Motherboard CPU Upgrade

Hi one and all. Haven’t been on here in ages. Need some thoughts. I want to upgrade the CPU on this old machine but that requires a mother board upgrade as well as the Smithfield mobo that dell used will only take a Pentium D. I use this PC for work and it runs very well however a step up in cpu could help with more of the software I have to run as well as make some web pages run better.The XPS 400 is a BTX case so I’m stuck with a dell mobo. A mobo from a dell XPS 420 TP406 LGA775 will drop right in slam dunk. It would require a Intel Core 2 cpu. Everything will plug right back in. So here’s the question, will the drivers in Vista Ultimate 64 bit run the TP406 board or am I stuck with what I have? If the drivers are there then I can turn the machine and just pick up where I left off. In other words no reinstall of the OS. What do you think? Have a great day everyone.

If you are going to change the motherboard you should also reinstall windows. Are there vista drivers for that motherboard? Certain functionality might require it. Also consider that an OEM copy of Vista is tied to your current MB and cannot be used on the new one. You will need a retail copy or multivolume license to use on the new motherboard.

townsbg said:

If you are going to change the motherboard you should also reinstall windows. Are there vista drivers for that motherboard? Certain functionality might require it. Also consider that an OEM copy of Vista is tied to your current MB and cannot be used on the new one. You will need a retail copy or multivolume license to use on the new motherboard.

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My version of Vista ultimate is a retail box and not OEM. So back to the question does Vista Ultimate have mobo drivers?

You'll need to check Dell. but I believe it would.

And yes, they do: Product Support | Dell US

Patonb said:

You'll need to check Dell. but I believe it would.

And yes, they do: Product Support | Dell US

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Thanks for the advice guys. I have to believe it should work no problem. Essentially I'm just moving my hd's over to a new mobo/cpu. Other than some updates I think I should be able to turn it on and get right to work. Don't want to to do a reinstall.

I strongly recommend a fresh install to avoid any issues. Windows customizes it's drivers and registry settings for the system it is installed on. By changing to another motherboard you could run in to stability issues.