# Where can I get M2N68-LA motherboard drivers?



## Crimsonnaire

Can someone please tell me where I can get the drivers needed to run a M2N68-LA, AM3 socket motherboard for an HP desktop that has a Windows 7 Home HDD installed?

I've been shopping around for a replacement motherboard, which I've identified as the model number above, but most don't come with a driver CD, and I'm not sure if the drivers correspond to the motherboard model or the operating system.

Thanks very much.


----------



## beers

It looks like your best bet may be to go to the chip vendor's site for each component and get the drivers there.  Similar to the response here:
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Deskto...8E-HP-Name-drivers-for-Windows-7/td-p/1398409


----------



## voyagerfan99

What's the model number of the pc? You can download all necessary drivers from the HP support site.


----------



## StrangleHold

This^^ Because there is about 4 different Rev. of the M2N68-LA.


----------



## Crimsonnaire

Thank you all for the reference. I bookmarked it.

As I shopped around eBay and Amazon, something that caused me further stress is that it seems that motherboard replacement is part number sensitive. My old motherboard is an M2N68-LA, part #513426-001, and I can't find this exact part # anywhere. 

Can someone please tell me if the part # has to be exactly the same in order for the motherboard to work in my HP Pavilion? Or is it the case that the varying part numbers simply reflect the various configurations between PS/2 and USB, VGA and DVI, and nothing that would impede the HDD, DVD-RW, and PSU?

Thanks again for all of your input.


----------



## voyagerfan99

Don't worry about the M2N68-LA. Use the HP part number on the board and search for just that.


----------



## Crimsonnaire

Cool! I found a few.

Quick question: these motherboards are listed as AM2 socket, and my original CPU is the AMD Athlon II X4 635, which is an AM3. Is it the case that the AM2 socket in these motherboards can accept all AM3 socket CPUs?

Also, my damaged motherboard isn't fully dead. It still turns on and seems to operate normally, suggesting that the CPU and HDD are fine. But since there's no video or audio feed, I assumed that only the video and audio partitions on the motherboard were damaged by the lightning surge. Yet, is there any possibility that damage to the PSU could selectively impede the audio and video feeds of a motherboard?

Thanks again to everyone for all your help.


----------



## johnb35

If you have access to a dedicated sound card and video card you can always put them in and see if they work. Have you tried resetting the cmos?


----------



## StrangleHold

Crimsonnaire said:


> Quick question: these motherboards are listed as AM2 socket, and my original CPU is the AMD Athlon II X4 635, which is an AM3. Is it the case that the AM2 socket in these motherboards can accept all AM3 socket CPUs?



 Yes, AM3 processors will fit AM2/+ socket motherboards. They have to have a bios that supports it. 

 AM2/+ processors will not fit AM3/+ boards.


----------



## Crimsonnaire

I did consider that, but I unfortunately I don't have any extra video and sound cards to test with. If I were to buy them, I figured I'd pay an amount equal to a used replacement motherboard, so I dismissed that option. As for the cmos, I'm embarrassed to say I have no idea what that is. Is that a physical switch I can manually reset on the motherboard? The desktop appears to operate normally, but I can't get any video or audio feed. I also didn't mention it before, but another abnormal behavior is that when it's shutting down, the CPU fan goes almost right off at the moment the tower shuts off whereas before it would remain on for about a second afterward. This was further reinforcement for my belief that the motherboard outright damaged.

Okay, that's good. But will an AM2+ motherboard accept all AM3 socket CPUs? What I was planning to do was to buy an AMD X3 core and unlock the 4th core, and at the moment I've been focusing on the Athlon II X3 450/455, but I've been reading about troubles when doing this. It's not just that the 4th core could be unstable, but also that if a certain property of the motherboard doesn't meet the performance requirement, it could cause the CPU performance to run lower than the original X3 configuration. So would anyone happen to know whether the #513426-001 motherboard is suitable for unlocking the 4th core of the Athlon II X3 440 - 460 series?

For visual reference, here is a picture of the actual motherboard I need to replace. This picture was taken before damage--not that it matters:






Off-topic question:
With the setup above, is there an extra plug with which a slave HDD could be plugged in? Another option I've been considering is to get another HP desktop with a similar setup and simply plug in my old HDD.


----------



## voyagerfan99

To clear the CMOS you just unplug the power cable and remove the coin battery on the motherboard for about 10 seconds (hold the power button during this time to discharge any residual energy) then plug the battery and power cable back in.

No OEM motherboard will have unlocking capabilities. You'll need to buy a REAL motherboard.

The yellow SATA port can be used to add a second HDD. It looks like you'd need a molex>SATA power adapter though, because I don't see any extra SATA power cables.


----------



## johnb35

Looks like you hdd drive cage will support a second hard drive.  If you have an open Sata port for data then you hook up a seond drive.

In order for you existing hard drive to work in another computer, it would have to have the same motherboard in it.  If its not the same motherboard then it would either blue screen or boot loop on you when trying to boot up.


----------



## Crimsonnaire

Update:

I finally got a replacement motherboard with the exact part number 513426-001 at great price and it's in practically brand new condition. I hooked everything according to the same layout as the stock motherboard (pictured above), and when I booted up, Windows 7 loaded with a clear video and audio feed which means that the lightning surge did damage these sections on the stock MB.














However, a setback I ran into is that the desktop booted up with the old Windows 98-looking taskbar, and the screen resolution seems to be disproportionately small (making the icons appear big). Also, when I hover the mouse over the desktop and right-click, the PC seems to be stuck in trying to load the menu. Can someone tell me if this is a case of missing/incompatible drivers or something more in line with the CPU (this is the same CPU that came from the lightning-damaged system)? If it's the drivers, where I can go to find the right ones? By the way, this motherboard evidently came from a Compaq desktop, because that's the logo that appears on startup, and my desktop is an HP Pavilion P6610F.

Any help is greatly appreciated.


----------



## johnb35

You will most likely have to reinstall windows.  Not sure if the motherboards are actually interchangeable between hp and Compaq machines.  I would say there is a difference in the motherboard since video isn't working.  Check device manager to make sure no yellow question marks.


----------



## Crimsonnaire

Update:

I booted up today and the drivers seemed to have installed themselves without needing me to go to some site to get them. Most probably, they were automatically detected and installed by Windows Update. The system is now working to the same specs as with the first motherboard which had the video and audio sections fried by the lightning surge. Thanks very much to everyone for the helpful tips and suggestions.

Seeing that all the M2N68-LA motherboards have the mounting thread holes in the same layout, I suspect I could've totally gotten away with installing a higher socket M2N68-LA motherboard, because the most I'm able to upgrade the CPU in #513426-001 is the Phenom II X4 960. Do I assume correctly that any M2N68-LA motherboard would work so long as the Sata ports are compatible and the wattage consumption is supported by the PSU?


----------

