Reinstall Windows after swapping your motherboard

Question: I recently swapped the motherboard including CPU and memory for a Pentium 200 MMX chip and an i430vx Mainboard motherboard. I had to remove all VESA cards and reposition my Sound Blaster 16 soundcard because it was in mortal combat with the CPU fan. Generally, I am very happy with the swap. I thought that by leaving the existing hard drive in place, hardware references/pointers/addresses should not be problematic.

However, I had a heck of a time finally getting Windows 98, which was running fine on the previous motherboard, to recognize the CD-ROM drive. My current configuration will still not recognize the sound card.

I finally removed the sound card and then checked “System” in Windows’ Control Panel. There were two entries for the sound card! One had an exclamation mark beside it and the other was identical without the mark. So I deleted the entry with the mark, but after rebooting so many times I’m not sure I want to proceed without some advice. Is there a procedure that I should follow when swapping a board? – Ralph

Answer: I turn this one over to Mathew Fiszer, a tech support guru at Logicorp in Edmonton. His advice was simple: “Anytime you replace the system board, you have to re-install Windows 95/98,” he explained. “Windows enumerates (or inventories) all possible devices in the system. When you change the system board, all expansion slots will be assigned differently and that is the most likely reason for the sound card showing up twice. The simplest thing to do would be to back up all your data and do a clean install of Windows 95/98.”

As far as the CD-ROM is concerned, Fiszer figures there could be a couple of explanations. Usually, 2X CD-ROMs are proprietary, requiring their own interface card. It’s also possible that the IDE port on the new system board is too fast for it.