You don't like me because I'm giving you the solution? Ok then!

[sld72382]

Had this client today who had no sound after her motherboard was replaced. Don't know if it's like this for all PCs but for this particular brand you need to reload windows (aka running a recovery) after the motherboard is replaced, otherwise crap like this will happen (and no, reloading the driver does not work).

Now this also involves something I also can't stand - doing something useless to appease a client so you don't have to hear their bitching and moaning when you tell them the truth. In other words, not having a spine. I have a spine so when I get these clients, it sets me up for a fall.

The previous tech was doing in-depth troubleshooting with this client purely to get out of telling her she needs to format when the call got dropped.

So anyway here is to part of the convo that matters:

SLD: Ma'am, many times as in the case here after a motherboard replacement on these PCs windows needs to be reloaded otherwise some things may not work, like the sound.

SC: I am not running a recovery.

SLD: If you're concerned about data loss... *gives different ways of backing up her stuff.*

SC: Why are you the only tech that is saying I need to run a recovery? Nobody else has said anything about that!

SLD: Well I can't speak for other techs**, but I am going by experience here and to fix your issue a recovery needs to be run. No amount of reloading drivers is going to fix this. If you want sound, you're going to need to run a recovery.

SC: I want to speak to the tech I was talking to, or any other tech for that matter.

SLD: Ma'am, they're going to tell you the same thing as me....

SC: No, I don't think you're telling the truth here. Seems to me you're taking the easy way out. Now I want to speak to someone else!

SLD: If you want to speak to a different tech, you need to hang up and try again. I can't transfer you to another tech....

SC: Then get me over to customer care!

SLD: OK, I can transfer you there but they're going to tell you the same thing....

SC: Just get me over there please!

I was reading the notes from customer care and she complained that I didn't know what I was talking about, that I wanted to just take the easy way out, that I was being lazy and bla bla bla. When the rep went to transfer her back to my dept, she hung up.

Basically, she would rather argue than do the one thing to solve her problem.

**SLD's note: Whenever you hear a tech say "I can't speak for other technicians," it is translation for "The other tech was a moron."

[otakuneko]

Depends on the version of Windows.
9x/ME do not need to be reinstalled. They don't care how much hardware is changed, just feed 'em drivers and reboot a few times.

2k on upward have the potential to throw a real hissy fit if you swap the motherboard out.

[Eric the Grey]

Depends on the version of Windows.
9x/ME do not need to be reinstalled. They don't care how much hardware is changed, just feed 'em drivers and reboot a few times.

2k on upward have the potential to throw a real hissy fit if you swap the motherboard out.

Since I've only had to replace a motherboard once, my experience may not count, but with Vista, all I had to do was give it the new drivers, and reactivate Vista.

I may have to replace another motherboard, the one from my old Dell, but I'll probably do a fresh load of XP to it anyway, just because.


Eric the Grey

[sld72382]

Depends on the version of Windows.
9x/ME do not need to be reinstalled. They don't care how much hardware is changed, just feed 'em drivers and reboot a few times.

2k on upward have the potential to throw a real hissy fit if you swap the motherboard out.

Her PC was XP. Vista seems to be cool with motherboard replacements but with XP - 90% of the time it needs to be formatted and reloaded.

[LostMyMind]

Actually, it can be done. Not easily, but can be done. Involves lots of hard work to manually edit the registry (I find it easier to just delete the damn thing).

Works much easier if you go in device manager and delete all device drivers. do a shutdown, replace board. on boot up, it should pick up the new hardware properly. In fact, this procedure had to be follow for some quite annoying ati cards. The problem is, XP hides drivers that you used to have but it didn't detect on boot-up. So the old drivers would still load up. Causing all kinds of mayhem. So you really do have to remove the drivers before removing the hardware.....Welcome to the genius of microsoft.

[EricKei]

On 9x, at least, you can also delete the (hardware) enumerator (the internal listing of all components); this will cause Windows to do look for fresh drivers for *everything*, kinda like what it does when you first install Windows. It's been so long, I'm not sure if that works for modern Windows as well.