What budget do you think of.

Candidates:
Anything nForce
VIA KT600 and co

AMD have a CPU installation guide on their website.

The cpu has a heatsink with a pressure clip to hold it in position. Proper care needs to be used when manipulating the clip as it is fairly easy to let a screwdriver slip off the clip and damage the mainboard. There is a considerable pressure on the clip.

Orientation of the cpu and heatsink is critical or the cpu can be damaged. There is a locking lever that must be raised to remove/insert the cpu.

You need to be able to recognise heat transfer compound, clean the surfaces of heatsink and cpu and apply the correct amount of replacement compound if required. New CPU/heatsinks come with compound ready  for installation already applied in some instances.

It's best to completely remove all components from the case as drives and cabling get in the way of mobo removal and replacement, thorough cleaning can also be done at this stage.

You need a case pinout diagram for the new mobo, and the case wiring must be done correctly with the correct polarity observed, this can sometimes be difficult if the case wiring or pinout diagram is not clear.

You need to fully understand all wiring, IDE cabling conventions in regard to IDE0, IDE1 ............. master/slave positions and priority IDE0/master as boot device, in order to get the mainboard to recognise the drives you install and function properly.

Care must be taken to reduce the risk of static electricty damage to components when handling them, a very dry relative humidity and shag pile carpet are a bad combination when working on electronics.

Care needs to be taken with all fragile connectors and the board must be properly supported in the case by it's standoffs or it can be cracked, for instance, when installing RAM modules.

While it's possible that the new board will function using your old windows installation, it is desirable, and sometimes required to format the hard disk and re-install windows and all your mainboard and device drivers.

You will need  to study and understand the mainboard's BIOS options to configure the cpu, memory, and other configuration settings for the new system.

It would take a pro or an enthusiast one or two hours to complete such an operation, but I suggest you set aside one or two days and research the procedure and practice it, complete it, doublecheck it all and then plug it in.

Some mainboard's may require an ATX 2.0 power supply which uses an extra power connector compared to the old ATX PSU's.

An alternative is to have someone, perhaps your supplier, fit the new board and get it to post stage, or complete with op sys.

Thanks all you computer experts for your helps.

Now I see I am not able to install a new motherboard, because of lack of knowldge and finger dixterity. In fact, my computer is to old to take advantage of this, my computer company says it would cost me to much to update old technology in my 5  year old  Xp 2400 Amd uniti. I quess I will have to get a bare bones AMD 64 bit to upgrade, when I can afford it.
JFG 389

Quote:


It can be done by the amatuer, in fact, I recommend it, because once you have the experience you will no longer be at the mercy of the "experts", including your computer company.

Your computer company may or may not be correct in their assesment, because any XP socket A cpu and it's associated hardware will be compatible with a new motherboard with the possible exception of the RAM, PC case and ATX2 compatible Power Supply Unit.

The PSU problem can be overcome by a cable adapter which converts one of the old type connectors to the new type required, but, if you don't have DDR ram modules then they will need to be purchased for any decent replacement board.

If there is a problem with your current PC's case being non-standard size, very cheap replacements are available and often include new ATX2 PSU's with them.

Dexterity need not be a prerequiste, the main danger lies in the mishandling of the rather large forces used with fitting some components, care must be taken and common sense used.

If you can grasp what's been written about here so far, you will never need to "buy" another PC. You will be able to choose high performance and state of the art components and build and maintain customised PC's to suit your own requirements. It's definitely worth the effort if your desire performance equipment.

But then, your computer company is eager to offer you an upgrade, tell you just what you need and it will only cost you twice what it is actually worth.    

If you have the time or interest, go for it.