New Motherboard

[Johnny D.]

I should be able to install my new motherboard for my current system in the next couple of days. The only thing I would like to know is; should I or need to change anything in Windows before I switch them? I'll be going from an Abit BX6 to KT7E.

Just to note if everything goes right I'll overclock my new Duron 950 to 1200-1400 mhz with the help of water cooling.

[Schrullenhaft]

There should not be anything that is necessary to change, but there are some optional things to do.

When I replace some major hardware in a Windows system, but keep the Windows software installation I do a little registry cleaning. While this isn't necessary it makes me feel better about clearing out the useless clutter in the registry (though what I excise is but a tiny part of what is in the registry) and possibly helping Windows configure PNP hardware a little better on the initial detection passes.

Again, the following is optional (and quite possibly questionable in its efficacy), but it is what I do. If you're not that confident of what you're doing you may want to just skip most of the following procedures since it is possible to damage your Windows installation in the registry.

Your old motherboard is based on the Intel BX chipset and your new one is a VIA chipset. Therefore I'd suggest removing hardware references to the Intel chipset in the registry.

When you are about to take apart your computer and upgrade your motherboard, boot up Windows one last time (and you don't want to boot up again after this procedure until you've replaced the motherboard). Boot up in Safe Mode and go to Start Menu > Settings > Control Panel > System control panel > Device Manager tab > in here you'll remove devices that will end up being redetected with your new motherboard. CDROM - delete all items listed here. Disk Drives - delete all items here (floppy and hard drives). Display adapters - delete your video card. Delete all items under Floppy disk controllers, Keyboard, Monitors, Universal serial bus controllers & Ports (COM & LPT). I consider it optional to delete the items under Mouse. Under Hard disk controllers you will find that you can't delete Primary & Secondary IDE controllers (we'll take care of this in the registry), but you can delete their parent device which should be an Intel 82371AB.... You may also have other controllers under here that aren't being used, so I'd definitely delete them too. If you have a PCI modem, then delete the device under Modems, ISA modems may be optionally deleted. Under Network adapters delete your NIC, but leave the remaining items (which are usually virtual devices of one sort or another). If you have any SCSI controllers devices listed, go ahead and delete them, unless they're a parallel port or some other device driver that isn't a typical SCSI card (in that case leave them). Under Sound, video and game controllers delete all the devices, except ones possibly mentioning Microsoft... as these may be virtual sound drivers not directly related to your hardware. Under System devices delete everything exceptPlug and Play BIOS & IO read data port for ISA Plug and Play enumerator and optionally you can leave in the Advanced Power Management support. Say no to any requests to reboot; you're not finished yet.

After this go to Start Menu > Run > type in REGEDIT. Go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key > Enum subkey > MF subkey > delete both sub-items listed here (in the left-hand pane). Under the BIOS subkey (or possibly ACPI or Root subkeys) you want to delete everything with the exception of any Mouse device you may have left in the Device Manager earlier. To tell what each device is open up the *PNP... subkey and highlight the key beneath it. In the right-hand pane in the DeviceDesc line will be the description of the device as it may appear in the Device Manager. To delete the keys highlight the *PNP... key in the left-hand pane and delete it. You will probably want to go through the PCI subkey, but there should be nothing here, if there is something go ahead and delete it. Under the SCSI subkey you'll probably want to delete anything you find (typically CDROM drives, some bus-mastered IDE drives and of course SCSI drives/devices). If you've left a SCSI controller of some sort in your Device Manager you may want to watch what you delete here since it may be a drive related to that device driver (Iomega Zip drive for instance). Delete any items under the USB subkey too. Most of the remaining items in the Root subkey you'll probably want to leave there.

Now out of the Enum subkey go to the System subkey > CurrentControlSet subkey > Services subkey > Class subkey. Scroll about half way down this list until you get to a readable subkey like 1394 or 3D Accelerator. Check the following keys for any subkeys and delete them: CDROM, Display, fdc, hdc, Keyboard, Monitor, Ports, USB & Media. You can possibly delete any subkeys (again in the left-hand pane) in the following subkeys: Modem, Mouse & SCSIAdpater, but make sure that they aren't devices you've left in the Device Manager. Under the DiskDrive subkey leave it alone, even if the number of devices doesn't match the number of drives on your system. Under the System subkey you'll want to check each of the subkeys to identify the device (again with the DeviceDesc line in the right-hand pane) and leave the above-mentioned two or three devices that were left in the Device Manager's System devices listing. Delete the rest. You may see multiple occurances of the same device. Keep the higher numbered device (the number of the subkey item in the left-hand pane) and delete the lower numbered device. This isn't always accurate, but most of the time it is.

After you've installed your new motherboard go through the CMOS/BIOS setup and enable the devices you intend to use or disable them if you don't intend on using them (USB, serial and parallel port configuration, etc.). If necessary or available you may want to update your BIOS before booting into Windows for the first time too (so you'll want a bootable diskette with the latest firmware on it before tearing down your computer).

Though it is rare with most BIOSes, there is a chance that your hard drive parameters (heads, cylinders, etc.) may be detected a bit differently with your new motherboard. Sometimes the LBA translation is a bit off between two boards/BIOSes and you could have problems booting from your hard drive. You'll probably want to check your hard drive's parameters in your old motherboard's CMOS/BIOS setup before disassembling it. That way you may be able to manually enter the settings (though many IDE parameter settings are becoming un-customizable with many BIOSes). This is a rare problem nowadays however (but I've seen it a number of times with Socket 7 motherboards).

Hopefully Windows will now detect all of your hardware. It may take a couple of boots to detect all of it (which is normal), but it should work. There's a possibility that you will have to manually run the Add New Hardware control panel/wizard to get everything (sometimes you may have to do this in order to get PNP working initially since some registy editing can inadvertently remove some devices necessary for PNP detection). You'll probably want to either have the install CDs and/or the directory with extracted drivers for your sound, video, NIC, modem and other PNP devices. Some of them will be detected and load up the drivers that are present in the respective Windows directories automatically, while others will ask for the driver file location. This is where you'll need to know either the directory where the (extracted) drivers are installed or have the installation CD handy (but be careful if those drivers are older than what you're currently using since you'll need to reinstall the version you're currently using). A number of standard devices will also be detected and depending on how bone-headed Windows is, you may be forced to insert the Windows CD. Instead of putting the CD in (which may not work initially since the 32-bit IDE device drivers may not be up and running - hence preventing the CDROM from being seen unless you are running real-mode/DOS device drivers for it) you can often point to either the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory or the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS directory or on occasion the C:\WINDOWS directory (hopefully you'll be given a Browse button for each driver).

When this is all done you'll probably want to install the latest VIA 4-in-1 driver:

VIA chipset drivers v. 4.32 (it isn't necessary to pick out your exact chipset in the listing since the drivers are written to generically support all of them):

http://www.via.com.tw/jsp/en/dr/driver.jsp

Hopefully everything goes OK. It doesn't seem like a big deal at first, but because everything ties into the motherboard Windows decides it must redetect everything all over again, which is generally just a pain.

[ 08-27-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]