Upgrading my motherboard, will it screw up all of my stuff?

[aPanzerIV]

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I bought a Dell Dimension E520. The only thing origional about it is the case and cpu cooler and the board is on its way out again. Instead of buying a completely new computer, I figured I'd upgrade the board in it, but its a shitty BTX board. After some research, I found that dell makes another computer with a BTX board that will fit my case, the Optiplex GX 755.

The only difference between these boards appears to be the chipset. Mine has a X3100 and the new one will have a X4500. This will allow me to use the newer (and cheaper) core 2 quad series. Everything (including the CPU) will state the same for now.

Will upgrading the board on my computer cause the OS to stop working?
I have messed with windows xp before and it does not like being swapped in computers, will swapping the board cause windows 7 to need reactivation?

Thank you in advance :)

[Levelog]

Often it will need to be reactivated. It depends on your license. And I would not recommend getting a new BTX board. Save up for a new case/mobo/cpu/probably RAM. It's just not worth it to put that money to old hardware.

[GiGaBiTe]

Op, the E520 has a 965G chipset, the GMA X3100 is the integrated video chip. The 965 chipset supports Core 2 Duos up to the E6700 and Core 2 Quads up to the Q6700. It will not support Pentium Dual-Cores (which use the same E6xx0 part number) so you need to be careful if you want to swap the CPU on that board. You can find Intel sSpec numbers on cpu-world.com or Wikipedia to get the right CPU.

The Optiplex 755 has the Q35 chipset and should support Wolfdale C2Ds and C2Qs, though I wouldn't get a quad unless you can find one really cheap. You also need to be careful to get the correct version of the motherboard, since there are four (MT, DT, SFF, USSF.) MT and DT are generally interchangeable with the loss of some PCI/PCIe slots on the DT version. SFF and USSF WILL NOT fit in a tower or desktop case.

Though I'd go with an Optiplex 780 motherboard since it has a Q45 chipset, DDR3 support, eSATA and a DisplayPort.

[url]http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-780-Intel-Mini-tower-Motherboard-C27VV-/111009604526?pt=Motherboards&hash=item19d8b023ae[/url]

You'll also need a new front I/O board because the newer motherboard requires a thermal sensor only present on the newer I/O board models:

[url]http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-DT-580-780-USB-Audio-I-O-Panel-HU390-RY698-w-Tray-and-Cable-WR796-/271186927664?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f24002030[/url]

If you don't get this, you'll get an error on every boot about a thermal sensor error and the CPU fan will always run at 100%.

The last thing you'll need is a hack saw because the rear ports are not going to match up. Put the new board in the case and figure out where you need to cut, then remove the board and start sawing away. You'll want to make sure you clean all of the metal shavings out after sawing so that you don't cause a short when stuff is moved around again.

[QUOTE=Levelog;44837367]Often it will need to be reactivated. It depends on your license. And I would not recommend getting a new BTX board. Save up for a new case/mobo/cpu/probably RAM. It's just not worth it to put that money to old hardware.[/QUOTE]

I recommend completely reinstalling Windows if you're going to do something as drastic as a motherboard swap. Doing it the garbage way by re-activating and fixing the drivers leaves Windows trashed up and you won't get anywhere near the level of performance you'd otherwise get with a fresh install.

I agree that it probably isn't worth it to frankenstien that old rig, but it is fun if you don't really care about spending a bit of coin on it. A new board + CPU + I/O board + RAM will run you less than $200 and you can reuse all other existing parts.

[aPanzerIV]

[QUOTE=GiGaBiTe;44838499]Op, the E520 has a 965G chipset, the GMA X3100 is the integrated video chip. The 965 chipset supports Core 2 Duos up to the E6700 and Core 2 Quads up to the Q6700. It will not support Pentium Dual-Cores (which use the same E6xx0 part number) so you need to be careful if you want to swap the CPU on that board. You can find Intel sSpec numbers on cpu-world.com or Wikipedia to get the right CPU.

The Optiplex 755 has the Q35 chipset and should support Wolfdale C2Ds and C2Qs, though I wouldn't get a quad unless you can find one really cheap. You also need to be careful to get the correct version of the motherboard, since there are four (MT, DT, SFF, USSF.) MT and DT are generally interchangeable with the loss of some PCI/PCIe slots on the DT version. SFF and USSF WILL NOT fit in a tower or desktop case.

Though I'd go with an Optiplex 780 motherboard since it has a Q45 chipset, DDR3 support, eSATA and a DisplayPort.

[url]http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-780-Intel-Mini-tower-Motherboard-C27VV-/111009604526?pt=Motherboards&hash=item19d8b023ae[/url]

You'll also need a new front I/O board because the newer motherboard requires a thermal sensor only present on the newer I/O board models:

[url]http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-DT-580-780-USB-Audio-I-O-Panel-HU390-RY698-w-Tray-and-Cable-WR796-/271186927664?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f24002030[/url]

If you don't get this, you'll get an error on every boot about a thermal sensor error and the CPU fan will always run at 100%.

The last thing you'll need is a hack saw because the rear ports are not going to match up. Put the new board in the case and figure out where you need to cut, then remove the board and start sawing away. You'll want to make sure you clean all of the metal shavings out after sawing so that you don't cause a short when stuff is moved around again.

I recommend completely reinstalling Windows if you're going to do something as drastic as a motherboard swap. Doing it the garbage way by re-activating and fixing the drivers leaves Windows trashed up and you won't get anywhere near the level of performance you'd otherwise get with a fresh install.

I agree that it probably isn't worth it to frankenstien that old rig, but it is fun if you don't really care about spending a bit of coin on it. A new board + CPU + I/O board + RAM will run you less than $200 and you can reuse all other existing parts.[/QUOTE]

Yeah I'm not good with any tools apart from a screwdriver. I'll look into having my dad cut the holes for me. I was looking to keep my DDR2 ram since I have 8 gigs of it laying around but DDR3 was quite cheap last time I checked ($50 for 8gb?). IO board looks like an easy fix, I've already replaced it once to fix the usb's so I know how it goes in there.

Thank you for the insight and research!

As for the licence, I bought a licence for refurbished computers off of ebay for about $60 for Windows 7 Pro. The origional copy of XP MCE didn't have problems when I swapped the board, but they were all the same boards. If it doesn't work I'll just suck it up and try ubuntu since they've just released a new LTS.