Mother of another broad(Computer help)

[Mr Bean]

So anyway yesterday afternoon after a reboot my computer dies... hardcore. I start it up, hit the power button the lights come on all the CD drives and stay lit. Switching things around, cleaning the case totally(I totally stripped the case, went through three cans "o" air, wiped everything down) and put everything back togther again and spent a good hour orgamining my cables to improve airflow and then...

Nothing, lights on, piff.

Tearing my hair out as this is my primary(And currently only) computer I tear open my storage(Which I have not bothered in some time) and discover I had tucked away two thirds of a computer worth of spare parts. Two spare motherboards, an old AMD 3500 939 and a few Intel chips from 1 Ghtz to 2ghtz.

To my complete surprise at some point I had purchased a Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe somewhere and unopened. My current MB
My old "dead" MB" is an Asus A8N-SLI Premium.
My "new"MB the Deluxe

Nevermind my good luck for buying the same damn motherboard minus a few features and sitting away just as my current MB dies. So I tear it open, install it, go through the whole process again(Day 2, damn watercooling) and viola I have...
A dead computer
@#$@$@$@
After checking some connects I find a lose powercord, plug that back in, check six times to make sure the damn HD Light wires and Speaker wires are in the correct places, boot it back up... and windows works just fine.

Now to the point of this length story. Should I need to do anything? Windows(XP professional) started up just fine, are the MB's similar enough I can get away with wiping the HD at most, or at least cleaing out all devices from the Control panel and re-installing everything?

[fusion]

As long as you have stuff going though the same port as the other board, it should be fine. The worst case scenario is that window's is a bit confused when you connect peripherals to your computer and you have to reinstall it. So you should be fine...

[Ariphaos]

It might have been your power supply. I had a similar issue - the power supply wasn't bad, per se, but some of the high-efficiency ones need a higher load in order to function.

Which blows, because sometimes, if you're right on the line or as they age, they'll work just fine and then, well, that.