Another Question .

[throdgrain]

Sorry to try the paitence of you lot again, but here we go.
One of my kids has a very old pc, one of my old ones, a celeron 400mhz with rdram and a pci video card, running Win98.
In order to improve his pc, I was considering buying myself a new motherboard to go with my xp2700+ , and bung my xp2.0 with the a7v333 mobo its sitting on, into my sons pc. Basically it would be his hard drive, case psu etc, plugged onto my mobo and cpu, with a bit of new ddr ram chucked on to make it work.
Would that work ? What problems might i get ? Im nievely assuming it will all plug together with the exsisting stuff on his hard drive, and not need a reformat. Is that right ?
And while Im here, any suggestions on a good motherboard to go with the XP2700 ?


/Yes, commission has been reasonable this month

 

[Chameleon]

There's no reasons why his HD, psu and case should not be ok to use. Obviously the case needs to be the right size for the mobo .... and if you planned to put a GF gfx card in at any point, this along with the amd cpu might warrant a higher wattage psu, but it depends whats in there atm.
You may find that the HDD light, on/off switch/etc case connector is not the same type as the mobo (which is very often the case, pardon the pun ) but you should be able to seperate them individually and connect them up ok.
You should get away with no formatting, but obviously if you can, it would be wise to. You may find you begin to get some instability without one.

Personally, I like ABIT boards, but couldn't recommend one atm as I need to update myself on them too for an upgrade soon.

 

[kameleon]

It all depends on which operating system you are planning to run

for e.g. I have a machine that runs 2 installs of xp pro on the same partition, I just installed the new one as windows 2; windows is very finicky though, I don't think you can have win 98 or Me on the same partition as xp. you could do a reinstall from dos using a startup disk and put the new OS in a different folder, or you could do it the hard way, boot in safe mode and uninstall all the motherboard drivers for your old board etc BEFORE putting the new board in, but this is a bit haphazard and there are always problems associated with it.

I would suggest a completely fresh install by formatting. It's easier and will save you from a lot of conflicts in the long run.
If you can't afford to reformat (vital downloads etc and no way to back them up) then use partition magic and install into the new partition until you have transferred all the good stuff over and then alter your boot ini to boot to the new install only , reformat the old partition then merge them.

 

[throdgrain]

Well its not so much that as the fact that I dont have the win 98 cd , prolly lost it , and my other pc's come with either xp or win-me, niether of which have a disc with them .

 

[Testin da Cable]

mind the psu Throddy. amd's are a bit picky when it comes to them.

 

[throdgrain]

When you say motherboard drivers, i take it you mean like the via 4-in1 drivers yeah ?

 

[kameleon]

yes, if the old board has a different chipset, it can cause problems later


I have put a few new mobos in without reformatting, but they all used via chipsets. A problem you might have is with the agp driver for the board.

 

[xane]

This is almost becoming a mantra with me, but my previous installation had gone through around seven mobo upgrades without a reformat, I never had a problem with the OS, whether Intel, VIA, AMD or whatever.

Always make sure you have the drivers pre-downloaded and on disk, you can't go wrong.

I only re-installed to Windows XP for financial reasons, basically an OEM install was cheaper than a retail upgrade, otherwise I'd still be on the same system as I was circa 1991.

 

[throdgrain]

Hmm well this all sounds pretty interesting
The board in the old pc is a P2 board of some description, so I dont know whether it has a via chipset or not, likely answer is no I guess. Would the procedure be to remove the chipset drivers before switching the pc off and taking it apart, and if so how do you do that , or do you build the pc , start it up and then change the drivers ? Im guessing the former but i dont know.
Whilst Im here, any suggestions for a new xp2700 mobo for my new pc ?

 

[Xavier]

upgrade the PSU (350W ATX+12V design jobbie will do, better still put a NEW psu in your new rig and give him the old one...)

and don't even think of running 98/98SE without f-f-r (FDisk, Format Re-Install) - even if you got it stable (which hopping from Intel to Via is a challenge to say the least) performance is going to end up utterly nerfed.

 

[Xavier]

Originally posted by throdgrain

Whilst Im here, any suggestions for a new xp2700 mobo for my new pc ?

ASUS A7N8X (Deluxe if you can afford it) - its nForce2 and it RAWKS - the onboard sound is also quite sweet which means your son gets a new soundcard and NIC (the ASUS has onboard LAN too )

//edit: half asleep0r

 

[WPKenny]

Originally posted by Xavier


ASUS A7V8X (Deluxe if you can afford it) - its nForce2 and it RAWKS - the onboard sound is also quite sweet which means your son gets a new soundcard and NIC (the ASUS has onboard LAN too )

Don't you mean the Asus A7N8X?
The A7V8X is a KT400 board.

 

[Xavier]

do you want a lolly pop or something?

 

[WPKenny]

Yes please!

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Xavier and don't even think of running 98/98SE without f-f-r (FDisk, Format Re-Install) - even if you got it stable (which hopping from Intel to Via is a challenge to say the least) performance is going to end up utterly nerfed. [/B]

Xav, I hate to disappoint you but "hopping from Intel to VIA" under W98 is a piece of piss, no more than hopping from one Intel chipset to another (say P3 to P4). Windows is actually remarkably efficient at reloading with new drivers, the only requirement is to have those new drivers available and on standby.

It might take a few reboots, and it might create a double entry in hardware manager for a few items, but nothing that isn't ironed out in a short time.

I don't see how you can justify that performance is "nerfed" and I'd be interested in the train of thought that leads you to suggest this. Certainly a f-f-r will initially speed up things as would it be with any "clean" system, but by the time you've loaded it up again 2 weeks later with all the crap it's back to the same old asthmatic slug carrying heavy shopping through treacle it ever was.

As I have mentioned, I had a system dating back to 1991 that had been through three OS, at least 7 mobos, and countless other hardware. It was as fast as any other similar spec and rock solid stable running 24/7.

I'm not advocating upgrade over f-f-r, but when you are faced with the annoying task of reloading all your crap it should be noted there is a _viable_ alternative by which you can avoid it.

 

[throdgrain]

Im confused !
However still not sure, if I try without reformat do I install via drivers onto p2 board then turn off , or do i turn on with p2 drivers then install via ?
Or do i just go buy a new pc

 

[xane]

throd, just download the latest VIA 4-in-1 and expand them if zipped in a spare directory.

Swap mobos, let Windows reconfigure, 98SE should have 4-in-1 on it anyway.

Afterwards install latest 4-in-1, and you may have to re-install video drivers too.

 

[throdgrain]

Fantastic, thanks Xane