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Upgrade Guide: The Mother(board) of All Upgrades

Motherboard transplants rev up aging PCs.

Stan Miastkowski

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1. Remove the Cards and Cables

Turn off your PC; unplug it from the wall; and disconnect the mouse, keyboard, monitor, printer, and any other external cables (such as USB). Remove the PC's cover, and carefully look at what you need to remove or disconnect to reach the motherboard. In some cases, you'll have to remove a hard drive or other hardware to get to the motherboard.

Before you begin working under your PC's hood, put on an antistatic wrist strap (available from a local electronics supply store such as Radio Shack) and clip it to a grounded metal object.

Remove the screws holding the add-in cards, carefully remove the cards, and lay them on a clean, flat surface, preferably in the order in which you removed them.

Label each cable with masking tape and write down each connection as you remove it. Unplug the power connector, the floppy disk cable, and the EIDE connectors. Make sure to note which cable is connected to the primary and which to the secondary EIDE connector (sometimes they're marked Channel A and B, or 1 and 2).

Finally, unplug the small connectors attached to the front-panel switches and LEDs (not shown below).

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