Hi,
presently I run an Athlon XP 2000+ on an Asus A7N 266 C with Windows XP. The system is reliable but as I run lots of VSTis, I could use some more power.
The plan is, to exchange the motherboard and the cpu. The other components (Pulsar II, Drives, Graphic Card, RAM, etc. etc.) shall remain completely unchanged.
Question: is it possible, to take out motherboard and cpu and replace it by another motherboard and cpu? Or do I have to make a new installation of Windows XP and all the other programs then? What about all the entries in the registry? What about drivers?
Did somebody do this before?
Any advice is wellcome.
Regards,
Uwe
Asus A7N8 plus Athlon XP 2800+
It is possible as long as you change from one type of chipset to a similar one..
For instance; If you change from one nVidia nForce chipset to another nVidia nForce chipset..
I tried to change from a VIA chipset to a nVidia chipset last time I changed, that required a reinstall of winxp, or rather a repair (which is also an option of the installation program detects winxp on your harddrive)..
Shouldn't be a huge problem for you as long as you remember to repair the last installation..
And you will probably have to re-activate windows too, since it will say that the changes made to your system is to large to accept without re-activating..
For instance; If you change from one nVidia nForce chipset to another nVidia nForce chipset..
I tried to change from a VIA chipset to a nVidia chipset last time I changed, that required a reinstall of winxp, or rather a repair (which is also an option of the installation program detects winxp on your harddrive)..
Shouldn't be a huge problem for you as long as you remember to repair the last installation..
And you will probably have to re-activate windows too, since it will say that the changes made to your system is to large to accept without re-activating..
The way I look at it is :
in a serious DAW situation you don't want to have any weird funkiness with the OS due to lingering old drivers etc.
the backup and reinstall only takes a day or two at the most (I assume you have split your drive into 2 or more partitions, or have 2 or more drives - if not, why not!?!), it's a small price to pay to be certain what's going on inside your computer.
peace
in a serious DAW situation you don't want to have any weird funkiness with the OS due to lingering old drivers etc.
the backup and reinstall only takes a day or two at the most (I assume you have split your drive into 2 or more partitions, or have 2 or more drives - if not, why not!?!), it's a small price to pay to be certain what's going on inside your computer.
peace
That's exactly what I mean. Of course one day of solid work does not sound "so much". But I really have a lot to install. E. g. the installation of Spectrasonic's Stylus or Atmosphere takes an hour each. In addition I did a lot of tweaking and tuning - cannot even remember what I did during the last months ...
I made the experience that any new installation causes problems - especially with Pulsar-cards. That's what I want to avoid - and of course the time-eating work ...
Let me see, if I get this right: changing the MOBO and CPU should make the exchange of certain drivers necessary. These drivers shoulld be the MOBO-drivers which come along with the new Asus.
But what happens, if I put in the board and cpu and boot the system for the first time? Is this possible? I mean: does it boot??? Or do I get lots of errors and a black screen? And after that: does Windows XP recognize the new MOBO and handle the installation of the new drivers via plug-and-play? Or do I have to uninstall the old drivers and do a manual installation of the new ones?
Any other driver should not be touched by the operation as it has nothing to do with the MOBO, right? E. g. the Pulsar II or my graphics card do not care about the MOBO as long as their own right driver is installed in Windows XP, right?
I made the experience that any new installation causes problems - especially with Pulsar-cards. That's what I want to avoid - and of course the time-eating work ...
Let me see, if I get this right: changing the MOBO and CPU should make the exchange of certain drivers necessary. These drivers shoulld be the MOBO-drivers which come along with the new Asus.
But what happens, if I put in the board and cpu and boot the system for the first time? Is this possible? I mean: does it boot??? Or do I get lots of errors and a black screen? And after that: does Windows XP recognize the new MOBO and handle the installation of the new drivers via plug-and-play? Or do I have to uninstall the old drivers and do a manual installation of the new ones?
Any other driver should not be touched by the operation as it has nothing to do with the MOBO, right? E. g. the Pulsar II or my graphics card do not care about the MOBO as long as their own right driver is installed in Windows XP, right?
Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing you can fret about endlessly. But you won't know if it's an issue unless it becomes an issue.
Yes audio is a delicate, resource intensive type of work for computers to deal with, but finding time, energy, and inspiration to express yourself musically is much harder to do when you're fiddling with your PC all the time.
If it doesn't crash on you in the middle of a take, or otherwise interrupt the flow of creative ideas then just make music and worry about whether your computer is in the best possible tweaked condition when you start having problems.
Until there's more OSs for audio we windows users (and MacOS users too, lets not leave them out) will always find our OSs degrading and falling apart eventually, no matter how much time and energy we spend on them.
In fact, in my experience, the more time you spend messing with them, the more likely they are to sh*t the bed.
My $.02
Sam
Yes audio is a delicate, resource intensive type of work for computers to deal with, but finding time, energy, and inspiration to express yourself musically is much harder to do when you're fiddling with your PC all the time.
If it doesn't crash on you in the middle of a take, or otherwise interrupt the flow of creative ideas then just make music and worry about whether your computer is in the best possible tweaked condition when you start having problems.
Until there's more OSs for audio we windows users (and MacOS users too, lets not leave them out) will always find our OSs degrading and falling apart eventually, no matter how much time and energy we spend on them.
In fact, in my experience, the more time you spend messing with them, the more likely they are to sh*t the bed.
My $.02
Sam
That was all leading up to a point... hehe. I would say, make some backups, swap the board, and if it starts blowing it's top, then start over. But if you can swap the boards and get to work, all the better. Just make sure you don't have any critical projects on the horizon. You never want to mess with any thing new right before there's work to be done.
Sam
Sam