Replacing motherboard

[brightman]

I am pretty new to linux/FC4... so go easy on me :)

I have had an FC4 box up and running for awhile but my socket 939 MSI motherboard has died on me for the second time (i.e. I've already RMA'ed once..) hence I'm going to be buying a different motherboard (same socket type)

I've spent awhile getting software installed etc how should I attempt to bring up the new motherboard bearing in mind that I'd ideally not have to reinstall the entire OS etc?

I've done a bit of googling but not found any pages that are (obviously) relevant.

[Effie04]

i`m only guessing here , but if the new board has the same chipset as in the msi board - the fc4 might work and you could install the other hardware parts using kudzu...
but there more ascpets to consider - if you arrange the hardisks differently - might not recognize it

[AlphOmega]

Ive had loads of problems in the past with MSI products and I never touch them.

The first thing to worry about is if your new mobo will accept the hard drive without a format. I have had 2 previuos abit boards and drive will work taking out of one to another but when i moved to an asus board it rejected the drive untill the board had formatted it.

If you get a new board with the same chipsets on it eg nforce 4 and it accepts the drive, I would expect it to work fine as FC will see the same mobo hardware.

Then again this could all end in tears

[brightman]

I know you've all been on the edge of your seats ;)

So I bought a DFI NF3 Ultra D motherboard to replace the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (pile of rubbish :) ) which is in the process of being RMAed... again! Both of these are NF3 Ultra chipsets.

Anyway got the DFI motherboard home last night checked the board POSTed, it did so I plugged the PATA drive and 2 SATA drives in, said a quick prayer and rebooted. Once I'd sorted out the boot order would you Adam and Eve it the damn FC4 install came to life! :) :)

It booted straight into FC4, the onboard NIC worked flawlessly, the 3 PCI Nova-T tuner cards and 1 Netgear PCI Ethernet card were all recognised.... job's a good un! My mythtv backend is back up and running .. hoorah!

So there you go, moral of this story is, if you need to replace a motherboard make sure you go for the same chipset and, if you're lucky, you may not need to reinstall your OS (unless it's Windoze ofcourse in which case you'll be accused of nicking your copy of XP and will have to ring Microsoft and grovel to them profusely until they decide to issue you with another key :) )

[bradchaus]

just install the new moptherboard ... you wont have any worries at all ... the FC5 kernel has all the necessary stuff ready for you to change over ... go for it ... cheers and beers :)

[chriscowley]

doesn't need the same chipset.

I had an FC3 install that started on a Jetway nForce2 board, got moved to 440BX, then an SIS P4 (forget which chipset exactly), then onto VIA VT800 - never skipped a beat. I have even left some out because it got changed so many times I have forgotten them.