The Dell 8300 again... This time, the motherboard

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In the other thread I explained it turned out the power supply was fine, even running one of my computers for a day or two.

That left the motherboard as the next possible suspect.

I found several eBay sellers had them...for $40. (Dell seems to be selling them for nearly $200. I know, cheap may mean just that...low quality junk.) I bought one anyway, and it came today.

I moved the processor and cooler to the new board (the memory too) and hooked everything up to the new board.

The computer booted fine, and I could access the two accounts on the hard drive.

Thing is, the computer, just before booting into windows, flashes on the screen something about the computer operating in "manufacturing mode", which apparently has something to do with the motherboard.

I can't find anything online yet about shutting off that mode and switching it to normal operating mode. I think it's affecting the computer, because it is running sluggishly. (Of course, the Windows installation on the hard drive might "know" it's a different mother board and not be happy.)

Does anyone out there know anything about "manufacturing mode", and how I can switch it to normal operating mode?

The seller IDs the board as "Dell XPS 8300 Vostro 460 Motherboard DH67M01 TB0420 Y2MRG".

If you guys can help again...Thanks!

My wild guess would be something related to the BIOS/CMOS chip, and I would try the chip from the other board if it is in a socket so it can be removed. Other than that, or even beforehand, I would check the BIOS version on the new board against whatever the latest download from Dell might be.

There is no other processor. This is a brand new motherboard, same type as the original. I moved the one processor from the board that won't boot into the new one.

On another forum someone did suggest I update the BIOS and gave me a link at Dell's website.

It worked. From what he'd said, I thought he meant that after the update I'd have to take another step, but it seems not. The "manufacturing mode" message hasn't been appearing since the BIOS were updated. The computer's running well. I offloaded what files I found from the previous owner and burned them to DVD for him, and then wiped the drive using DBAN. Reinstalled Windows (he'd given me the restore discs) and sure enough, the thing's running even better now (since this installation was made using the new motherboard).

All's well.

Still appreciate the help, tho'.

Just my guess, maybe a bit dated computer knowledge… OEM Version of Windows interprets the new motherboard as a “new” computer. Basically, the license for your OS is tied with your old motherboard.

I had only mentioned BIOS/CMOS, not any processor, and I am glad that was all it was!


Correct, and yet OEM install discs are not the same as restore disks...and the image on the restore disks likely included the same COA originally assigned to that machine with its since-gone-bad motherboard (as you have mentioned) as well as its still-the-same processor...and that *might* have caused a re-activation problem that can typically be corrected by using the Micro$oft phone activation service. In the case of Windows 10, however, Micro$oft stores the machine's hard-coded ID on their own servers and no re-activation would be required unless too much (such as the processor?) had been changed. I have changed a Win7 motherboard and had to re-active (again as you have mentioned), but not when changing only the processor...and I have no idea what criteria Micro$oft actually uses for all of that.