Right, replacement motherboard Q

Northwind · 3 Apr 2007 at 00:24

OCUK just refunded me for my motherboard, after a faulty Corsair PSU they sold me blew it up. Very nice of them, took a while to sort but no dickering at all. So, anyway, now have a war chest to spend and a hole where the board should be. They're out of stock on DS3s though, and tbh I'd like to buy from OCUK again- they sorted me out here, and it's handy to keep everything under one roof should, for example, a new part set an old part on fire

Question is, can I get away with fitting a different Gigabyte board without a Windows reinstall? I hate sorting all the fiddly stuff like mailboxes, save games etc, so I don't want to do a clean install if I can avoid it. Thinking here of DS4 or DQ6 obviously, though maybe an S3? I've no idea if the software's similiar enough to pull this off though, anyone know?

PhillyDee · 3 Apr 2007 at 00:31

Im afraid you will probably have to reinstall windows as the drivers for the chipset will be different. You can get away with it if its an identical board, but not a different part altogether. It will work, but will be riddled with problems. Best to wipe it all.

Northwind · 3 Apr 2007 at 00:47

You know, that's more or less my assumption too. That makes Northwind sad.

cuke2u · 3 Apr 2007 at 12:42

Hi, if you wish to retain your data and programs a repair install will work fine...
ChrisC

WJA96 · 3 Apr 2007 at 17:32

S3/DS3/DS4/DQ6 are all P965 chipset board. You shouldn't have any trouble getting any of those going as they all use basically the same chipset drivers.

megatron · 4 Apr 2007 at 03:23

Also the DS3P is the same chipset but has a standard FSB of 1333 up from 1066Mhz and instock here.

Northwind · 4 Apr 2007 at 19:00

Cheers folks, I got a DS3 from MM in the end... I'd no complaints about it previously so it made sense to get another, but thanks for the comments, it all goes in the mighty trivia bank that lives where my common sense used to