DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Question on changing the motherboard/CPU

Ok, this is of course a question I havent really been able to find an answer to online. Basically I bought a custom built desktop a few years ago. I upgrade here and there along the way.(Drives, Vid and sound, psu, etc ) Im coming to a point where my old Pentium945 is the next thing to go. And Id like to go with one of the new i7 processor/motherboard combos.
My question is, what happens to my operating system when I do this ? (Vista). Is it as straightforard as physically replacing the board and cpu.

the operating system is installed on your hard drive so you won't lose it. that said, i don't know what happens if you make the swap (but it is relatively simple as replacing and reconnecting everything). it's possible vista will take some time, pick up the differences, and ask to restart. it's possible things will be more difficult than that. i'll leave that part to other, more knowledgeable posters here.

With XP, chances are you'd get a BSOD Stop 7b error with the swap out. You can do a repair install and get it working for you on the new machine if you do not want to start from scratch. There are other ways to get it working without a reinstall, but depending how much you know about messing with images and driver injection, you're better off doing the repair install, much quicker and easier.

I haven't tried doing something like this with Vista yet so it may go OK.

It is the same with Vista. It will fail to boot because it has detected that the hardware has changed... or at least I know that it does that when the hard drive changes.
Either way, the fix is simple: Pop in the install CD and tell it to do a Repair. It then boots right up, no problems.

With a mobo change though, you will then need to go through the process of installing chipset drivers and such, but that should be a simple process as well.

Ahh, thank you. Thats the kind of thing I am looking to know about in advance. Ive changed everything but the motherboard, cpu on my last 2. So Im a lil nervous diggin in for the first time. Hopefully prices start coming down soon, Ive got an upgrade itch. Ill probably just back everything up on an external drive and do a clean install when the time comes.

Be aware, if you're swapping out your motherboard, especially going to i7, you'll have to get new RAM as well.

Yea, that part I was aware of. Im gonna wait a lil while. Hopefully the price will come down a bit on the i7. Ususally in this circumstance I get the stuff thats a generation behind. But still a drastic improvement over what I have. For this one time Im gonna splurge I think. Maybe for my Xmas present to myself.

My advice? If you plan to splurge a bit... then ensure that you get into the absolute latest platform going, even if you have to get a slower processor than you might want.

There's nothing worse than jumping into a new mobo/cpu and it being end-of-life for that socket. Get something where you can drop a newer, faster CPU in it in 18-24 months.