How can I change the motherboard on my machine....

[Dmasch]

How can I change the motherboard on my machine without having to reinstall everything. I try and put in a new board and get the lovely & famous stop message blue screen and the machine is worthless with the new board. From what all I have read you need to reinstall the OS. I believe this to be a crock, thank you M$. I have the same problem on Win2k. If anyone knows how to successfully do this I would like to hear how you did it. Many thanks in advance.

 

[linney]

While you wait for a reply have a look here.

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/install/other/motherboard/winxp.htm

 

[Snickle]

"From what all I have read you need to reinstall the OS. I believe this to be a crock, thank you M$."

The issue is that, while Win9x would do it fairly easily, both Win 2000 and WinXP require much more specific data from the hardware in the computer. The HCL [Hardware Compatibility List] is used for a reason. MS does want their OS to perform reliably for all users but to do that the hardware has to work well with the OS and the only way to ensure it is to adhere to the HCL.

Example: All the WinME computers I have had to help people with worked quite well on a 'brand' computer, where all the hardware was assembled for that OS. Change one card to a different brand/type and problems start to creep up. WinME has a terrible reputation that I believe was earned on 'custom' computers. Just too many variables for WinME to deal with when assembling a custom computer.