Changing CPU & M/B = Reinstall?


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I have successfully upgraded my old pc to my current one which is P3-700eb without any problems. At that time i was using Windows Millennium. Now i am Multibooting WinME, WinXP and Linux, i am wondering if it's possible to change both the CPU and M/B without causing any problems on Windows XP.

A friend of mine recently upgraded his PC from a P3-500 to an Athlon XP and faced the infamous BSOD when booting up through Windows XP.

Is there a way to avoid this, as i have a LOT of applications and don't want to go through all the trouble of reinstalling them?

Will reinstalling ON TOP of the current installation of Windows XP work?

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I've had this same problem myself. I've found that if you're upgrading your hardware in the same class (ie. P3 to P3 or Athlon 850 to Athlon 1.2) then you may get away without reinstalling.

But if your upgrade is going to leave you with a completely different configuration, you'll need to reinstall. Even if you don't get the BSOD when Windows boots, performance will most definitely suffer.

And no, reinstalling over Windows XP won't accomplish anything. Not only will you not keep your registry and application settings (which is probably what you would try to accomplish with this), but you'll also inherit any of the old installation's quirks and problems. A clean install would be a better option.

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After installing the new mobo and booting up, BSOD. I booted off the CD, then I went through the motions of reinstalling the OS (I can't remember the actual steps since that was a couple months ago and I had nothing to lose), but instead of formating or reinstalling I did a repair. It wasn't my computer, so I didn't care what happened, my room mate knew it was a long shot. It looked like it deleted alot of files in the windows dir then it proceeded to reinstall windows. After it was all done, it booted up fine, all the settings he had were still the same, we were impressed. My room mate didn't complain after that and is still using it.

This is my experience with it, so it might not work for you.

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if you change the mobo I would suggest reinstalling cos thats the bit where the most new drivers are going to come in.

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Seems like there is no other choice but to do a clean install. I think i will try the repair option first and if all else fails - then a clean install would be all that is left.

If i recall correctly, when i changed my mobo and CPU (the one i'm using now), i deleted some of the old hardware in Windows ME BEFORE I installed them. Later on when i booted up with the new hardware, Windows ME was able to correctly identify them. I'm not so sure if this sort of thing could be done on Windows XP.

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