h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

upgrading a motherboard is a pain, it's one of the last things I will upgrade bar a hard disk (I should know I still have a 4GB and a 500MB HDD in a 800Mhz AMD) most of the time this component dies first, by some virus or bios coruption or just plain bang.

Some important lessons, remove all cards PCI, AGP, ISA ect from the board, remove ALL cables bar the power feed, you can remove this too if you have an anti static band. take out the PSU if it's in the way and remove all the IDE, FDD and any other internal cables right out of the case. remove the Processor and memory if your using them in the new board, leave them in if not. then carefully uncrew the motherboard and remove (if you find you have those horrible plastic clips, get a pair of snipe nose plyers and attack from both sides). Place it on the antistatic foam that comes with the new ones these days.

now with the new motherboard resting on it's antistatic bag, make sure all the holes match up and secure any new screw hexes and remove any you don't need, last thing you need is a short and a broken MB. fit it in and make sure the back of the motherboard matches up with the back and the ports plate of the case, you may need to change this plate if the case is flexible enough to allow replacments and this new motherboard has difrent ports.

Once aligned (never force in place) lightly screw all screws in place, then go around and tighten them all. now start putting all your memory, processor and all the other gubbins back in. remeber that the pin 1 on IDE strips (the side with the red colour) almost always goes towards the back of the case and towards the power conector on the units.

You must make sure that all the settings for the motherboard are correct for this processor/memory/adapters consult the manual for information. best to just plug in the essential stuf for now, like power on switch, memory, Graphics adapter and processor, that way if there's anything wrong you'll have less to take apart. never stick the case back on unless your PC works.

Switch on and count the number of beeps . one is good news.

-- DoctorMO --

(btw, you'll only get that if you remember to plug the *speaker* in too... )

Ah true...