Hardware

Hi,

you can replace the motherboard, but if this is an OEM chassis, you may want to ensure the back panel of ports line up, the power supply cables will reach the power input on the Motherboard (MB) , same goes for the hard drive sata cables (or ide) and other connectors.

OEMs tend to keep cables short and sometimes customize the MB to fit the chassis.
also the cheapest may not be the best, I recommend looking at brand names like ASUS, Gigabit, MSI, Intel, etc. and make sure the board has what you need (ie intergrated video, or a PCI/AGP/etc connector for your video card)

But you'll need to do a In Place Install of Windows after you swap the M'Board as the Hardware Abstraction Layer will be wrong for the new Hardware.

From my experience Foxconn are very unreliable and I personally Prefer Gigabyte which from my experience just keep on keeping on. ASUS also work fairly well but I would avoid MSI as I've seen many fail over the years but that's just me.

Also with HP Systems they have very limited space in the chassis and very underrated Power Supplies so I would suggest one of the better M'Boards that will fit though all new M'Boards come with a Back Panel that suits them so if you can swap out the Back Panel provided it's the right type ATX, BX Form Factor or whatever you should be able to fit it.

If you want to use the Original Image you are going to need the same Make & Model M'Board.

Col

this means you'll need the original installation disk so that it will pass WGA,
Windows Genuine Advantage...here's a link that may help
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/978788

You can use a M$ Install Disc to do the In Place Install.

Actually it's better to use M$ Branded Install Disc's as they are a full copy of Windows not a part copy that most System Makers supply that do not support the In Place Install Option.

Col

Yes it Can be swapped, BUT be sure that is matches all the ports as the last on unless your upgrading other parts too. Check and make sure it has the I/O ports you need, and the same CPU slot, supports the same Ram and the GPU slots (PCI-E/PCI/AGP).

There is no way around the need to do a In Place Install. If you must change things then you'll need to use the same Make & Model M'Board and even then something as simple as a BIOS Version may make it useless.

Though to be perfectly honest you'll stand a much better chance of getting it working than you will with a different Model M'Board.

Col