Removal and installation of a motherboard

mutant

Active Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2003
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Location
Enfield, CT, US
Hello :)
For some time I have been thinking now about changing the moterboard in my computer. My reason for that is my new video card supports AGP8x and my current motherboard doesn't support AGP8x. Also the one I was looking at supports up to 4GB (or 2, I don't quite remeber :)), and my current one only up to 1GB. Well, the problem is how to intall that monster. I dug up my old computer and started experimenting. I'm not sure how to take off the processor, rest looks easy enough. Does anybody know of any resources that I couild look up about installation of a motherboard? I tried searching, but couldn't find anything that would help me, or in other case im not very good at searching the internet. Of course I would start with my old computer first, because don't want to destory my relatively new one.
 
Here is the way I do it.
Take the motherboard out of the case and lay it on some foam padding.
Take a small regular screwdriver and carefully pry back on the metal clip that hold the heatsink. There should be a small hole on the clip to insert the screwdriver into. Gently push down while prying way from the heatsink.
Once the heatsink is lose then gently lift the heatsink off the processor. You might have to twist it a bit to break the seal made by heatsink compound. Twist gently.
Once the heatsink is off there will be a lever on the side of the processor. Lift that out and up and the processor will pop out of the ziff socket.
Now pull all the standoffs out of the case and put the new motherboard in to line up the hole for the standoffs. Insert the standoffs in the new holes, tighten with pair of plyers, one turn more than what you did by hand. Put the new motherboard on the foam and install the processor. One corner of the processor will be notched. Line that corner up with the arrow on the motherboard. Push it down just enough to line up the pins. Take the lever and push it down and in. Install the heatsink. Install the memory and then put the motherboard in the case and screw it into the standoffs. Make sure you connect the heatseak fan to the fan header. Install the graphics card and see if it fires up. If it does sht it down and install hd, cd and all other hardware.

If you need more help post again.
 
Generally there is some sort of poster or manual that comes with the motherboard, since every one is different. For example, if your motherboard has a zero insertion-force (zif) processor socket, there is usually a little lever to lock the processor in.

I suggest you look on the manufacturer's website, as they usually have PDF versions of documentation.
 
Thanks much Bob. If I can get the processor off the rest will be easy as I did install/remove HDs, video cards, etc several times before.
Ah, good point Volte. I will check it.
 
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