# Are Motherboards Interchangeable?



## jhonrox

Hi,

This might sound stupid to most of you, but I was wondering if all motherboards had the same attachment points? For example, I use an HP Vectra VL420 at the moment, and I was thinking about changing the case, but keeping the motherboard. Would any case do? How would I know if the motherboard fits in the new case?

A few pics of my case & motherboard:









Any comments/suggestions would be wonderful ..
Thanks!!


----------



## PohTayToez

No all motherboard are not the same, there are various "form factors" that determine what types of cases the motherboard can fit in to.  I wasn't able to located the specifications for that board, but looking at it, it should fit into any case that can support a microATX board.

Although, honestly, you'd be much better off putting that money towards a new PC altogether.


----------



## jhonrox

Thanks for the quick reply and the info on form factors, PohTayToez. I just measured  the motherboard and its 9.6"x9.6" so its micro ATX. So any case that says its for micro ATX should be fine, yeah? But what about the power supply? Does it matter with different motherboards? As long as the power provided is adequate and all the supply cables are there, that's fine yeah?

And as you suggested, I wish I could buy a new PC, but I don't really want to because the VL420 I use now is upgraded by myself you see. I gave it the maximum processor power it can handle - P4 2.4GHz, maximum RAM - 1.5GB etc etc. And I can't really afford a new PC anyway ..

Thanks again for the help!


----------



## PohTayToez

Well if you're power supply looks like this (ignore the connectors, pay attention to the screw holes):





You should be able to use it in basically any ATX case.  There really isn't a reason to upgrade the power supply on a prebuilt machine unless you're upgrading something else as well.  However, if you are getting a power supply, you just need to make sure that it's compatible with the ATX 20 pin port on your motherboard.  You'd be hard pressed to find a new power supply with the 20 pin jack these days, as pretty much all boards use 24 pin now, but a lot of power supplies use what is called a 20+4 pin jack, which means that it is compatible with both 20 and 24 pin, which is what you would want to look for.


----------



## fmw

In my experience you can do what you want to do.  Usually, a generic board won't fit in an HP case but the boards normally do fit in a generic case.  I don't have any experience with that particular board, however.


----------

