990FX Sabertooth (not R2.0) and 2nd gen FX processor

[craig855s]

Hi all,

I've had an FX4300 black edition running on an ASUS M5A78 motherboard for over a year now and have just picked up a sabertooth 990FX from ebay for a steal of a price but am wondering what, if anything I'll need to do to swap my components over onto the sabertooth board. So I have some questions that if you could answer would help me greatly (if not i'll trial and error it once the board arrives in the post)

1. Will I need to reinstall windows once I've put the new board in or will it run fine?
2. Will I need to update the BIOS to make the board work with my 4300 CPU (this board was designed to be compatable with the 41XX,61XX,81XX CPUs) and if so how do I do that? Do I need to put a compatable CPU in to make it boot and do the update?

 

[CalVic]

You'll have no problems with moving the hardware over

You should be able to drop that chip right in and it should work

I would advise to update the bios to the latest - Something I've always done, but can be done later if desired.

With regards to Windows, it would be probably best to re-install. As you will be prompted to re-activate Windows and plus you'll need to uninstall drivers and re-install for the new motherboard. Can be a bit of a pain, so I'd re-install to get the best performance possible.

 

[MacLeod]

Youre gonna want to do a fresh install of Windows. I know its not necessary anymore but I still feel its best. That way everything is working all on the same page and if nothing else, its worth it for the peace of mind. If you absolutely dont want to do it, it should be ok. You might have to switch the SATA to AHCI to get it to work and you should install the chipset and USB and all the drivers that come with the motherboard's CD.

Yes youll need to use a compatible CPU in order to get it to boot up. See if you can find out which BIOS that thing has. If it has 1604 then itll be compatible with your 4300. If not, it wont. Thats the BIOS that was released to accept Piledriver chips. Its the last one theyve put out for it since.

Im really not comfortable purchasing motherboards used off of Ebay especially when you get them for a steal. The motherboard is so important to your build as it is the foundation for it. If youve already bought it, well nothing you can do about it and hope it works out for you. If you havent, I suggest waiting a little while in order to save up a little extra coin so you can buy a brand spankin' new mobo.