Upgrade the Motherboard

How to decide if a Motherboard Upgrade is Cost Effective

If your PC is proprietary, don't even think about a motherboard upgrade. This includes all notebook and laptop PCs, and many of the models from the big brand names, such as Dell, HP and IBM. The problem with attempting to upgrade the motherboard in a proprietary PC is that the new motherboard will cost several times as much as a standard motherboard, if you can even get one. In some cases, you may want to buy a new case, put in the new motherboard and then transfer all the components you can from the proprietary PC, but even the standard drives may have been manufactured with non-standard connectors.

Before window shopping the web for a new motherboard, you need to open up your existing case and determine whether or not the power supply will be compatible. Many new motherboards require an additional 12V, 4-wire connector for the CPU, which most power supplies older than two years will lack. The newest motherboards for the Intel Socket 775 CPU's may also require a 24 pin ATXe connector, or give you the option to use a third drive connector to suppliment motherboard power. The standard 20 wire ATX power connector contains the following wires:

Pin 1 Pin 2 Pin 3 Pin 4 Pin 5 Pin 6 Pin 7 Pin 8 Pin 9 Pin 10

3.3V 3.3V Gnd 5V Gnd 5V Gnd P_OK 5VSB 12V

Oran Oran Blk Red Blk Red Blk Gray Purp Yell

Oran Blue Blk Green Blk Blk Blk White Red Red

3.3V -12V Gnd P_ON Gnd Gnd Gnd -5V 5V 5V

Pin 11 Pin 12 Pin 13 Pin 14 Pin 15 Pin 16 Pin 17 Pin 18 Pin 19 Pin 20

If your motherboard employs a daughterboard, a riser on which the expansion card slots are located, forget it. Likewise, if the motherboard isn't a perfect rectangle, or if it isn't held to the bottom of the case by a half-dozen or so screws, it's not a candidate for an upgrade. I broke my illustrated guide for replaing a motherboard into two parts: How to remove your old motherboard and how to install a new motherboard.

All that said, let's look at reasons you would want to consider a motherboard upgrade. The main reason to upgrade a motherboard is that you want a faster CPU and the current motherboard won't support the speed or the CPU requires a different socket. Or, you may have run out of room for PCI adapters, and by installing a motherboard with integrated sound, network and modem, you could free up slot space. If your current motherboard has integrated video and you want to upgrade to a 4X or 8X AGP adapter, you could conceivably pick up a $40 motherboard that will let you use your old CPU and RAM, leaving you $60 to blow on a new AGP graphics adapter while staying under our $100 target. If you want PCI Express, you're into the latest technology, so a new motherboard and CPU will run hundreds of dollars, plus you'll probably need to upgrade to DDR2 as well. You may want to take advantage of serial ATA or a higher speed version of regular ATA, and not have the room or inclination to install another PCI adapter to achieve this.

If you're looking for performance, however, you'll have to upgrade more than just the motherboard. Generally speaking, it doesn't make much sense to upgrade your motherboard unless you are upgrading the CPU and RAM as well. On the bright side, drive performance and capacities were already pretty high a couple years ago. On the not so bright side, you'll probably need to upgrade your AGP card or settle for a motherboard with integrated video, and you may need to upgrade the power supply to support the new CPU. When you get to the point that the only parts from your old computer you'll be using are the drives and the peripherals (monitor, keyboard, mouse), you should put some serious thought into either building a new PC or at buying a barebones and moving the drives and peripherals over.

Illustrated guide to removing a Motherboard
and installing a New Motherboard