Processor upgrade

[Raffaz]

Ive just ordered a athlon x2 4200+ from OCUK (£88.41 with next day delivery ), will have it tomorrow. Ive got a dual boot system with XP and vista. Am i likely to run into problems with the OSes when i change the processor over? Is there any easy workarounds, or am i likely to need to reinstall? I think i might getaway with a repair of XP, but im not to sure about how vista works with stuff like this. Cheers

[Atodini]

Vista so far appears to be much more tolerant of hardware changes than XP so you should have no problems there... Either or both might need to be reactivated though.

Just fitted a replacement motherboard to a skt AM2 Athlon x2 and Vista just fired up no problems, despite a different chipset, audio etc. Took a couple of reboots before all devices were located and installed though, and DID require reactivation (but in 3 days time) afterwards.

John

[Raffaz]

Excellent, did you need to phone MS to reactivate or was it possible to do it online?

[Matridom]

With the motherboard being the same, there should be no issues what-so-ever. The os's will carry over without a problem.

[Atodini]

I needed to phone M$ to re-activate which was not a problem (I'm in the UK).

Online it simply told me that the product had already been registered(!)

As you're not changing the motherboard you might not need to re-activate, depending on the hardware changes threshold in Vista. I've too little experience thus far to work this out. XP will allow quite a few simple hardware changes before it requires activating again. I did not need to on this machine when I upgraded from the original 1800XP Athlon to the present 2500 Barton.

John

[Raffaz]

Cheers for the advice guys. Ive never done a processor only upgrade, but money is a bit tight at the moment so its my only option for now. So not totally sure about what to expect, guess il find out tomorrow when the processor comes, il let you know.

[Raffaz]

Just a quick question Matridom, will that still be correct considering im going from a single core athlon64 3000+ to a dual core X2 4200+ ?

[Matridom]

it should be. I was running vista, and went from a single core athlon 2500+ to a core2duo e6600 setup, Windows detects the second core fine. in my case, i swaped out the motherboard, processor, ram, hard drive and video card and vista still ran (i just needed to reactivate)

I know XP is a little more fussy, but with the motherboard staying the same, you should be good. If XP does not detect the second core, re-install the OS, i know vista will pick it up fine (i run xp pro/vista ultimate 64 respectivly)

[Raffaz]

Just to give you guys an update. Im running the X2 now. No problems whatsoever. XP installed new multiprocessor drivers and required a reboot, and vista just worked straight away. So im a happy bunny.