Dell Motherboard Swap

[PT]

I don't know, I was just doing what I thought was best, getting ready to put the new one in tonight. That'll show me, huh?

 

[alex]

Well, if it's a ribbon cable, there are only two possible ways it could plug onto the old mobo. Like fury said, the cable is probably crimped in a way that it would only make sense one way. Get the old mobo and just set it back down in the case and see which way makes most sense. Then look at the silkscreen on the mobo to see which pins on the connector are what and translate that over to the cable.

Is that clear as mud

 

[PT]

That's the other problem, the pins on the old Dell Mb don't say shit. Nothing intelligible anyway. I think shorting out the wires two at a time will be a good start. Find the power wires first, then the reset, (That will be fun) then I can find the speaker and led wires. I'll get it figured out eventually.

 

[greenfreak]

I've been able to find lots of stuff on the Dell website. Do you have a model name and the Service Tag? It should be on a sticker on the right hand side of the case.

 

[greenfreak]

it's at home and I'm at work

Which would make it a little difficult to see what the service tag is.

Nevermind anyway, I just went to the site and looked up info on an Optiplex GX1 but all it has is how to remove the "control panel" which that cord plugs into.

 

[PT]

Oh I looked at thier site last night, it's a 4300 Dimension. They had all kinds of info on how to replace a motherboard there, as long as you were replacing it with an identical motherboard from them, not a thing about the pin-outs though if you're changing to a different motherboard.

 

[PT]

The next question is whether or not my XP Pro installation will survive the motherboard swap.

 

[Mirlyn]

http://www.roberthancock.com/dell/fpconn.htm does this help?
More links: http://www.roberthancock.com/dell/

 

[PT]

Cool, be a good place to start anyway.

 

[Mirlyn]

Now you got me looking at these mod pics......I'll post links as I find good ones

 

[flurffmeister]

The next question is whether or not my XP Pro installation will survive the motherboard swap.

You'd have a better chance at getting a yes answer if you were to ask "I wonder whether I'll be spending the weekend formatting and reinstalling?"

 

[PT]

You'd have a better chance at getting a yes answer if you were to ask "I wonder whether I'll be spending the weekend formatting and reinstalling?"

Yeah, i know. Sucks too, that's my movie drive. 40 gb. Oh well. Looks like I'll be buying some cds on the way home.

 

[Justintime]

What are the chipsets? same chipset to same chipset will work in 99% of the cases, but even same brand to same brand of a different era would likely not, VIA, AMD to Intel etc.. forget it.

 

[Mirlyn]

You'd have a better chance at getting a yes answer if you were to ask "I wonder whether I'll be spending the weekend formatting and reinstalling?"

Yeah, i know. Sucks too, that's my movie drive. 40 gb. Oh well. Looks like I'll be buying some cds on the way home.

Try using the recovery console. There is a repair function wherein it'll delete the Windows folder and reload it, saving other data on the drive (assuming the stuff isn't in the Windows directories).

 

[PT]

I don't think I've created anything in the windows directory, as for the chipsets, I don't have a clue what the Dells was, I think most of theirs are Intel, the new one is a Via chipset, same processor.

 

[Justintime]

If documents only, just say leave file system intact (no reformat) and then take ownership of the account when windows is reinstalled (you'll have to turn off simple file sharing as default in XP)

 

[Justintime]

I don't think I've created anything in the windows directory, as for the chipsets, I don't have a clue what the Dells was, I think most of theirs are Intel, the new one is a Via chipset, same processor.

Doubt it then, by some stroke of luck it might work, but the likely outcome is an unmountable boot device warning or windows has encountered an error and has shutdown to prevent damage etc..

 

[PT]

Yep, that's what I figured too, I can throw the drive into my computer and burn most of the stuff I want to keep though, shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Mirlyn]

The Dimension 4300 uses the 845. As far as I know, both the Dimensions and the Optiplexes use the 845 set.

 

[chcr]

I don't know, I was just doing what I thought was best, getting ready to put the new one in tonight. That'll show me, huh?

No, PT, I meant what would you pay attention for. Yank that old sucker and get it the hell out of the way so you can start putting new stuff in. You'll figure out how to hook it up. We're in this life to learn, not to pay attention.