M/B and CPU upgrade for an NT4 system

[sleddog]

I have a new motherboard and CPU to upgrade a system. I'm wondering how NT4 reacts to such a change in hardware. Windows 95 I know will usually detect the changed hardware and prompt for installation of the requisite drivers, etc.

I know the best route is to do a fresh install of the OS, but I don't want to do that right now. The motherboard packaging was damaged during shipping and I'm not 100% sure the board is okay. I wanted to get it running tomorrow, torture it over the weekend and decide by Monday whether I'll keep it or not. So the old board might end up back in the machine.

Old hardware: Delta motherboard (Intel BX chipset), slot 1 Celeron 300A.
New hardware: Asus A7V motherboard (VIA chipset), AMD socket A Duron 600.

What will NT4 do if I change the motherboard and CPU, and boot?


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sleddog (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)
Pulling for a SmartLabrador (http://www.labradorit.nf.ca/smartlabrador/)

[scada]

It will be fine. As long as you don't change your configuration. ( Ie: go from IDE to SCSI or something like that)

[xor_chad]

Hey
Scada are you sure about this.

I thought i recalled doing this similar procedure once and having NT greet me with many blue screens.

NT has to load specific device drivers for the chipset and etc.

Since NT is not PnP i would think booting with BX chipset drivers to a VIA chipset would cause major problems?

I am asking because i may be mistaken, but i made a mental note to never do this. Sorry if i am incorrect. Laters...

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Chad Wilson
C++/ASM Programmer
PC Support Technician

[This message has been edited by xor_chad (edited 01-05-2001).]

[sleddog]

Thanks guys.

I got the board in and with Scada's encouragement I decided to let 'er rip (before Chad's post appeared). And the result was.... booted fine. No blue screens or errors (except for the expected -- the absence of my ISA nic and soundcard on this ISA-less board). It's mostly a great relief to know I don't have to go through a lengthy RMA process for a damaged board.

The one small glitch was that the BIOS couldn't autodetect my Fujitsu 6.4gb harddrive at first. I set the parameters manually and it booted fine. Then went back, removed the manual setup and set it to auto. Detected and booted fine and has continued to do so over a couple dozen cold boots. Go figure.


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sleddog (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)
Pulling for a SmartLabrador (http://www.labradorit.nf.ca/smartlabrador/)

[Paleo Pete]

Glad it worked, I wasn't sure about NT, but I was siding with chad, and thought it would do basically the same thing as win98 and throw a fit over motherboard specific drivers etc...

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My hairdresser charges me a finder's fee!!

Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

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[scada]

Yep I'm sure http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif Most of the time just changing the MB or processor shouldn't cause any problems. But you do have to be mindful of all the "new parts" of the system. NT will rebuild the register settings for all hardware when you boot it up. You get the Blue Screen Of Death when a piece of hardware fails to load.(because the device isn't there anymore for instance.) And if I remember correctly there are 3 stages or levels of "stop" errors that can occur during this rebuilding process. Only one level can cause the blue screen if it happens during bootup.

That's why I pointed out that you don't want to make any drastic changes to your configuration during this operation.


In school we swaped drives between different computers all the time. ( I can't believe some of the stuff we got away with. All of it not recommended by Microsoft.) NT is a real pussycat once you get to know it.


Hope this helps to explain my answer. My mind doesn't work that well this early in the morning so a lot of the details haven't "loaded" there yet.

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif




[This message has been edited by scada (edited 01-06-2001).]

[scada]

Also as a side note about NT and PnP.
I remember back in the days when you had to either type it into the BIOS or pull jumpers to configure your computer. That I hardly ever had any problems with new hardware or software.

It wasn't till Plug and Play came out that everything whent south.

I would swear that all the problems PnP was supposed to fix never happened to me until I started using PnP operating systems.

[Paleo Pete]

That's why it's called Plug & Pray...

As far as swapping drives and motherboards is concerned, I suppose it depends on the motherboard. Sometimes you can swap a win98 drive to a new board, it will install a few new drivers and work great. Other times, it falls flat on its face and refuses to run even remotely stable until you format and reinstall. I always recommend reinstalling with win95/98 systems, but have no idea how NT reacts to a new motherboard. I've used NT Server and Workstation, but haven't had any dealing with installations or upgrades on NT machines.

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My hairdresser charges me a finder's fee!!

Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[scada]

Ahh yes... I love it when things get screwed up. THE best way to learn the inner workings of anything is to try to fix it. And the best way to retain what you learn is to show someone else what you did.

I've played with NT for so long I don't give a second thought to any of it's errors or Blue screens.

Having just installed Linux on 2 computers at home I hope to get as good with it.

[This message has been edited by scada (edited 01-07-2001).]