ChaseK

Prominent
Nov 5, 2019
7
0
510
Hi. I'm trying to replace my old motherboard with a new one (ASUS M5A78L-M Plus/USB3 DDR3 HDMI DVI USB 3.0 760G MicroATX ). What do I need to do on the software side, like with the BIOS? Everything else in the computer works, so windows 10 should be operational. Whatever I have to do to the bios, could I do it from windows or does it have to b in the bios?
Thanks.
 

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
Depends on what you are plugging into to it. BIOS controls all the basic functions.

CPU clock speeds
Memory speed settings
A whole host of boot options, including the primary boot device.

Nearly an endless list of options. But if this is a simple break/fix replacement most things should at least work with default settings. CPU should default to normal settings, Memory speed may need to be configured if it is faster than DDR3 2133. If you have a single boot drive, should be no configuration. If you have multiple disks or a non-standard boot config, that would be up to you.

Not much you can do from Windows with systems that old. The BIOS is there to be used, you don't really need another interface.

In Windows you will need to remove the old drivers for the motherboard and download and install the latest driver's from support.asus.com. It may be necessary to boot into safe mode to accomplish that first step.
 

ChaseK

Prominent
Nov 5, 2019
7
0
510
Depends on what you are plugging into to it. BIOS controls all the basic functions.

CPU clock speeds
Memory speed settings
A whole host of boot options, including the primary boot device.

Nearly an endless list of options. But if this is a simple break/fix replacement most things should at least work with default settings. CPU should default to normal settings, Memory speed may need to be configured if it is faster than DDR3 2133. If you have a single boot drive, should be no configuration. If you have multiple disks or a non-standard boot config, that would be up to you.

Not much you can do from Windows with systems that old. The BIOS is there to be used, you don't really need another interface.

In Windows you will need to remove the old drivers for the motherboard and download and install the latest driver's from support.asus.com. It may be necessary to boot into safe mode to accomplish that first step.
So what you're saying is, under normal conditions, if I replace the motherboard, then I won't have to do anything in the bios to get the computer to boot into the OS and run normally? Besides downloading the correct drivers?
 

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
Not quite. If you don't have access to the old board and working system you can't preemptively uninstall the old drivers. Windows is decent at handling hardware changes, but not always. Worst case a complete re-install of Windows is necessary.

The standard unaltered setup of motherboards is configured for a working system. Advanced features are needed for doing anything slightly outside the normal.
 
So what you're saying is, under normal conditions, if I replace the motherboard, then I won't have to do anything in the bios to get the computer to boot into the OS and run normally? Besides downloading the correct drivers?

This all depends on the specific system, the normal thing to do when swapping motherboards is to install Windows clean on the new system to prevent any issues. Your system may not boot looking for a boot drive, it may crash soon as Windows tries to load, it may ask you for drivers for 20 things, it may boot but work oddly slow. New motherboard should mean new Windows setup if you want it running well.