Fitting a new motherboard could give your PC a new lease of life. At a stroke, a new motherboard can add support for all the latest technologies such as Serial ATA hard drives, dual-core 64-bit processors and super-fast PCI Express graphics.
Combined with a processor upgrade, a new motherboard can hugely speed up your PC, allowing you to do cool things such as video and audio editing that your system previously couldn't cope with.
Buy the right board and you'll also get lots of useful extras, including good surround sound, an integrated network adapter (often equipped for lightning-fast 1,000Mbit/s transfers) and even built-in anti-virus and firewall capabilities. What's more, upgrading your motherboard is a great way to become a PC expert: once you’ve done it you’ll literally know your PC inside and out.
In this step-by-step guide we show you how to choose the right motherboard, how to install it and how to deal with any problems you might encounter.
Most people combine a motherboard upgrade with a processor upgrade, because keeping your existing processor will minimise the performance benefits and severely restrict your choice of motherboards. It’s best to decide what processor you want first, then find a compatible motherboard with the features you want.
Processors come in various shapes – Socket 754, Socket 775 and Socket AM2 are the common ones – and you need to choose a motherboard with the same socket. Once you’ve chosen a processor you'll then be able to focus on motherboards with the correct socket.
When you've got your shortlist of boards, it’s worth doing a final check that the specific chip you’re planning to buy is compatible with each one. Download the motherboard manuals from the manufacturer websites for a full list of clock speeds and model numbers supported.
The next thing to consider is whether your power supply, memory, graphics card and hard disk drive will work with a new motherboard. If a component is too old to work with any modern motherboards, you will have to replace it. You need to know in advance how many components you’ll need to update so that you can budget for your upgrade, and even decide whether or not it’s economical at all. IDE hard drives (also known as ATA or P-ATA) have been the norm for desktop PCs since the 1990s, but SATA has taken over, to the extent where some new motherboards won't have an IDE connector, yet plenty of SATA connectors.
Whether or not you can keep your memory depends on what mother board and processor you're upgrading to. The below shows what speed of memory you need according to the processor and its front side bus (FSB). If your existing memory meets or exceeds this speed, you'll be able to move it to the new motherboard, unless your new board takes only DDR2 RAM, which is a slightly different shape.
Once you've dealt with the compatibility issues, you need to decide what kind of system you want and how much you’re willing to spend. Upgrading isn't only for gamers and overclockers who want top performance. If you’re just finding an old PC a bit slow for simple things like web surfing or browsing photos, a motherboard and processor upgrade could make it usable again. If this is all you want from your upgrade, you can combine a budget processor with a motherboard and get a much-improved PC. Look for a board with at least two IDE connectors so you can reuse your old CD writer and hard disk, which should still be fast enough.
If you’re into games then your shopping list will look completely different. You’ll want a board with a PCI Express graphics slot, or even two, letting you install the latest PCI-E graphics cards. You should also favour boards with dual-channel memory controllers.
When you fit two memory modules, they can then be accessed simultaneously, doubling the amount of data your system can move around at once and significantly increasing overall speed. If you don’t want to fit two memory DIMMs straight away, you can add a second one later to achieve the full performance potential, as long as it matches the first DIMM precisely. If you’re interested primarily in speed, your board should have plenty of Serial ATA (SATA) connectors.
SATA hard disks hook up to the motherboard using a connection that’s faster and better designed than old-fashioned IDE. If you upgrade your hard disk at a later date, these SATA connectors will be very useful. Of course, most motherboards have IDE and SATA connectors, letting you get the best of both worlds.
Aside from just hard disks, the SATA protocol can also cater for CD/DVD drives. Obviously, you would need a SATA connectable CD/DVD drive rather than an IDE version if you're interested in the fast speeds available from SATA, especially if no IDE connector is on your new motherboard!
Finally, you may wish to look at the diagnostics utility a board offers. Some allow you to monitor things like the temperature of your processor, the rotation speed of its fan, the voltage at which various parts of your system are running and so on. If you're pushing your system to the limits, such as overclocking a component, these functions can be very useful.
In Windows, right-click "My Computer" and go to "Properties". On the "Hardware" tab open "Device Manager". If any devices are listed with a yellow exclamation mark or a red cross, reinstall the driver for that device. Pay particular attention to the heading "System Devices": these are components on your motherboard.
If a component isn't recognised at all, it may appear as a yellow question mark under "Other Devices". In this case, try reinstalling all the drivers on the motherboard's driver disc that are relevant to your version of Windows, one by one.
Connect an external device to each port on your motherboard. You’ve already tried a mouse and keyboard, but if either was a USB model, test the PS/2 ports as well (a cheap USB-to-PS/2 adapter will help). Try each and every one of your USB ports with a USB Hi-speed device. All your USB ports should be USB 2.0; if they’re not running at full speed, you’ll get an error saying that you’ve plugged a Hi-speed device into a USB 1.1 connector. If you have a second PC or a broadband router, try connecting to it to test any wired or wireless networking ports built into your motherboard.
Almost every motherboard these days has on-board sound. Ensure you've got some speakers (or headphones) connected up to the green 3.5mm jack on the back of your new computer. Double-click the volume button at the bottom-right of your Windows display, and play around with the volume slider, which should generate a brief noise every time you set the volume to a new level.
Once you've made certain that all the motherboard's components are installed properly, try running a demanding piece of software. If you have a game that you know well, set it to demo mode and run it on a continuous loop for an hour or two.
Try to find out what performance you should expect from your motherboard with the components you've installed (some manufacturers' websites will quote benchmark scores, and you can use Google to find other people's tips and test results), and compare the scores you actually get. Sit through the tests so that you can see if any errors occur and when. If your motherboard completes the benchmark with no problems, check your CPU temperature after this stress test.
If you plan to use your upgraded PC for specialist tasks such as video or audio editing, your criteria will be similar to those of the gamer, but with less emphasis on the graphics card; integrated graphics may be the most cost-effective option. You'll be handling lots of data, so look for a board with plenty of SATA connectors, allowing you to add as many hard disks as you need without having to resort to slower connections.
Some motherboards also have built-in SATA RAID controllers. RAID allows you to configure two hard disks to work as one, or a second hard disk to work as a ‘mirror’. RAID can speed up transfers to and from the disk and make your data more secure. Creative users should look for a board with the fastest ports for external devices. FireWire is a must for video editors, so watch out for boards that don’t have it, although you can add this connectivity later on, by purchasing a FireWire PCI card. Diagnostic tools are, if anything, even more important than for gamers because system stability is crucial for many kinds of creative work. You’ll need to be able to leave your system working for long periods of time without it crashing or experiencing any instability.
No matter what kind of motherboard you want to buy, there are some universals that everyone should look for. The first is build quality. The components shouldn't be squeezed so close together so that, for instance, it's difficult to remove the graphics card without putting pressure on the RAM. Switches and connectors should be easily accessible and well labelled, preferably on the board itself but certainly in the manual. The BIOS should be well laid out and give you detailed control over the way the board works.
Finally, think about any old peripherals that you want to move over from your old motherboard. New boards with a wealth of PCI Express connectors may have only one or two standard PCI slots, which may not be enough.
| Processor | Socket | Bus speed | Min memory speed |
| Sempron | Socket AM2 | 200MHz (400MHz effective) | PC3200 DDR2 RAM |
| Socket 754 | 200MHz (400MHz effective) | PC3200 DDR RAM | |
| Athlon 64/64 X2/64 FX | Socket AM2 | 200MHz (400MHz effective) | PC3200 DDR2 RAM |
| Socket 939 | 200MHz (400MHz effective) | PC3200 DDR RAM | |
| Celeron D | Socket 775 | 133MHz (533MHz effective) | PC2100 DDR RAM |
| Socket 478 | 133MHz (533MHz effective) | PC2100 DDR RAM | |
| Pentium 4 | Socket 775 | 200MHz* (800MHz effective) | PC3200 DDR RAM |
| Socket 478 | 200MHz (800MHz effective) | PC3200 DDR RAM | |
| Pentium D | Socket 775 | 200MHz* (800MHz effective) | PC3200 DDR RAM |
| Core 2 Duo | Socket 775 | 266MHz (1,066MHz effective) | PC4200 DDR2 RAM |
| Core 2 Extreme | Socket 775 | 266MHz (1,066MHz effective) | PC4200 DDR2 RAM |
| *Except 505, 506, 511, 519, 524 and D 805 models, which have 133MHz FSB | |||
Boards and cases come in standard shapes. Some motherboards are standard ATX (up to 305×244mm) so will require an ATX case. MicroATX motherboards are becoming increasingly popular, as many of them cost less than the standard ATX offerings, yet still offer modern technology.
Most current processors need a four-pin 12V lead from the PSU as well as the larger main connector. If you don’t have this, you’ll need a new PSU. Many new motherboards require the new 24-pin connector of an ATX 2.2 PSU; the extra pins supply a second 12V line (‘rail’). SATA hard disks need special connectors from the PSU, but you can buy adaptors for your existing unit.
Follow the monitor lead to check your graphics setup, most likely motherboard-integrated graphics, a PCI card (in a cream slot) or an AGP card (brown slot). Only AGP cards are worth saving. Old AGP 1x and 2x cards run on 3.3V or 1.5V, modern AGP 8x cards as little as 0.8V. Most new motherboards have a universal 1.5V AGP 3.0 slot with a divider which allows only cards that support 1.5V.
PCs built before 2000 use SDRAM, which runs at either 100 or 133MHz. No new mother boards support this. More recent PCs use Double Data Rate SDRAM. Speeds include PC2100 and PC3200. Many new boards support DDR, but your existing memory may not be of the right spec – see our ‘which memory speed table above . The most popular memory is DDR2, with speeds of PC3200 up. A new DDR2 board needs this.
If you want to reuse your old hard disks and CD drives, choose a motherboard with enough IDE connectors. Some new boards, particularly microATX, offer fewer because it’s assumed that your hard disk will be SATA. If you end up with too few connectors, you could try running your hard disk and a single optical drive on the same connector, but this could result in speed and stability problems.