MOBO

[ALove]

can you just change your motherboard? right now mines bottlenecking my chip. some dude at a computer store said lots of new componets were required, but i got the idea he was trying to scam me.

[Grant]

Problem is the new motherboard you buy may not support the existing hardware you have on your old one. That is probably why he suggesting more components.

[ALove]

my vid card should work, along with my SATA HDs dunno about the chip.

[El Brenty]

Of course it'll probably work, here's some easy checks:

Find out first if you can get WIN XP drivers for the old hardware. You can do this by going to the manufacturer's website and seeing if you can download a driver.

See if your cards have the correct slots. If they have ISA slots, then you may as well chuck them away. PCI slots, well, they'll work, so long as you get that supported driver. AGP Slots, same thing applies to PCI, make sure there is am updated driver available. This is where you realise you should have gone for the more expensive branded product because of better long-term after sales support.

I've just had to throw 2 parallel port scanners away - None of them would work on XP, and are no longer supported, despite the fact they work fine. Oh well.

[ALove]

im using xp now, but my fsb is bottlenecking my chip. (400) also some xtra pci slots would be nice.

[El Brenty]

I came across a PC the other day that I was repairing for a friend (PSU fuse had blown). It only had 1 AGP slot and 1 PCI slot! Couldn't believe it! Everything else was integrated onto the Motherboard, so I guess the manufacturer didn't think that it's customers would ever think of upgrading aspects of their system hardware.

[Skitz-O-Phrenia]

im using xp now, but my fsb is bottlenecking my chip. (400) also some xtra pci slots would be nice.

yes you can just upgrade your motherboard, msi, intel, abit, and asus are very good and I would look at those first. also, what ram do you have? brand... speed...