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Mobo dying .... suggestions please on upgrading my system ...

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Carol Haynes:
i don't think you mentioned which msi board it is, Carol, but you could take the ebay cheap fix approach.

http://search.ebay.co.uk/msi-motherboard_W0QQfromZR40

for the price they are, i'm sure it will be the cheapest solution - you could even get a second replacement board just in case the first one dies.
-nudone (November 02, 2006, 03:58 AM)
--- End quote ---

Good idea - it is the MSI K7T266 Pro 2-RU

There are non listed on eBay at the moment but there are a few basic models without the RU part - which means no RAID or USB 2 interface.

I'm wondering how easy it would be to buy one of these cheap and move the VIA chips (Northbridge and Southbridge) to my existing board? They both appear to be socketed so I would probably need to source a proper extraction and insertion tool.

I could always buy two to experiment - then if the extraction and replacement goes badly I still have a basic board to fall back on and adding a USB 2 card is not exactly going to break the bank!

nudone:
sounds risky, but that's only because i've never tried such a thing.

aren't there any similar boards listed that would do what you need - something maybe a step up from what you have already.

Carol Haynes:
Probably - I was just thinking if I can replace the dying chip it will be cheap, cheerful and won't entail reinstalling everything!

NeilS:
Unfortunately, you can't be sure that it's the IDE controller chip that's dying. It's probably more likely to be one of the big capacitors you see dotted around the board affecting the IDE chip (or its interface to the system) in some way. The lifespan of these capacitors is pretty poor, which is why some of the latest boards have a new type of capacitor that apparently lives a lot longer.

Mind you, although I say "can't be sure", there is one way to find out... ;)

Carol Haynes:
Probably true - actually the capacitors on this board probably date back to when there were massive problems with duff capacitors with many manufacturers. I guess I have been lucky so far.

Now then I wonder if I can replace the capacitors (I know which ones were susceptible!)

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