Suspect Mother Board Died

[big_b]

Hi Guys

I may have had a Mother Board failure.Turned off the PC this morning & haven't been able to bring it back to life since won't even post.

Have removed everything from the board & sill won't post.My local Tech is checking it tomorrow but he thinks it's the board also.

He also told me it may be hard to get a replacement board as most AMD2+ boards with DDR2 ram are now discontinued & the new AM3 boards won't support my processor or ram.

He suggested that if I need to replace the board should I go Intel Instead of AMD which means a new Board Processor & Ram which will give me better upgrade options in the future.

Any suggestions on a board & processor if I have to go this way. The only thing I'll be keeping are my HDD's & the GTX460 video card if this turns out to be my only option

Dave

 

[lewisner]

I recently rebuilt my PC and ended up chucking away everything everything except the HDD's 2xGPU's and 2x Optical Drives.
My new Mobo is an Asus M4N82 Deluxe and it takes DDR2 RAM (up to 16 GB) and is Tri SLI capable.
My new CPU is an AMD Athon II 635 Quad Core.
I got the Mobo and CPU bundle preassembled plus delivery for £227.
Also I eventually junked the old case and got a HAF 932 full tower for £100.
The only problem is that if I try to install the full 8GB RAM I get no picture on the monitor - I've tried swapping the RAM sticks but they are all working.Also I got the GPU's used from ebay and one of them appears to be faulty- it's an Inno BFG 8800GT 512 MB.
If you do decide to get rid of your GTX 460 let me know - I may be in the market for one!

 

[big_b]

If you do decide to get rid of your GTX 460 let me know - I may be in the market for one!

Only got that about a month ago haven't even really tried it out yet.

Dave

 

[whitepass]

It could be a bad stick of ram, I had that and it would not post with it in.

 

[lewisner]

Hi whitepass, as I said that was my first thought so I tried swapping both installed RAM sticks for the uninstalled ones but they worked perfectly so it isn't that. It's been suggested that the problem could be the rating (667) of the RAM versus the Mobo but when I bought the RAM online I checked with the supplier and they identified it as compatible.
BTW regarding the OP it's my understanding that Intel CPU's are "generally" more expensive than AMD so it may be that his techie is trying to extract more money from him.As it stands now my PC runs Trainz 2009 very sweetly and the HAF 932 case with it's massive fans keeps everything very cool as well as being "future proof" because because of it's potential for expansion (up to 5 HDD's and 6 5.25 drive bays).It can take pretty much anything you can put inside it except for extended ATX Mobo's for which you need the HAF-X.

 

[RRSignal]

Hi Guys

I may have had a Mother Board failure.Turned off the PC this morning & haven't been able to bring it back to life since won't even post.

Have removed everything from the board & sill won't post.My local Tech is checking it tomorrow but he thinks it's the board also.

He also told me it may be hard to get a replacement board as most AMD2+ boards with DDR2 ram are now discontinued & the new AM3 boards won't support my processor or ram.

He suggested that if I need to replace the board should I go Intel Instead of AMD which means a new Board Processor & Ram which will give me better upgrade options in the future.

Any suggestions on a board & processor if I have to go this way. The only thing I'll be keeping are my HDD's & the GTX460 video card if this turns out to be my only option

Dave

Your budget is vital to answering this question - I say go for i7! Seriously, though...I've recently been looking at AMD X4 because they are substantially cheaper than similar Intel products, and I've always been an Intel guy. Ultimately, I'm sure I'll go with an i5 but AMD beats Intel on price and even fairly cheap chips can supposedly be overclocked close to and even above 4 GHz...not that I'd ever try pushing that hard! Quad core too.

I do have to wonder about your "tech" though: While I'm in the U.S., I do still see AM2+ mobos for sale cheap, USD $50-80, depending on features.

 

[Gandalf0444]

I do have to wonder about your "tech" though: While I'm in the U.S., I do still see AM2+ mobos for sale cheap, USD $50-80, depending on features.

Yes but what he said was that the AM2+ was still being made, but the boards compatible with his speed ram were discontinued in favor of faster RAM. However you may still be able to try your old RAM int he new board. There have been cases where the mobo is perfectly content with running slower ram then what it was made for. It is the other direction that never works.

 

[RRSignal]

Your post encouraged me to do my weekly check-up/drool-fest of Tigerdirect's offerings, so I checked the AM2+. They do indeed have a mobo that goes down to DDR2-400 and several that take 533 MHz and up RAM. I forget if DDR2 was ever made in 333 and again, don't know if this helps the OP in Oz, but hopefully it gives him a sense of what's available.

Frankly, if the money's available, I advise the OP (or anyone else looking for a new computer or upgrade) to look into an i5 or i7 system for gaming and buying a new mobo for his old rig and use that for internet/email, running the gaming rig strictly offline for performance and security reasons.