Mobo replacement - what to expect

[lohearn]

Howdy,

I have an old P3 ATX ystem that can't keep up anymore and I have a P4 1.6 system. The P4 system is pretty good but am looking for a little faster for gamimg. How badly would XP Pro freak out if I replaced the mobo, processor and memory in the P4 system? I have a great 120G hard drive in the P4, I also really like the case and would prefer not to change it.

So, what would Win XP Pro do if I installed a new mobo? Is it even worth it?

I was going to take the mobo, memory and video card from the P4 ssystem and put it in the P3. Case is an ATX so all should fit anyay. Don't care about teh P3 system, will be formatting the hard drive and starting fresh on that system.

Okay, feedback on how my P4 will handle the transplant would be greatly appeciated.

[RayH]

Depending upon the board, the P-4 may need one or two more power connections than the P3; one directly from the power supply and the other a regular molex. So read, new power supply.

You do that much replacement to an XP system at one time, look for reactivation.

[Kruzin]

Once the new mobo, etc. is in the XP rig, directly boot from your XP CD, and 'repair' the OS, to clean out old drivers, and get proper ones installed.
And yes, expect to need to reactivate XP.

[RamonGTP]

"I was going to take the mobo, memory and video card from the P4 ssystem and put it in the P3. Case is an ATX so all should fit anyay. Don't care about teh P3 system, will be formatting the hard drive and starting fresh on that system. "

Well P4's and P3's use different boards... So i'm assuming what you're saying is that bascially your old P4 system will be replacing the P3 one, including the processor, correct? A fresh install isn't a bad idea. I would recommend you do that to the new P4 system to make sure it works as good as it possibly can. A repair install would probably work too, but it will still leave things behind from the previous install that could cause some issues.

[lohearn]

Well, I don't need to keep the P3 system in any way shape or form. What I'm really trying hard to do is give my P4 a new mobo (along with a new video card) and still keep my current hard drives and tower case. I really like my current case and would prefer to keep it. I also invested not too long ago in a 120G hard drive that has a ton of information on it and it's also the current boot drive.

Then, I would take my old mobo with it's memory, processor and current video card and place it either into the old P3 case or a new case to get a more current computer for my kid. He's running the old P3 system and it just can't kee up anymore. Due to some hardware limitations in it's curent state it can't even run Win XP.

But I figured Win XP on my system would most likely freak completely with all the transformations. Now, along with my 120G hard drive I also have a 40G hard drive. Right now it just has pictures and music on it.

Would this work? I take the old mobo, processor and video card out of my system. Put in the new hardware but change the hard drive order. Boot up and install a clean install of Win Xp Pro onto the 40G hard drive. That would make Win XP okay, but how on earth could I change things after. How would I replace Win XP on the 120G with the Win XP on the 40G? That' where I'm stumbling right now. I'm having a mental cramp on how I can make the 120G disk the boot disk again without losing all the information that's currently stored on it right now.

I would put the old mobo, processor and memory into a new case for my son and start with a nice fresh Win XP system for him. Okay, that's my half baked plan, any suggestions based on all that?

[rpertusio]

Originally posted by Kruzin
Once the new mobo, etc. is in the XP rig, directly boot from your XP CD, and 'repair' the OS, to clean out old drivers, and get proper ones installed.
And yes, expect to need to reactivate XP.

Kruzin is right. A repair install will re-enumerate all your hardware, and XP should be happy. Do the repair install on your 120gb drive. A repair install will leave all your files and (almost all) settings intact.

For more information, please see this Repair XP website, and look at the "How To Run a Repair Install" section, where you can walk through each step.

I have replaced a motherboard before, and have successfully did a Repair Install of XP many times.

- rp