# Gentoo on changed hardware ?

## koencalliauw

I've changed my motherboard and processor, should I now reinstall gentoo because all the sudden it seems quite unstable (or is it just buggy hardware).

I've changed my mobo from an MSI K7T Turbo to an ECS K7S5A (both Athlon processors)

Any help would be appreciated

thx in advance

/optical out

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## dmason

well, anytime you install new motherboards, it is always a good idea to clean the os and start again, because that way it is fully integrated with just that board, also, did you make sure to remove all of the modules that dealt with the old motherboard, and install new drivers for the new one correctly, that could also lead to instability. Although interesting thing is that I did a similar thing when I used redhat and windows 2000 in a dual boot, RedHat didn't care, it just dropped the old hardware profile and rebuilt on its own, windows, well, it died a horrible death, and there was the first bsod I have ever seen on a 2000 box.

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## rac

You have to call up the Gentoo Licensing Department and get a new Product Activation Code when you make changes like this to your hardware ... oh, wait, wrong board.  :Very Happy: 

On a serious note, make sure that your RAM is compatible with your new motherboard.

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## rommel

rac...lol

did you rebuild the kernel and disable support for the via chipset and enable support for sis?

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## delta407

 *dmason wrote:*   

> well, anytime you install new motherboards, it is always a good idea to clean the os and start again, because that way it is fully integrated with just that board

 

What? The only part of your Gentoo system that is hardware-specific is the kernel. Just make sure everything looks good for your new hardware and you'll be off and flying.

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## syadnom

dmason : wtf??

just rebuild the kernel to include any new hardware that you have and you should be 100%, linux apps dont care!, the only thing they would care about is if the CPU has changed, given that they might be optimized for a certain feature(sse2) and when you change to an athlonxp that doesn't have sse2.  but i doubt that is the case here .

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## meyerm

 *dmason wrote:*   

> Although interesting thing is that I did a similar thing when I used redhat and windows 2000 in a dual boot, RedHat didn't care, it just dropped the old hardware profile and rebuilt on its own, windows, well, it died a horrible death, and there was the first bsod I have ever seen on a 2000 box.

 

Well, just to add my 2 cents. When I inserted a second processor into my Workstation Linux didn't care. And after building a new SMP Kernel everthing went sooo smooth  :Smile: 

But my Windows 2000 on another partition just got so evil slow. It is just no longer usable. You really have to wait sometime a few seconds until a click is recognized. Well, if I will ever need Windows the next time, I'll have to reinstall it...  :Mad: 

Oh, I'm so happy with Linux & Co...  :Very Happy: 

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## delta407

 *meyerm wrote:*   

> But my Windows 2000 on another partition just got so evil slow. It is just no longer usable. You really have to wait sometime a few seconds until a click is recognized. Well, if I will ever need Windows the next time, I'll have to reinstall it... 

 

Windows NT (2k included) uses different HALs for uniprocessor and SMP machines. Windows 2000 generally is pretty tolerant, but you have to do silly things to NT4 to make it work.

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## dcloues

When I built my K7S5A-based system I had a ton of problems - installing gentoo was impossible, as every program I ran would segfault almost immediately.

The culprit?  Cheap ram and (I suspect) a very picky ram controller.  The 512 mb dimm I was using worked fine at 133 mhz in my Asus A7V, but it refused to work properly with the K7S5A (the memory was very cheap, and from a not-too-reliable source.  I don't trust it).  I swapped in a different dimm (512 MB, PC133, decent-quality Kingston) and everything worked just fine.  The cheap memory lives on in my A7V.

I've also read that the K7S5A has trouble with some power supplies; it doesn't like poor-quality equipment, apparently.  I had no trouble with my 300w pc power&cooling psu, despite the fact that I swapped out the fan for a quieter one (which would presumably put a bit more stress on the psu components).

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