Tips on upgrading your motherboard

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Experience is really the best teacher. My own recent experience in replacing my motherboard taught me a lot of what to do and what not to do. This time around, I'd like to share with you the agony and ecstasy of doing the project yourself, including some of the dos and don'ts.

When buying a replacement motherboard, you should get a high quality product with an extensive warranty and backed by a strong dealership. There are a number of motherboards available in the market, such as Opti and UMC. Make sure that you choose one with the best feature-set for your needs. As always, do your homework first to avoid disappointment. Compare the features, prices and the vendor's reliability. The latter is the hardest of all, since you really have to talk to people to gather your data. In the U.S., several computer magazines regularly rate vendors' reliability for you. In Indonesia, you're completely on your own.

And, of course, you should buy a new motherboard that has exactly the same physical dimensions as your old one. If you choose a different size board, you should be 100% certain that it will still fit the case of your existing PC. Most of the recent motherboards available on the market come in the Baby-AT size.

More important than the physical size is the locations of the holes for the screws and nylon fasteners that fix the motherboard to the chassis. For electrical grounding reasons, a good PC assembly has only two or three metal screws, the rest of the holes are for nylon fasteners. You should make sure that all the holes are located in exactly the same locations as the old motherboard. For this reason alone, it would be great if your store agreed to take your new motherboard back and give you a refund in case the holes don't match.

Get everything

Once you've decided which one to buy, make sure you get all the documentation and connectors -- if any -- from the store. When I bought my new IBM Cobalt motherboard everything was already in the package. When you buy yours, the shop might forget to give you the manual and you'll be in trouble if you fail to ask for it.

Also, if your new motherboard requires special device drivers or setup utilities to make it run optimally, make sure you also get the diskette with the latest version of the programs on it. If you wish to run OS/2 or Windows NT, ask the vendor whether the new motherboard has the necessary drivers for this system. The IBM Cobalt motherboard, oddly enough, doesn't include the IDE driver for OS/2. I asked the dealer to get one from IBM Singapore; they're working on it.

At home

When you're ready to embark on the new adventure that will make you realize how easy it is to assemble a PC, get all your tools ready: A Phillips screwdriver, a pair of long-nosed pliers, an adjustable wrench, etc. However, before you disconnect your PC from the wall outlet, do these important things first: 1. Touch the back metal panel of your PC to get rid of any electrical charge in your body and fingers. Static electricity can be extremely harmful to your electronic equipment, including the chips on the motherboards. 2. Turn on your computer and call up the CMOS setup utility. If you have an AMI BIOS, this can be done while the system is still in the Power-on self test (POST) stage. While the memory is being checked, press the DEL key and the utility will be activated. Other BIOS may have different hot-keys. My IBM Cobalt requires that I hit the ESC key instead of the DEL key.

Once the CMOS settings appear, write them down. More importantly, write down the parameters for your hard disk. If you have more than one hard disk and they're different sizes, write down the parameters for each of them. I forgot to do this and almost had to scrap one of my old hard disks. Your system will not be able to access your hard disk unless you type in the correct parameters for number of cylinders, heads, and sectors in the CMOS setting.

I can't emphasize this enough: Write down the correct parameters for each of your hard disks if you intend to continue using them or giving them to someone else. It's advisable to use a permanent marker to write down the parameters on the flat cover of the hard disk itself to make sure that you'll never lose this important password. 3. Turn off the computer, pull the plug out, and disconnect the mouse, the monitor, the keyboard, the printer and whatever other peripherals you may have attached to your PC. It is then time to open the case.

If your PC is as dusty as my collection of LPs, you can use a powerful vacuum cleaner to blow --from a distance-- all the dust out of the system. You may also want to carefully wipe each individual controller board and the other components later with a piece of static electricity-free cloth. 4. Label each connector carefully. I hope that you have the manual for your old motherboard so that you will have no difficulty identifying all the cables. The manual should have a diagram containing this information. If you're unfortunate enough not to have the manual, look at the motherboard closely. Use a flashlight if necessary. Usually the board maker labels each of the connectors on the board itself. In most cases, there are six connectors that you have to find: One for the PC speaker, the Reset button, the Turbo button, the Turbo LED, the keyboard lock, and the hard disk activity light. The accompanying diagram is taken from the manual of UMC's UC 4913 motherboard.

Once you've labeled all the cables, you can disconnect them. Take out all the controller boards that you may have, such as the graphic boards, I/O board and perhaps your SoundBlaster sound board. The power supply cables, usually located on the upper right hand side of the board close to the power supply box, are next. Then find the two or three screws that attach the old motherboard to the chassis. The nylon fasteners slide into their respective channel in the chassis and hold the motherboard in place. Once the screws are taken out, all you have to do is slide the board to the left (or down, if you have a tower case) until the fasteners get out of their channels. Then you can lift the old motherboard out of the case.

Final check

First of all, make sure that the factory settings of the new motherboard are compatible with your system configuration. A reader asked me whether he still could use his old I/O card and hard disk controller on a new motherboard with built-in I/O and hard disk controllers. Yes, you can always do this, but you would have to disable the built-in components. All you have to do is change the factory default jumper settings.

You may have to reuse the nylon fasteners for your new motherboard. You'll need long-nosed pliers to squeeze the two wings that lock each of the fasteners to the board before you can pull it out. Inserting it into the hole on the new motherboard is simple, just push it in.

Depending on your upgrade option, you may take the RAM chips out of the old motherboard and place them in the new board. Read the manual to find if you have to adjust the jumper settings to let the board know how much RAM you have. My Cobalt motherboard can detect and self-configure itself according to how much RAM I have.

Then you can ease the board into its place, making sure that you don't crack the board or any of its components. Once it's placed correctly, fasten the screws. Connect the speaker, reset button, etc., as well as all external cables such as the keyboard, monitor and mouse cables. Put all the boards back into the slots and attach all the hard disk and disk drive ribbon cables. Once you've double-checked that everything is done correctly, you can turn it on.

Watch the POST

During the Power On Self Test stage, the BIOS will detect that the hardware configuration does not conform with the CMOS setup, and usually the setup utility is launched automatically. It's time to carefully type in the correct parameters for each of the components, such as the hard disk, the 3.5" and 5.25" floppy disk drives.

Once CMOS has the correct parameters for all installed components, you'll be ready to run the programs already installed on your hard disk -- with a much improved speed. Again, if your new motherboard comes with its own drivers, you'll enjoy an even better performance once you've installed them.

Two final warnings, though: First, don't rely on the Auto- detect utility found in most late model motherboards to find the right parameters for your hard disk. Use the ones supplied in its manual. There are a wide variety of hard disks out there and each has a different way of reading and writing data, and only the manual gives the most reliable parameters. I wasted a brand new 540 Quantum because I relied on the Auto-detect utility. Fortunately, I was able to get a replacement. You may not be as lucky as I was.

Secondly, never use the low format utility of the BIOS, in case your new motherboard has one. Current IDE hard disks are already low-formatted in the factory and there are other technical reasons as well for not low-formatting the expensive hard disks yourself.