Computer Hardware Help → [XPHome] Hardware modification without reinstalling XP.

Your welcome, Mont. Glad you got it solved and that windows XP works with the new mobo.

It's always handy to have multiple spare, known-good parts on hand when trouble shooting parts that seem to be not working. You were smart to take the mobo and power supply to your friend to solve the mystery.

Mont, that's bad luck with the power supply. Windows XP Mode is a great idea if you move to Windows 7, I believe it has to be Windows 7 Pro though.

Thanks again , i went to the store and exchange it but it doesn't work. It must be because HP's won't take certain power supplies.

Did you check this?

»pcsupport.about.com/od/t ··· itch.htm

Yes I did.

Not correct. I have swapped mother boards out dozens of times so long as the hardware matches up its fine and you will not need to reactivate. It is only if the version of the mother board is different. HP oem only looks for hp branded parts not a bios serial number etc. If you change from a hp specific part to a non branded one then yes you will need to re activate with a key. How ever that key is on the computers sticker and is a valid windows key meaning it should activate just fine

About 5 years ago (will be in May) the Abit NF7-S motherboard in my sister's PC blew... wouldn't POST, totally dead to the world (I tried a brand new PSU, verified that the video card was OK, verified that it wasn't bad RAM sticks, verified that it wasn't the processor, didn't see any bulged-out capacitors... maybe it was a corrupt or wiped out Flash BIOS chip?).

Instead of throwing in another Abit NF7-S or similar board such as an Asus A7N8X, I opted to just bite the bullet and go with nearly current tech and get a brand new Gigabyte board with an AMD Phenom II x2 550 Black Edition processor and 2GB ram (upgrade from 1GB PC3200 RAM) since the Abit was about 6 1/2 years old at that point.

I wound up doing a repair reinstallation of the XP Pro install on her machine. I remember going into Device Manager under System Devices and removing just about everything under there. This would allow the repair reinstallation process to redetect the system chipset devices and reinstall them. I also, of course, uninstalled the drivers for the onboard NIC, sound, etc. before beginning the repair install and replaced these with the drivers for the new mobo after the repair install was done.

I remember being prompted for activation shortly after I replaced the motherboard, but it hasn't prompted again since . That was stressful, since the that XP Pro is an OEM version that I'd gotten from Newegg back when I did the original build, and replacing the motherboard is a major enough hardware change that could cause the activation to not work, according to what I read online then... I wasn't in the mood to fork over another $100+ for a new Windows license.

There were a number of issues that popped later such a BSOD that was caused by a driver or something related to the cheapo faxmodem I had in there, another BSOD (or other issue?) related to the ATI video driver, and a couple of other issues. Her machine is running fine now... years later, especially after I added a 120GB SSD (the original boot drive is over 8 years old now).

In hindsight, it probably would have been better if I'd just done a fresh install to begin with and just suffered through reinstalling all the apps again. There's a certain Windows update from a few years ago that just flat out refuses to install, even after trying the easy stuff to get it to take. I put Avast on that box for the antivirus and hope my sister uses Firefox instead of IE8.

Thanks , i received the same model of power supply today and it booted up with no issues.

Thanks again.

as long as the chipset is the same it will work

If not he can try uninstalling all driver shut down swap and power on gives a 50 50 chance it will boot. It is a last ditch thing to try.

I know the op got it booting but just for reference I have migrated a few systems with different hardware using Paragon Adaptive Restore. It will modify Windows to redetect the hardware.

»www.paragon-software.com ··· restore/

By version do you mean brand? If so that's good to know. I did a disk clone from a Dell PC to a HP PC and was asked to re-activate, the key on the sticker worked to do so, via phone activation. However I was lucky that the version of Windows XP installed was of the OEM distribution channel as seen in the Product ID, if not the key on the sticker would not have worked, and I would of then just used our Volume License key if the VL DC was installed, if it was retail I would have been out of luck. Luckily tho, I know how to change the distribution channel without doing a clean install. This was months before I posted in this thread. I also have had success without having to activate, but was never sure the exact reason on when XP will ask for it and when it will not. Good to know.

3 major hardware items changed with different models /brands vid sound hd cpu mother board. Or a dif oem hp to dell for example.