I didn't need) using Device Manager, rebooted, let Win98 detect the new mobo components, intalled the mobo drivers, and bingo! the new system was up and running. Not only that, my 500 MHz system had a crappy Creative sound card (wasn't even PCI), my 933 MHz system had Creative Live! X-Gamer, and my current nForce2 mobo has built-in SoundStorm sound. I was able to navigate through all those massive driver changes without reinstalling either.<BR><BR>For my current 2.2 GHz overclock, my PCMark scores are CPU: 6785, Memory: 5308, and HDD: 1120. They seem to compare favorably to most people, so I don't think I lost too much speed not reinstalling. What do you think?

[Avid6eek]

I do belive you. I'm sure it's possible, but very rare. Your benchmark scores are also pretty awsome. You also have to take into account that Win98 is a much lighter load on your system. Most of the rest of us here use WinXP and that takes a lot more resources when benchmarking. If you did reinstall Win98 on your system, it would probably perform much better....but at the same time you could ruin that perfect install you have going and then it will start acting more like the Win98 we all know.

[Ginsu543]

I absolutely agree with you... don't fix something that ain't broke!!! <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0">

[Ginsu543]

BTW Shiz,<BR><BR>Where do you get these cool avatars and graphics for your sig?

[Avid6eek]

He's my WinXP desktop picuture....I just cut out the WinXP part and then shrunk it.<BR><BR><img src="http://home.nycap.rr.com/shi2nit6/Image1.jpg">

[Ginsu543]

Where did you get that wallpaper? Also, what resolution are you running your Win environment? It seems to me that it is very high (1600 x 1200?).

[Avid6eek]

I just found that pic on the net. It isn't even a wallpaper. I just centered it on the desktop. Yeah, I have a 21" Sony monitor so I run a 1600x1200 resolution.