Windows ME with replacement mobo

[AndyL]

Hi,

Does anyone recall reading anthing recently about the best procedure for ensuring that ME does not complain too much when you replace most of the innards of your computer?

I am due to replace my mobo, graphics card, memory and a few other bits shortly and seem to remember an article that mentioned that removing the PnP driver would be sufficient. However, I would like to get hold of the article if possible, or get advice from someone who knows.


Thanks

[Anders]

Ooh sorry, I always thought a new motherboard equalled a new install of Windows, but maybe that only applies to XP and 2K?

[Trickle]

pnp driver?

You need to set the gfx card drivers to svga and then uinistall the mobo drivers.

Best off uninstalling anything that relies on the mobo drivers - i.e. usb modem... usb anything etc. PCI cards too - take them out of the case. Uninstall the mobo drivers afterwards.

You should then be able to swap the mobo and boot into windows. Cancel all the found new hardware messages and install stuff properly in the correct order as usual.

[AndyL]

Ooh sorry Anders, I always thought that Windows was installed onto a hard disk, not the motherboard!

Well I have found the article now - it appeared in PC Answers November 2001 - Replacing Motherboards, and states:

" ... the removal process is actuallt suprisingly simple ... select Plug and Play BIOS, remove"

This should negate the need to remove any further drivers, as they all rely on this BIOS as far as I understand. I will let you know how it goes unless anyone thinks that this will not work.

[Trickle]

Hmm, ok I'll risk any rep and bet on it not working.

Plug and play just stops it looking for new stuff - when you boot into windows its still going to be looking at the mobo drivers etc unless you uninstall them first.

[5lab]

should work but will take several reboots and is uber-riskey

[VladTheImpaler]

Uninstall the IDE drives and/or the Intel inf update before you start. That way you are very unlikely to have any major problems. It works for WinXP and 2K as well.

[wilsonian]

best option (that i can think of rather than reinstalling the OS from scratch is to copy all the CAB files from the ME disc do a root directory (say c:\cabs) once thats done go into reg edit and remove enum (i can't remember where abouts it is)

what this does is it removes ALL drivers for everything! hence having to copy the CAB files across before hand as there will be no floppy or CD-ROM drivers.

what i do is del ENUM then shutdown, uninstall old hardware, install new, turn back on and watch as windows as a mild heart attack! then it's just a case of installing all the drivers again, once u have the CD-ROM drivers, it's always a good idea to use up to date drivers. saves having to muck about later.

good luck!

[Anders]

Originally posted by AndyL
Ooh sorry Anders, I always thought that Windows was installed onto a hard disk, not the motherboard!

Ha ha, yes very funny. I had always thought that the drivers for the motherboard were so integral that Windows couldn’t recover if they were changed. Lets us know what you did if it worked becuase it’ll be interesting to find out.

[AndyL]

Point taken Anders and I admit it does seem rather straight forward just to delete the PnP bios. On more investigation it seems that wilsonian could be on the better track: I have been looking at various other forums as well .I will let you know what I decide to do.

[Trickle]

Originally posted by Anders
I had always thought that the drivers for the motherboard were so integral that Windows couldn’t recover if they were changed.

No, if you think about it - what are you doing when you install win 95/98 etc and you are running about doing stuff after the fresh install ages before you get round to putting on the mobo and vid card drivers?

Same with XP. You do a vanilla install of xp with an Nforce 2 mobo that came out way after XP was written.

If you want to change mobos you basically want to get it back to this neanderthall stage... so you just uninstall stuff before switching the board = et voila... sometimes

[Anders]

Indeed ‘sometimes’ . Windows seems to keen to reinstall the drivers straight away before I’ve even closed “device manager”. Even when it ‘seems’ to work the result tends to be unstable. Still, I’m interested to know what the results of “AndyL’s” reinstall are and what he did. It never hurts to try and learn.

I find that I don’t need to update the motherboard drivers. The Microsoft standard drivers seem to give me the greatest satiability with the smallest performance cost. For example, back in the day when I first got XP, I played for ages with 3D Mark etc., and different driver sets. I found that the more third party unsigned drivers I added (except for graphics card drivers) the lower the score I got. I guess ME is different, damn I haven’t used 98 for ages.

[Lexeus]

Last time I upgraded a windows ME machine i didn't bother uninstalling any hardware, didn't do a thing. I Replaced the mobo, CPU, Ram. Powered it up and it just sorted out, the old device drivers went and I installed the new ones, np. Its XP which it causes problems with. ME is still Win 9x based , treat it as badly as you want and it will keep on chugging

[AndyL]

Well I will be changing for this:

Windows Me
Pentium III 450
Compaq Mobo
384 Mb SDRAM
All in Wonder 128

to:

Windows Me
XP2500+
NF7-S V2.0
2*256Mb KingMax PC3200
ATI 9600XT

so if there is a test for it, surely this is high on the list.

I am still waiting for the mobo, processor, memory etc but I will let you know.

[Enverex]

I replaced most the hardware on my ME system without removing anything, but it is best to format as I found the PC was quite a bit faster afterwards (not sure if things lingering from the old hardware affect the new drivers at all, but something was).

But yeah, it is in your best interest to format, but if you don't want to then you should be ok without doing anything to Windows....

NS

[AndyL]

Update -

I just did as Lexeus advised and replaced the motherboard, CPU, memory and video card, had the new drivers available and let Me do it's worst. No problems whatsover after 2 Me instructed re-boots. Really stable now