I'm planning to upgrade my motherboard to 64 bit...am I going to have to reinstall windows (ignoring activation issues)? I know there's a 64bit win xp, is that a good idea (like a significant performance boost)? I suppose I'd have to reinstall for that, ugh. Also, to those in the know about linux, is it possible to upgrade straight to 64-bit ubuntu?

Any other issues people had from going to 64bit would be greatly appreciated.

last time I knew, there were very few drivers for 64bit anything. and not much of a preformance boost on anything that really mattered (since 99% of stuff is ran on the virtual 32-bit OS)..

Regardless of 32bit to 64bit, you always have to reinstall windows when you install a new motherboard. Linux is not as bad, but you will still have to reinstall if you want to move to a 64bit platform.

However, there is very little reason to install a 64bit OS.

64 bit win xp is essentially worthless. its supposed to be buggy, and you only get a LITTLE bit better performance in SOME optomized games. just use XP pro if you have it, and wait till vista comes out.

you will have to reinstall/reactivate though - practically anytime you change Mobo this must be done

If you plan on playing games, don't upgrade. WinXP64 will have to emulate 32-bit for the vast majority of games, which generally results in a decrease in performance (however, generally not very noticeable). I had it installed for a while as dual-boot just in case I wanted to experiment with 64-bit stuff... I got rid it fairly quickly, seeing as how linux is much more fun to tinker with.

Linux is still better.


Edit: Convenient post for #777.
731 would be better for seek though. [most won't get that ]

32bit! No real reason to get 64bit yet, unless your bored or just like to try shit out.

Are you sure you need to reinstall windows? Can't it just use its generic mobo drivers on bootup? When you install fresh, for example, windows must detect your motherboard chipset use its default drivers to boot up for the first time. I don't see any reason you can't switch motherboards with a current installation. I even have the nforce drivers already installed.

No, windows only has the specific motherboard drivers for your computer when you install windows. This lets windows boot up nice and fast, but at the expense of compatibility. Unless the motherboard is the same chipset, you will have to reinstall.

At least, that has always been my experiance

I'm 99% sure that is wrong. I've built dozens of systems and from time to time swapped hdd's from nforce2 mobos to nforce4 mobos and even some stuff from like 1995. It won't all work correctly at boot, probably need to insall all your drivers over, but it should be too big of an issue. Though you will have to reactivate winxp probably over the phone. Once you make major hardware changes, it must be reactivated.

For certain reasons, I'm not too worried about reactivating windows.

Hmm..I think I am right. A couple sites seem to agree with me. Though it looks like you can repair the install instead of reinstalling.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm? ... 755&page=5

Since I am in fact going from nf2 to nf4, I think I will try it to see if it works (once my video card gets here...)