Motherboard Upgrade

Greetings,

Yes, it is possible, but you will most likely run into problems. Windows will detect scores of new devices for which drivers will be needed. You'll run into "detecting new hardware" over and over again. And with that many new devices being defined and drivers loaded, you're more likely to create an unstable system.

On the promising side, Windows 2000 would be better able to handle this kind of "mass detection" than Windows 9x was. (You didn't mention which OS your friend had. Was it Win2K or Win 9x?)

If it were mine, I'd plan on reloading windows from scratch after the new motherboard was installed. I like the peace of mind in knowing I have a very stable system.

Good luck,

Maxwell

You will most likey have to reinstall Win2K. Win2K seems to keep information like serial numbers off of certain pieces of hardware in the system. I had Win2K at work, and swapped the hard drive into my new machine, and it blue screened each time, put it back in the original machine, worked just fine. I'm not sure about the motherboard, all I can say is try it, if it doesnt work, just reinstall. I usually reinstall the OS on all my machines on each 6 months or so, as Windows seems to get slower over time. Gotta love Microsoft.

When you have a system board in mind I would check on the manufacturer's site for win2k compatibility and chipset drivers. If you intend to use the same hardware attached to your current system board on the new system board then it won't give you all that much grief because the only new hardware that it will find will be associated with the chipset on your mainboard. I've done this a few times without having to reinstall 2000, and this is mainly to do with the fact that windows 2000 is extremely more adept at detecting and installing new hardware than win9x operating systems.

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