XP Pro oem activation question

[Guest]

Hi there,
I've been using xp pro , an oem installed on a home built pc ..
after three years the motherboard is showing signs of the dreaded capacitor
disease (bulging capacitors) .. I need to change either the board or the
capacitors ..
What I would like to know is , will I be able to change mobo AND
still re-activate my oem xp pro . Will it be regarded as a new machine?
Thanks J Vizoso

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Changing a Motherboard or Moving a Hard Drive with XP Installed
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

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:

| Hi there,
| I've been using xp pro , an oem installed on a home built pc ..
| after three years the motherboard is showing signs of the dreaded capacitor
| disease (bulging capacitors) .. I need to change either the board or the
| capacitors ..
| What I would like to know is , will I be able to change mobo AND
| still re-activate my oem xp pro . Will it be regarded as a new machine?
| Thanks J Vizoso

 

[Kerry Brown]

Hi there,
I've been using xp pro , an oem installed on a home built pc
.. after three years the motherboard is showing signs of the dreaded
capacitor disease (bulging capacitors) .. I need to change either the
board or the capacitors ..
What I would like to know is , will I be able to change mobo
AND still re-activate my oem xp pro . Will it be regarded as a new
machine? Thanks J Vizoso

Are you experiencing any problems or are the symptoms visual only? Many
motherboards work just fine with some of the capacitors showing signs of
leakage/bulging. A lot depends on the quality of your power supply. If you
are not experiencing any problems then I wouldn't change the motherboard. If
you do change it then you will most likely have to activate. Probably it
will work via the Internet as the last time you activated was three years
ago. At worst you may have to phone to activate. Tell them you replaced a
defective component if asked. If your pc was made by Dell, HP/Compaq,
eMachines, or one of the other large OEMs who use BIOS locked versions of XP
then you will have to get the motherbaord from them or you may have to
purchase a new copy of XP.

Kerry

 

[Guest]

Thanks to both of you Kerry, and Carey .. good link !
Kerry,
.. I'm lucky I suppose , because my caps are only bulging, not leaking
yet. The downside of a failure of one of these cpu voltage controller parts
is pretty bad so I was worried . My cpu voltages are bouncing +/- 0.1V in
WCPUID .. so I thought they were getting a little unstable.
Luckily ,even after three years , it seems Epox have come to the rescue !
The RMA guys have offered to post me free replacement Capacitors .. and I'm
good with a soldering iron plus antistatic wrist strap . I worked in an audio
studio and ,it seemed ,was always replacing the microswitches on the
multitrack tape machine!
Hopefully XP won't even notice Juan Vizoso

 

[Guest]

Sorry, it was WCPUZ that gives the chip voltages.. A proof reader's life eh ?

 

[Kerry Brown]

Thanks to both of you Kerry, and Carey .. good link !
Kerry,
.. I'm lucky I suppose , because my caps are only bulging, not
leaking yet. The downside of a failure of one of these cpu voltage
controller parts is pretty bad so I was worried . My cpu voltages
are bouncing +/- 0.1V in WCPUID .. so I thought they were getting a
little unstable. Luckily ,even after three years , it seems Epox
have come to the rescue ! The RMA guys have offered to post me free
replacement Capacitors .. and I'm good with a soldering iron plus
antistatic wrist strap . I worked in an audio studio and ,it seemed
,was always replacing the microswitches on the multitrack tape
machine! Hopefully XP won't even notice Juan Vizoso

Good luck. Let us know how it works out.

Kerry

 

[Guest]

Sad , but true, the board went toes-up on Tuesday Morning , the new caps
for it arrived today (Thursday) .. So I never got to try recapping it after
all ...
Luckily the DDR memory survived but not the gfx card or the cpu .. it
all got very hot! At least it cut down the number of choices of upgrade path.
Somehow the new mobo (Asus ) and chipset presented no problem to
my xp installation .. I installed the drivers for the mobo .. xp seemed
stable so I did a repair install ( thanks for the link Carey ! ), and
re-activated . I deem myself very lucky not to have lost any data ! I must
send the caps back to Holland .
Happy ending I think. jv