Performance worse after replacing my motherboard/reinstalling Windows XP?

Question

I'm running Windows XP Home Edition SP3. I just got and put in a new motherboard. (Went from an ECS 945GCT-M to a GIGABYTE EP45-UD3P Rev1.6)

I'm noticing performance is significantly worse compared to before, the computer is still perfectly usable and I can still run all my PC games or applications from before the upgrade, it's just noticeably slower and the FPS on those games is lower as well.

I've been told that I might need to reinstall Windows XP as part of the process of upgrading a motherboard. Someone else told me that it might be because something along the lines of since the processor is rather old (Intel Pentium 4 64bit 3.20GHz) and the motherboard is a lot newer, maybe it doesn't recognize it and it's not sending enough power to it or something. I didn't really think that sounded possible/didn't make sense, but hey I'm only intermediate with computers and still kind of a noob so, what do I know.


Moving on, I have two problems with reinstalling Windows.

1. This computer was custom built as a gift a year or two back, it came with some documents and other things but I don't remember seeing a Windows XP disc in there. How would I reinstall Windows without a disc?

2. The reason I upgraded my motherboard in the first place was because I'm getting a Quad-Core processor soon, should I just wait until I have the new processor and see if performance is still bad, then work from there, or would that have nothing to do with this?

I'd also like to add one thing, before I had a 64bit Windows/processor or however that works and everything was fine. Now, it seems to be running in 32bit mode as when I tried to download new drivers for my graphics card, I chose 64bit and it gave me an error saying that the system is not a 64bit one, I am little confused. How would I fix this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Perhaps you had hyperthreading turned on one motherboard and not the other?



Since this is a P4, it's motherboard dependent whether HT is turned on by default in BIOS.



Added: Hyperthreading is a feature where your P4 acts as if were two processors instead of one. In some instances it's on by default, sometimes enabling HT will increase performance because background tasks can complete faster with the spare cycles. But the setting varies from board to board.



One way to tell is to display your System Properties

or in Device Manager see if you have a single or multiple processor icons.



It's a setting pretty unique because it was first introduced with the Pentium 4 not all motherboards had the feature on by default.



P.S. Changing motherboards should not alter your O/S from 64 to 32-bit usually that's possible only if you re-installed using a XP 32-bit version CD.



hope this helps?

Answer 2

Have you installed your board drivers for the new board? If not then that could be a problem.



As far as reinstalling windows for a board change, yeah, some people swear up and down you need a fresh os install, but I have never found that to be the case. The only time I ever reinstall the OS is if I get blue screens at bootup after a board replacement. Recently, I replaced my board, ram, proc, and vid card with no problems (well none i couldnt easily solve) and i did it without reinstalling windows.



As far as power to the proc, shouldnt be a problem. That didnt make a lot of sense to me either.

Answer 3

so what was the point of changing just the motherboard anyway? chances are the older components are choking out the motherboard and preventing it to run at the full potential.