Major hardware swap - questions ??

scottscott Medina, Ohio Icrontian
edited September 2005 in Hardware
Howdy folks

A couple months ago we had a major thunderstorm and took a really close lightning strike, Man it was close. It took the power out. When the power did come back on my daughters computer was running really slow, and it had lost its lan connection. After some investigation it seems the integrated lan blew. I disabled it in bios and put in a nic card and all was well again. Well almost... Since then , every few days or sometimes even a couple of times a day it will freeze. A hard reboot will return it to normal for a while. I have tried all kinds of stuff to no avail. Memtest passed a couple of loops. I reinstalled the chipset drivers , I even tried a repair install of XP pro. No problems in device manager. It usually freezes when it is not being used but has done it while she has been using it. She is getting tired of it.

So here is the question

Do you guys think I can get away with swaping mobos and cpu's with one of my folders without a fresh install of the OS ?
Her current system is an Intel P4 1.6ghz on a Soyo P4VGA board ( Via chipset )
Folding Farm Donor is an AMD Athlon 2600+ on a Asus A7V8X-X ( Also Via chipset )

If I uninstall everything in device manager on her machine before the surgery do you think it will work ?

I know some folks will swap mobos with different chipsets and get away with it, but I do not recall anyone going from Intel to AMD.


Or do you have any ideas what may be causing the freezing ?




Thanks


Scott

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2005
    you can do it with a repair install, assuming Windows XP. I have done successful repair installs across platforms, processors, and chipsets. Repair install basically does that for you: removes all hardware drivers, rescans and reinstalls drivers for you. This way you don't have to fudge around with reinstalling apps/preferences, etc.
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited September 2005
    primesuspect wrote:
    I have done successful repair installs across platforms, processors, and chipsets.
    I'm almost positive I remember you saying you cant do repair installs with different platforms... :p I had no idea you could do that.
  • scottscott Medina, Ohio Icrontian
    edited September 2005
    Awesome !!

    Just what I needed to know. :thumbsup:

    Thanks Prime

    I guess I have a weekend project now.



    Scott
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited September 2005
    Just to echo prime, I went from a Via-based T-Bird 1200 system to an nForce chipset Athlon 64 system last January. I did a repair install, figuring I'd play around with it for a few days and then do a clean install.

    Nearly nine months later and I'm still running great on a system which hasn't seen a clean install since August of 2003. You'll be just fine. :thumbsup:
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2005
    pilotwings119 wrote:
    I'm almost positive I remember you saying you cant do repair installs with different platforms... :p I had no idea you could do that.

    must have been someone else... I've done repair installs from when WinXP came out, and I think its one of the crowning achievements of this OS over its predecessors.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited September 2005
    prime even does XP Repair Installs on his infamous Mac. ;D

    /me will no doubt pay for that one... :o
  • deicistdeicist Manchester, UK
    edited September 2005
    pilotwings119 wrote:
    I'm almost positive I remember you saying you cant do repair installs with different platforms... :p I had no idea you could do that.

    He did (kind of), but it was in the thread about going from XP->media centre, and he meant windows product lines, not hardware platforms.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2005
    ah, yes, that's true. You cannot cross product lines, say from Home OEM to home retail, or home OEM to XP pro OEM, etc.
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited September 2005
    ohh okay.. thats what I got confused. :)
  • scottscott Medina, Ohio Icrontian
    edited September 2005
    Has anyone ever noticed that when you threaten a piece of equipment with major surgery it starts acting right ??

    In preperation for the "Big Switcharoo" I did some last minute maintenance on my daughters machine. Mainly tidying up the hard drive.

    Chkdsk/F (it found errors and corrected them )

    and with diskeeper......
    Boottime defrag
    defraged MFT
    put all folders together on volume
    defrag page file

    That was 3 days ago and it has not "Froze Up" since. I think I will let it go and see if it will be OK. It has not run 3 days straight since the storm incident several months ago without freezing.

    Time will tell


    Fingers crossed


    Scott
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited September 2005
    I guess it helps to let them know who's boss. :D

    Good luck, Scott. :)
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