Mother board replacement

[bones]

I have an older copmuter and need help with the upgrade of the mother board and ram I currently have a pent 4 1.7 GHZ 423 pin. 512 ram
Can I upgrade boards and with what?.
I am not computer literate.

Thanks

[Rick]

To swap the mother board.
You need to know the case size and type
Micro AT case won't allow a full size ATX mother board ( In some instances)

If you only want to upgrade the CPU from P4-17 to the max speed the mother will allow.
Then you need to know the Motherboard make,Model and revision number
All this info should be silk screened on the motherboard itself.

Please note ..
When you upgrade the motherboard with a new ATX and supporting the newer CPU's.
You will more than likely have to also upgrade the Power supply

[Galaxian]

sorry offtopic but just for info, theres a method to swap mobos without having to reinstall windows...its mentioned at computerpoweruser.com..interesting that it can be done nonetheless

[mjc]

The problem with that, Galaxian, is most often, especially on systems from major manufacturers the version of Windows is tied directly to the original hardware and not reinstalling Windows is ILLEGAL.

[Rick]

Adding to what MJC said.
Many oem versions won't even start/boot.
If they don't find that manufacturer branded bios on the mother board.
HP,DELL, and few others have this feature