motherboards and windows

is it necessary to reformat xp when i get my new mobo? would it increse performance?

Yeah. A lot of people try using a new mobo with an existing OS installation but it never works. All the motherboard drivers and settings need to be changed even if the boards use the same chipset.




BHD

Yeah, you should definately reformat. It just works better, and you'll have fewer problems versus trying to get everything cleaned off.

I agree with what everyone else said about reformatting being the best way to go. However, I recently did a motherboard upgrade for someone who insisted on not having to reformat and it did work. What you do is after installing the new board, boot the system using the windows CD and select the "repair" option. This will reinstall windows and give you the opportunity to load any new drivers. It ended up working fine for my buddy's system but he was upgrading from a 850 to an 850e chipset board, so the similarity of boards may have affected the success we had. Good luck.