Lmotherboard upgrade(i'm lost)

[kisserprostyler]

i want to upgrade my dell 2350 and i got 2 motherboards (from friends) they are both micro ATX(would they fit in my computer?) but one of them is SDR and the other is DDR so i'm completely lost. first of all , i don't know if my SDR memory would fit in the DDR slots,
and, do i have to install windows xp again? , where do i start from?,im completely lost, i dont know where to begin from.Could some one told me where to find like a list of steps to install a motherboard?
i dont wanna mess it up.

 

[vnf4ultra]

I have a dell 2300(the model before yours), and my friend has a 2350, they're pretty similar. I upgraded my 2300's motherboard so I could use an agp video card and use ddr ram(instead of sd ram).

DDr ram is better, but if you don't have ddr ram you either have to buy it or use a board with sd ram.

I didn't reinstall windows, but it might be a good idea to do so. Some people say that the dell version of xp can't be installed on non dell motherboards, but I transferred boards without reinstalling. I had to uninstall stuff from device manager first(before I replaced the board), like the ide controller, video, sound, etc.(anything that will be different on the new board, like I had a different video card with the new board, so I had to unintstall the previous one). I then shut down and replaced the board. Then I booted and entered the bios to see if things were set right(and they weren't), my cpu was detected wrong, so I had to set it manually, and then I adjusted the boot order etc. Then, I exited the bios, and restarted, and windows did some kind of hardware detection thing, and then it booted windows. Then I installed the new motherboard drivers, video drivers, sound drivers, etc.

My only issue was the front panel connectors(power button, power led, hd led) didn't match the new board so I had to reposition the connectors in the plastic connector plug(the pins pull out if you press the metal release tab).

Hope this helps.

 

[kisserprostyler]

ok thanks

orale, i see , but if my motherboard doesn't fit ,do i have to buy a new case?

how can i find the measurements of atx and oem?