motherboard question

[muppet]

I know this is off topic,but i am sure there are people here that know alot about computers.My question is this ....................I have a pavillion media center a1626n desktop and i want to upgrade the motherboard ,can it be done?hp says no.Any one have the same pc and have upgraded the motherboard.

Thanks

[sqk7744]

Hey Muppet,

Couple things:

What is the main reason for the upgrade? CPU, FSB, RAM, GPU, HD's?
Have you been updating the; bios, chipset and drivers all along?

1. When upgrading you'll have to see what current hardware you have is proprietary to HP and your pavillion motherboard aka mobo. You may end up changing lots more than the board.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00757531&lc=en&cc=it&dlc=it&product=3254009〈=it# (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00757531&lc=en&cc=it&dlc=it&product=3254009&lang=it#)

2. Are you upgrading to a newer pavillion mobo?

3. Keep an eye on the Powersupply as this may need to be upgraded too.

4. If adding lots more ram is not an option you may want to do a upgrade vs. buy another machine comparison.

Just some points to keep an eye on.

Good luck!
-sqk

[Rockin Robbins]

The nasty secret about the major brand PC vendors is that they buy cases with proprietary hole patterns for mounting the motherboards and have the motherboard manufacturers follow suit. So you generally can't buy a new motherboard from anyone but HP for your computer.

For my part, it just made me mad that they played me for a fool (coopetition is to key to excellence, but might not be healthiest for any particular vendor company). I bought a new case. Newegg sells great cases for about $50, a fair price to thumb your nose at those who have forgotten that they are supposed to serve our needs, not rip us off.

Of course all your other components are transplantable......sometimes. I tore apart one HP computer that had a weird proprietary power supply! But within reason, expansion cards, CD and DVD drives, floppy drives (what are they?) can all be switched. Memory probably will be different and graphics cards are cheaper and better if they're PCIe. They're ripping off people with older AGP slots because the alternative switch of motherboards is even more expensive.

Don't look at the Saitek Eclipse II keyboard. We have no defense against its attractions and it cost me $40.00.:rotfl:

[scrag]

Dell, HP, Gateway and the like have proprietary MB's which will not allow you to upgrade them individually - you would have to but a new system or possible send it back and ask for an upgrade (not likely). My son's Gateway allowed us to put a better video card but gateway was straight forward with us regarding upgrading.

[Rockin Robbins]

I forgot about another great case company, Directron, which sells hundreds of different kinds of cases for great prices. http://www.directron.com/. Then you can free yourself from the straightjacket the PC vendors try to stick you with. The reason PCs are better than MacIntosh:sunny: is that we have hundreds of companies all competing to build cheaper better components. Companies like Dell, HP, Gateway, Compaq and others try to lock you in by selling you a computer at a reasonable price and then charge top dollar for hardware and software additions or alterations.

I refuse to be a prisoner or a victim and will gladly pay money to get out of jail.:arrgh!:

And I will not be making the mistake of buying any of the above computers again. From now on my first question to a PC vendor is, "Do you use standard form-factor components and what form-factor is the computer I'm interested in." If I get the wrong answer the phone call is over.

[seafarer]

My old HP Pavilion a350n had a proprietary mobo, but it was made by ASUS and was just a slight HP-custom modification of a standard ASUS model. I found several mobo's that would easily fit into it, as it was a standard ATX mount board.

I don't know about other models and/or brands for certain, as they vary so much. But a lot of the bargain electronic store common brands just get their mobo's from common brand makers. Usually companies like HP just have the mobo manufacturer trim down some features of the board (usually to reduce power demand so they can use some wimpy 200-270 watt PSU).

My current ACER has a mobo that is clearly made by ECS (as, so I gather, are a lot of Gateway and eMachines mobo's), although I gather that ACER also uses Foxconn mobo's too. The only difference I can see between my ACER mobo and it's equivalent on ECS's web site, is the number of SATA connections.

While I agree with others that these are not identical to the OEM boards from ECS, Foxconn and so forth in their component configuration, they are standard, and standard mount ATX or micro-ATX boards.

I know from personal experience that it is absolutely possible to put a standard ATX mobo into many of these mass-marketed brand computers.

The issue is can you do so on your particular model of machine/case, and is it worth it. I'd first get some info off of your existing mobo (part, model or other numbers), get onto google and find it's OEM mobo equivalent. Then compare the mount points to yours to see if the case is going to be the issue or not. I'd wager that if it is a standard tower style case, then it will be possible (if it's some bizarro mini-case or such, then maybe not). My ACER case is a very standard tower case - not at all noticeably different from many cases on newegg.com and tigerdirect.com and such web sites (even the fron drive stack-rack is very similar to many others I've seen).

You need to do your homework up front. Don't forget to also get part numbers for all of your existing components, as you will likely need OEM drivers and such to make it all work with a new mobo.

[Rockin Robbins]

Somewhere, there must be a full-sized ATX and micro-ATX hole template people can print out to compare with their motherboard. Often the people you talk to on the phone can't tell you the right information and this would take longer to open the case than to get the answer.

[FIREWALL]

Don't look at the Saitek Eclipse II keyboard. We have no defense against its attractions and it cost me $40.00


? ? ? ? :-?

[seafarer]

muppet - a quick look at HP's support page indicates your HP uses a pretty standard ASUS mobo (A8M2N-LA). This particular ASUS board was made under special contract for HP, but it sure looks like a standard ATX form factor (they are for sale on ebay and elsewhere), and is very similar to other ASUS AMD AM2 socket boards with NVidia onboard video.

[Rockin Robbins]

Don't look at the Saitek Eclipse II keyboard. We have no defense against its attractions and it cost me $40.00


? ? ? ? :-?
This is a really cool keyboard, which not only has the incredible feel reminiscent of the IBM mainframe uber-keyboards that keyboard junkies love to sing hymns about, but is LED backlit in selectable blue/red/violet color. It also has LED on the bottom sides of the keyboard so you get the pimped car under chassis glow effect. The keys are laser-cut with the characters so they light up in complete darkness (see the application here?) and you can read your keyboard. Quite simply it is the best keyboard I've ever typed on.

It's after midnight on a jet-black, clear moonless night. You approach the convoy with all lights out on the submarine, red lights in the control room and conning tower, lights out at home and your red backlit Saitek Eclipse II keyboard lets you read your keys in the complete darkness. On your screen you see things you've never seen before and feel the power to hit the Japs hard. Last time you were detected and driven off, but THIS time you have the advantage. For the first time you see better than they do Orgasmic! Fire one!
http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/xoxide/saitek-eclipse-3.jpg

[-Pv-]

Back to the original question:

You want to "upgrade" the MB with another. You were asked why. Is it because you have already maxed out the performance of the board?

It will take careful (as has been mentioned) research to find one which will fit in the same place (as mentioned there are likely candidates) but you want to put in one with more performance not the same as you have. Again, this will take very careful research.

Obviously, you are no longer going to get support from HP when you do this. The current drivers you are using are not likely to work with the new MB so you'll have to install them from the CD that comes with the new MB and/or off the web site for the new MB. Again, you will be on your own in all this.

As has been already mentioned, the major manufactures put in cheapo power supplies (which are a major portion of the expense of a machine) to just get by, so if you want more performance, you need more power to support it. You might want this new MB so you can put in a faster CPU and more/faster memory. In the end, what are you saving? HDs, floppies, CDs, the case are relatively miniscule costs to the whole machine.

Will your CD and HD work with the new MB? WIll you be able to boot up into the OS without any hassles? If you have a lot of time and you view this as a learning opportunity, go for it. In my opinion, it's likely the least trouble and expense to get a new machine with the performance headroom you are drooling over. Build the next machine yourself as the learning experience (if you still want one) and your success and satisfaction will be higher than trying to push this one past it's design.

Sell this one to a beginner who doesn't know about SH4 yet.

-Pv-