How difficult is it to replace a Motherboard?

christo82

My PC is about 6 years old, an Emachines 5230, Pentium 4 Processor, 512MB Ram, Windows XP. It's hugely slow obviously, and I want to upgrade it. I was just wondering how difficult would it be to do this? I have replaced PCI cards, Hard Drives and Power Sources before, so I think the physical side of it would be no problem for me. It's really the XP software backing up and repairing that I would be uneasy about. I don't want to make the PC unuseable. I may have jumped the gun a bit by buying an AMD Phenom X3 Bundle from Maplins as my replacement. Would this particular Motherboard cause extra problems for me?

Thanks for any help.

johnboysligo

Things have changed a lot in 6 years one major thing that has chanced is that SATA has virtually replaced IDE as the standard storage connection, this means your old harddrive ( containing your data ) and your CD / DVD drive might not connect to your new motherboard. There may be a legacy IDE port on your new motherboard but double check before you get any nasty surprises.
Ram has also changed quite a lot so unless your bundle from Maplins came with ram youll need some new ram too.

If I was you I would simply buy all new parts ( within your budget ) to go along with your new phenom and build a separate computer complete with a modern OS (xp is 10 years old btw) and maybe put your old pc to some use later on.

Monotype

Phenom X3? I don't think there were any phenom X3s from this last generation. That could be an oldish processor.

You'd nearly be as well off starting from scratch with a system that old.
Power supply is probably getting worn, missing the recent connectors and well below modern efficiencies and standards.
RAM is probably DDR2 or older so not much good.
Hard drives are probably much slower than what's there now and IDE connections are nearly phased out. Same for DVD drive.

It wouldn't be a good idea to carry a copy of windows over to another motherboard. It's messy and often doesn't work.

Tea_Bag

Monotype wrote: »

Phenom X3? I don't think there were any phenom X3s from this last generation. That could be an oldish processor.

You'd nearly be as well off starting from scratch with a system that old.
Power supply is probably getting worn, missing the recent connectors and well below modern efficiencies and standards.
RAM is probably DDR2 or older so not much good.
Hard drives are probably much slower than what's there now and IDE connections are nearly phased out. Same for DVD drive.

It wouldn't be a good idea to carry a copy of windows over to another motherboard. It's messy and often doesn't work.

I can think of the Phenom II x3 720 as a tricore. wasn't very popular though.

lets hope its that, cause maplin usually sell older athlon x3's with their bundles, and they aren't cheap anyway! :eek:

OP, how much did you pay for that? was ram included? is there any way you could return the stuff as an unopened, unwanted gift or something?

christo82

The processor is an AMD Phenom X3 8400 triple core processor. The bundle was a foxconn motherboard with 2GB Ram with ATI Rage 512 MB Graphics Card for €170. I replaced the Power Supply(with a G7 680W) within the last year, and hard drive was replaced within the last two years when it corrupted. Would you think these upgrades are modern enough, as the PC won't be used for any high end applications? Thanks for your help guys

Here is the link to the website(it says the processor is 8250, but the bundle actually includes an upgrade to 8400).
http://www.maplin.co.uk/amd-phenom-8250-x3-bundle--amd-5450-graphics-card-and-2gb-memory-543976

Monotype

Maplin ripped you off.
It's an old processor, 2GB of RAM is nothing, old and low spec motherboard and the card certainly isn't a rage card. It's a bottom end card but at least it's newer than the other parts.

ED E

Monotype wrote: »

Maplin ripped you off.

Nothing new there....

Monotype

I forgot to mention that it's a rubbish PSU too. Far from the 650W the claim. They don't even include PCI-E connectors in case you were to actually challenge that rating.

christo82

So basically, everything I have bought is second rate and old? That makes me feel pretty crappy. But I can stilll use this, because it would be an upgrade for my PC. And you suggest buying a new OS? If I choose to get a new OS, do I need to do anything with backing up before replacing the motherboard? Where would be the best place to buy the OS?

Thanks.