Greetings to Jeff, Rick, Jose, Volt, and everyone else out there who has
demonstrated advanced computer knowledge in this newsgroup.

I want to upgrade my motherboard and processor, but I want to keep my
current IDE hard drives, optical drives and video card. I am running
Windows XP Pro. Here's my question: Can I swap out the processor (going
from a pentium 4, 2.0 GHz to a Pentium 4, 3.0E GHz) and motherboard (going
from Intel factory to Asus with Intel chipset) without having to reinstall
my system? And will my system reoptimize itself for the new hardware
configuration? I really don't want to go through a fresh install if
there's any way around it, but I don't want to lose any performance, either.

Thanks.

Sorry if these are stupid questions. It's my first major project of this
sort.

"Ayar" <autococker@NOSPAMinsightbb.com> wrote in message
news:JZbPd.61872$IV5.7432@attbi_s54...
> Greetings to Jeff, Rick, Jose, Volt, and everyone else out there who has
> demonstrated advanced computer knowledge in this newsgroup.
>
> I want to upgrade my motherboard and processor, but I want to keep my
> current IDE hard drives, optical drives and video card. I am running

[snip]

Regrettably, hardware is not my forte. However, I will note something that
is worth noting.

It is often cheaper, better and less hassle to simply completely buy a new
PC. Basically, computers advance so quickly and are so dirt cheap these
days that it's often a quantum leap to simply go out and get a whole new PC,
so much so that the advancement itself cost-justifies the investment. You
*could* go through the hassle of just upgrading parts that you percieve to
need upgrading, but honestly, when it comes down to it, especially for the
novice, it's often more hassle than it is worth. There are interoperability
issues that may need working out if you just upgrade parts, something that
can be avoided by purchasing a whole new box.

Now I realize that money may be a factor, which would lead you to think that
just upgrading the parts would be an option, but in reality, upgrading PARTS
of a computer only buy you a bit of time before you need to get out there
and dump a few hundred on a whole new box anyways. If you JUST upgrade
processor and memory, sooner or later, your HD's will be too slow, your
graphics card will be too slow, your "whatever" will be too slow. Why spend
the extra $$$ when you can just hold on for a little longer, sock away a few
hundred bucks and get some el-cheapo PC that will be a huge improvement over
your current PC, despite being considered "bottom of the barrel" for today's
technology.

I paid $1200 for my box about 3 years ago(I think??). It was "near top of
the line" when I purchased it. 1GHz processor, a gig of memory, harddrives
that could contain the entire history of a planet, etc etc. I would be
astonished if my PC cost over $100 if purchased right now. What's top of
the line these days? 4GHz? 5Ghz? Those dells have a 2.4GHz processor, and
run about 400 bucks if memory serves. I can't even envision how fast a 2.4
gig processor would run in comparison to my 1ghz machine.

You can purchase "second generation" PC's for a friggin SONG. Anything one
or two steps removed from "top of the line" is now going for less than 500
bucks, with even older PC's going for much less. The cool thing is that as
long as you aren't running monster graphics applications(games, CAD, etc),
any 500 buck PC is going to MORE than meet the needs of the standard
user(web surfing, email, word processing, etc). Simply use your old monitor
and peripherals, and just replace the computer itself.

If your concern is loss of information, buying a "network in a box" is a
fairly cheap method of maintaining the active use of both PC's, and will
allow you to quickly and easily transfer information from one PC to the
other. I actually still run both of my old PC's, as well as my new one, by
utilizing a switcher device that allows me to run multiple machines from a
single set of monitor/mouse/keyboard. Information stored on the old PC's is
easily transferred to my new PC with the use of my "network in a box", which
took about 30 seconds to install. Plus which, because of the switcher, I
can use the other PC's for multitasking type things(for example, downloading
software), leaving my good PC to be uncluttered while I work. The network
option also allows for the internet to reach all PC's, so that's a plus,
too.

Just some things to think about.

--
Jeff Goslin - MCSD - www.goslin.info
It's not a god complex when you're always right

"Ayar" <autococker@NOSPAMinsightbb.com> wrote in message
news:JZbPd.61872$IV5.7432@attbi_s54...
> Greetings to Jeff, Rick, Jose, Volt, and everyone else out there who has
> demonstrated advanced computer knowledge in this newsgroup.
>
> I want to upgrade my motherboard and processor, but I want to keep my
> current IDE hard drives, optical drives and video card. I am running
> Windows XP Pro. Here's my question: Can I swap out the processor (going
> from a pentium 4, 2.0 GHz to a Pentium 4, 3.0E GHz) and motherboard (going
> from Intel factory to Asus with Intel chipset) without having to reinstall
> my system? And will my system reoptimize itself for the new hardware
> configuration? I really don't want to go through a fresh install if
> there's any way around it, but I don't want to lose any performance,
> either.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Sorry if these are stupid questions. It's my first major project of this
> sort.

easiest thing to try is swap everything out, then fire it up. If all goes
slightly well the worst thing you will have to do is install MB drivers. If
you get blue screens or errors on boot up, the next thing to try is a XP
repair from the XP cd. This does not always work but we have done it at work
many times in a pinch when we didn't have the exact pc and needed to get an
enduser up and running.

to do the xp repair, don't go into the repair console on the cd, goto the
setup like you are going to install xp. at some point it will either ask you
to repair xp by installing it over itself, or sometimes it tries to load
another instance of XP on the same partition which will give you 2 OS
choices during boot up.< that is probably not what you want to do.

I am not sure why but sometimes we can repair the install and sometimes it
wants to install a second instance of XP.

I would also recommend backing your PC up on a second HDD or DVD if you have
the means before trying anything. otherwise copy all the important stuff off
of the HDD before proceeding and/or installing a fresh copy. you never know,
it might hose the OS up to the point of no return and you will have no
choice but to reinstall everything.

feel free to email me with questions..i assume you still have my email

"Jeff Goslin" <autockr@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:_eCdnXI0xNPWzZDfRVn-tg@comcast.com...
> "Ayar" <autococker@NOSPAMinsightbb.com> wrote in message
> news:JZbPd.61872$IV5.7432@attbi_s54...
>> Greetings to Jeff, Rick, Jose, Volt, and everyone else out there who has
>> demonstrated advanced computer knowledge in this newsgroup.
>>
>> I want to upgrade my motherboard and processor, but I want to keep my
>> current IDE hard drives, optical drives and video card. I am running
>
> [snip]
>


Thank you, Jeff. Valid points.

:-)

Hey Ayar...

In direct answer to your question :can you swap out the mb and CPU
without reinstalling ?:

In a word, No.

XP at installation attunes itself to what you have hardware wise. Memory
registers and hardware IRQ's (techy stuff!) are optimized during
installation. A radical change in the base structure will cause
everything to fail...

Just swapping the CPU might work but I have never tried it...


In article <JZbPd.61872$IV5.7432@attbi_s54>,
autococker@NOSPAMinsightbb.com says...
> Greetings to Jeff, Rick, Jose, Volt, and everyone else out there who has
> demonstrated advanced computer knowledge in this newsgroup.
>
> I want to upgrade my motherboard and processor, but I want to keep my
> current IDE hard drives, optical drives and video card. I am running
> Windows XP Pro. Here's my question: Can I swap out the processor (going
> from a pentium 4, 2.0 GHz to a Pentium 4, 3.0E GHz) and motherboard (going
> from Intel factory to Asus with Intel chipset) without having to reinstall
> my system? And will my system reoptimize itself for the new hardware
> configuration? I really don't want to go through a fresh install if
> there's any way around it, but I don't want to lose any performance, either.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Sorry if these are stupid questions. It's my first major project of this
> sort.
>
>
>

THANKS ED!!

You rule!!


"EDTHEWARD" <BLARG@BLARG.NET> wrote in message
news:yJcPd.30982$i42.23088@fe1.columbus.rr.com...
>
> "Ayar" <autococker@NOSPAMinsightbb.com> wrote in message
> news:JZbPd.61872$IV5.7432@attbi_s54...
>> Greetings to Jeff, Rick, Jose, Volt, and everyone else out there who has
>> demonstrated advanced computer knowledge in this newsgroup.
>>
>> I want to upgrade my motherboard and processor, but I want to keep my
>> current IDE hard drives, optical drives and video card. I am running
>> Windows XP Pro. Here's my question: Can I swap out the processor (going
>> from a pentium 4, 2.0 GHz to a Pentium 4, 3.0E GHz) and motherboard
>> (going from Intel factory to Asus with Intel chipset) without having to
>> reinstall my system? And will my system reoptimize itself for the new
>> hardware configuration? I really don't want to go through a fresh
>> install if there's any way around it, but I don't want to lose any
>> performance, either.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Sorry if these are stupid questions. It's my first major project of this
>> sort.
>
> easiest thing to try is swap everything out, then fire it up. If all goes
> slightly well the worst thing you will have to do is install MB drivers.
> If you get blue screens or errors on boot up, the next thing to try is a
> XP repair from the XP cd. This does not always work but we have done it at
> work many times in a pinch when we didn't have the exact pc and needed to
> get an enduser up and running.
>
> to do the xp repair, don't go into the repair console on the cd, goto the
> setup like you are going to install xp. at some point it will either ask
> you to repair xp by installing it over itself, or sometimes it tries to
> load another instance of XP on the same partition which will give you 2 OS
> choices during boot up.< that is probably not what you want to do.
>
> I am not sure why but sometimes we can repair the install and sometimes it
> wants to install a second instance of XP.
>
> I would also recommend backing your PC up on a second HDD or DVD if you
> have the means before trying anything. otherwise copy all the important
> stuff off of the HDD before proceeding and/or installing a fresh copy. you
> never know, it might hose the OS up to the point of no return and you will
> have no choice but to reinstall everything.
>
> feel free to email me with questions..i assume you still have my email
>

Excellent. Good to know. Okay, then, I'll probably just back up all my
goodies and do a fresh install. I want to squeeze every ounce of muscle out
of this thing.


"Willie Winkle" <asleep@home.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1c77251d13cee42989682@nntp.hnsn.phub.net. cable.rogers.com...
>
> Hey Ayar...
>
> In direct answer to your question :can you swap out the mb and CPU
> without reinstalling ?:
>
> In a word, No.
>
> XP at installation attunes itself to what you have hardware wise. Memory
> registers and hardware IRQ's (techy stuff!) are optimized during
> installation. A radical change in the base structure will cause
> everything to fail...
>
> Just swapping the CPU might work but I have never tried it...
>
>
> In article <JZbPd.61872$IV5.7432@attbi_s54>,
> autococker@NOSPAMinsightbb.com says...
>> Greetings to Jeff, Rick, Jose, Volt, and everyone else out there who has
>> demonstrated advanced computer knowledge in this newsgroup.
>>
>> I want to upgrade my motherboard and processor, but I want to keep my
>> current IDE hard drives, optical drives and video card. I am running
>> Windows XP Pro. Here's my question: Can I swap out the processor (going
>> from a pentium 4, 2.0 GHz to a Pentium 4, 3.0E GHz) and motherboard
>> (going
>> from Intel factory to Asus with Intel chipset) without having to
>> reinstall
>> my system? And will my system reoptimize itself for the new hardware
>> configuration? I really don't want to go through a fresh install if
>> there's any way around it, but I don't want to lose any performance,
>> either.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Sorry if these are stupid questions. It's my first major project of this
>> sort.
>>
>>
>>

I'm still working on my laptop which I swapped the HD out of and back in
about a week and a half ago. Bad idea. I knew I would have some problems,
but DAMN.
Anyhoo, if you are gonna try it, back up your files and make the swap and
then re-install Windows. If you're installing Windows from a recovery disk
that came with the comp as opposed to a separate copy of Windows you may
have some issues. If you really want to keep the hardware and not buy a
whole new comp, look into buying a 'bare bones' system from someone like
www.newegg.com. New case, PSU, mobo, CPU, copy of Windows and you can throw
in your old hardware and be good to go once you install your drivers.
If you like doing that kinda thing grab a subscription to Maximum PC. They
have some great articles sometimes on building PCs, upgrading and are on top
of the newest stuff as soon as it comes out.

--
Volt
Now with less sig!

"Ayar" <autococker@NOSPAMinsightbb.com> wrote in message
news:JZbPd.61872$IV5.7432@attbi_s54...
> Greetings to Jeff, Rick, Jose, Volt, and everyone else out there who has
> demonstrated advanced computer knowledge in this newsgroup.
>
> I want to upgrade my motherboard and processor, but I want to keep my
> current IDE hard drives, optical drives and video card. I am running
> Windows XP Pro. Here's my question: Can I swap out the processor (going
> from a pentium 4, 2.0 GHz to a Pentium 4, 3.0E GHz) and motherboard (going
> from Intel factory to Asus with Intel chipset) without having to reinstall
> my system? And will my system reoptimize itself for the new hardware
> configuration? I really don't want to go through a fresh install if
> there's any way around it, but I don't want to lose any performance,
either.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Sorry if these are stupid questions. It's my first major project of this
> sort.
>
>

BTW, tell your wife I'm sorry I haven't been by lately. I've been
reeeeeeeeal busy. I'm sure Phelps is taking care of business though. ;-)

--
Volt
Now with less sig!

"Willie Winkle" <asleep@home.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1c77251d13cee42989682@nntp.hnsn.phub.net. cable.rogers.com...
>

>
> XP at installation attunes itself to what you have hardware wise. Memory
> registers and hardware IRQ's (techy stuff!) are optimized during
> installation. A radical change in the base structure will cause
> everything to fail...
>
> Just swapping the CPU might work but I have never tried it...
>
yes, just swapping CPU is not big deal.

but swapping more is the reason you would want to run a repair on your XP
disk.

I also did not take into account if it was a store bought model. most times
them you only have a recovery disk not a true full copy of windows XP pro.
you need to actually have the full copy of pro to have any of my suggestions
work.