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General discussion

Can you simply swap motherboards and use win vista from hd?

Feb 25, 2011 12:53AM PST

I have an emachines t5234 which has an ECS MCP61pm-am motherboard running an athlon 64 x2 4000+ processor with Windows Vista Home Premium. I want to upgrade my motherboard mostly for the sake of running a media center and I would need newer better graphical capability. Iwas never given system disks when I purchased the computer. I figured I could Simply swap mbs, plug everything back in and it would run off my old harddrive just the same??? I have since heard that this is not possible. So i have no disk of windows. Does that mean I would have to buy windows thus making this too expensive to be worth it??? In hope someone can tell me this is not true or that there is indeed a way! If it matters my hd is sata.

Discussion is locked

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No you cannot ...
Feb 25, 2011 4:41AM PST

as the OEM license lives and dies with the computer and the motherboard is the component that defines the computer.

Additionally, the system would likely not even boot as the old drivers would not support the new board.

If you want to upgrade board and components you will need to invest in another copy of the OS.

If you only need better graphics, what expansion slots are available on your current motherboard? If it has available expansions slots you should easily find a graphic card that you can use with the existing system. If not being used by other paddle cards that board should have:
1 x PCI Express x16 slot (also runs in x8 mode)
1 x PCI Express x1 slot
2 x PCI slots

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(NT) Well crap, not what I wanted to hear.
Feb 25, 2011 7:26AM PST
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I was hoping to gain a little speed on the fsb also.
Feb 25, 2011 7:31AM PST

It would be nice if they made an all in one graphics card with a tv tuner. I found one motherboard online in days of searching that had both built in.

Oh well at least I found out now instead if after doing it!!