To wrap this thread up... The new motherboard, CPU, and RAM arrived a few days ago. Everything fit the Presario case nicely. After parsing the Chinglish instructions for hooking up all the peripheral devices, I booted up. Windows complained it was not "genuine" but I re-entered the product key from the sticker and it activated without complaint. I am guessing for old versions (this is Vista) Microsoft allows occasional reactivations, as long as the same key is not being obviously re-used on dozens of installs. Anyway all has been stable and solid for a couple of days now, so I'm calling it good.
For $136 he went from a single-core Athlon to a dual-core at roughly twice the clock speed, and from 1GB RAM to 4GB. And I don't know how well the motherboard was put together (brand-name is "Biostar") but it looks at least as good as the old one (which was an Asus... not a thing in that box was made by either Compaq or HP). Allan Rich Thomas <richthomas79td...@constructivity.net> writes: > All the various mobos I have bought come with a CD and instructions on > how to install the drivers for your OS install. I have not had any > issues with winders thinking it was being stolen, seemed happy enough > with the new hardware. Make sure your vid card and hard drives and > CD/DVD drives etc will plug into the new board -- a lot of them are > now SATA and don't have enough connectors for old drives. > > Newegg had some daily deal the other day for a package like that. > > --R > > On 1/9/12 7:29 PM, Dan Penoff wrote: >> You can certainly try it without worrying about doing any damage. If it >> does boot into the OS, you might have to get some of the hardware drivers >> for things like the NIC and load them before you can run updates on it. >> >> Dan >> >> On Jan 9, 2012, at 7:13 PM, Allan Streib wrote: >> >>> As you may recall if you read this thread last week, it seems that my >>> father-in-law's computer either has a bad motherboard or bad CPU, >>> probably overheated if the latter. >>> >>> Spent a little time browsing the Newegg site and found a Micro ATX >>> motherboard, 4GB memory, and dual-core AMD Athlon II CPU for about $140. >>> Nothing spectacular at all, spec-wise, but would be a decent upgrade >>> from what he has. >>> >>> Wondering what the chances are that the Windows Vista install on his >>> hard drive will boot up and reconfigure itself for that hardware? The >>> original board was a different brand, though it did have a single-core >>> Athlon CPU. I don't have Windows install media. >>> >>> Thoughts/advice? >>> >>> Allan >>> -- >>> 1983 300D >>> 1979 300SD >>> >>> _______________________________________ >>> http://www.okiebenz.com >>> For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com >>> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ >>> >>> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: >>> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com >> >> _______________________________________ >> http://www.okiebenz.com >> For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com >> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ >> >> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: >> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com >> > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > -- 1983 300D 1979 300SD _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com