🚀 go-pugleaf

Eddy Hood (eddy@innotts.co.uk) wrote:

: I want to sell my M/B and CPU with built in 4 meg and built in Graphics
: card and just buy some new memory, a new graphics card and a new M/B and
: CPU. Will this work?

Yes, probably.  To be able to use your current hard disk drive 
controller, modem, etc., you'll need to get a motherboard that has some 
or all of the same kinds of slots that your current board has.  ISA bus 
slots are the older (and I think, most common) type; there is also VESA 
Local Bus (VLB) and the newcomer, PCI.  Many motherboards have a mix--
say four PCI slots and four ISA slots.

: Will I need anything else, or can I just do a straight
: swap?

You should be able to do a straight swap, buying new components to 
replace the ones built-in to your current motherboard, of course.

: Will the motherboard I buy have everything I need apart from the CPU,
: Graphics card and memory which I will buy?

It should, especially if you buy a new board from a dealer (though I've 
bought used motherboards from people on the net and had good experiences).
Also, lots of dealers sell the CPU and motherboard together.

: Do I need a co-processor and

Intel 486DX chips come with the math co-processor built-in.  I believe 
AMD chips do, too.  Cyrix 486 chips do not.

: leads to attach my hard drive and stuff or will they come with the M/B?

Drive cables are usually bundled with the drive controller.  If you need 
more or different cable, you should be able to buy it easily, as the 
cables are very standard.

: could really do with some help here.. could someone be kind enough to post
: what I need to know here or, preferably, email me about it because I don't
: have a very complete newsfeed?

Oops.  Well, I'll mail this to you and also leave it posted so someone 
else can correct any mistakes I've made.

--
magritte@speakeasy.org                       At Linux Journal & WEBsmith:
http://www.speakeasy.org/~magritte/                          gary@ssc.com