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Mobo dying .... suggestions please on upgrading my system ...
Carol Haynes:
Quick question re. PSUs ...
The PSU I have has a 20 pin connector but also has a 4 pin connector which I never found a use for. Does that mean that this PSU is compatible with modern boards?
f0dder:
mouser: each IDE interface can handle 2 drives - and most motherboards still come with two IDE interfaces. Mine has 2 IDE and 8 SATA, I think :)
Onboard networking is quite fine for just about all purposes.
Onboard sound is okay quality, but there can be problems with noise because of all the EMI inside a computer box :( - if you hook up digital out to an external amp, that won't be a problem though :)
I'd stay away from a dual AGP/PCI-e motherboard; don't have any experiences with them, but the idea of two different and power-hungry buses (that are quite different) on one board feels a bit icky.
Btw. as for RAID on on-board controllers - this is a big can of worms, even if you move to a new board with the same controller. Some of them will not accept that you already have an array if it doesn't know about it (ie., hasn't been configed in that machine), and thus won't "rebuild" the array but will insist on wiping your disks and creating a new array.
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As already mentioned, it's probably not worth "upgrading" your old box, so turning it into a "frankenbox" could be smarter. I understand budget is a problem, but if you don't go for the latest & greatest (oh sweet core2duo goodness!), you should still be able to get a decent box without selling your kidneys.
The square 4 pin connector was introduced with pentium4 machines, iirc. Dunno if it's extra juice for the AGP/PCI-e slot or if it's for the CPU - but it's one of those I think. Additionally, modern motherboards have moved from 20- to 24-pin main connectors. I've seen some convertors, which might work, but I wouldn't do that unless the graphics card is a relatively low-end ones. Also note that even some 24-pin PSUs aren't much better than the 20->24 convertor scheme.
As for 32- vs 64-bit XP, I haven't yet seen any reason to install 64bit even though I have an AMD64x2 4400+. It's very little software that can take advantage of the additional address space, and the extra & wider registers don't help that much for much software. So unless you have some software you know can take advantage of 64bit, it isn't worth it yet imho.
Eóin:
As for 32- vs 64-bit XP, I haven't yet seen any reason to install 64bit even though I have an AMD64x2 4400+. It's very little software that can take advantage of the additional address space, and the extra & wider registers don't help that much for much software. So unless you have some software you know can take advantage of 64bit, it isn't worth it yet imho.
-f0dder (November 02, 2006, 09:36 AM)
--- End quote ---
I was very disappointed to note that on my box which dual boots 32bit and 64bit XP that the 7zip internal benchmark ran faster under 32bit XP than under 64bit. In hindsight I should also have tested a 32bit exe running under 64bit XP, might do so later.
I never looked into this further, though it would be interesting to check out some other programs.
Carol Haynes:
mouser: each IDE interface can handle 2 drives - and most motherboards still come with two IDE interfaces. Mine has 2 IDE and 8 SATA, I think :)
Onboard networking is quite fine for just about all purposes.
Onboard sound is okay quality, but there can be problems with noise because of all the EMI inside a computer box :( - if you hook up digital out to an external amp, that won't be a problem though :)-f0dder (November 02, 2006, 09:36 AM)
--- End quote ---
A lot of modern boards I have been looking at only seem to come with one PATA/IDE connector - presumably aimed at optical drives.
The tip from dk10 about PATA -> SATA converters looks good though and could make a stop gap solution.
Having said that though I may simply buy a network storage device (Netgear do a nice looking one and its cheaper than multiple converters) that accepts 2 PATA drives and plug it into my new fast Wireless router and use that for data. Then use a single internal SATA drive for speed critical jobs. The other PATA drives could be either used in a second system/frankenbox or put into USB2 bays which are getting cheap now as external storage for backups etc..
I'd stay away from a dual AGP/PCI-e motherboard; don't have any experiences with them, but the idea of two different and power-hungry buses (that are quite different) on one board feels a bit icky.
--- End quote ---
I thought AGP was basically part of the PCI bus (which is going to be there anyway) but presumably you can BIOS disable what you aren't using. I take your point though - but if I don't have an AGP interface I have to buy a PCIe graphics card (and/or TV card if I want to retain functionality) which is going to be even more expense.
Btw. as for RAID on on-board controllers - this is a big can of worms, even if you move to a new board with the same controller. Some of them will not accept that you already have an array if it doesn't know about it (ie., hasn't been configed in that machine), and thus won't "rebuild" the array but will insist on wiping your disks and creating a new array.
--- End quote ---
Yes I know this a big drawback of onboard RAID - but as I described above I only really use mine for scratch discs and temporary storage. Most of the stuff can be wiped without any tears - and the stuff that can't be wiped can be quickly backed up.
As already mentioned, it's probably not worth "upgrading" your old box, so turning it into a "frankenbox" could be smarter. I understand budget is a problem, but if you don't go for the latest & greatest (oh sweet core2duo goodness!), you should still be able to get a decent box without selling your kidneys.
The square 4 pin connector was introduced with pentium4 machines, iirc. Dunno if it's extra juice for the AGP/PCI-e slot or if it's for the CPU - but it's one of those I think. Additionally, modern motherboards have moved from 20- to 24-pin main connectors. I've seen some convertors, which might work, but I wouldn't do that unless the graphics card is a relatively low-end ones. Also note that even some 24-pin PSUs aren't much better than the 20->24 convertor scheme.
As for 32- vs 64-bit XP, I haven't yet seen any reason to install 64bit even though I have an AMD64x2 4400+. It's very little software that can take advantage of the additional address space, and the extra & wider registers don't help that much for much software. So unless you have some software you know can take advantage of 64bit, it isn't worth it yet imho.
--- End quote ---
No I guessed 64-bit Windows was probably a waste of time and money - but it looks like a new PSU ...
So I seem to have two options ...
(1) Buy a second hand 5 year old compatible mobo and survive until that packs up too
(2) Dig out the credit card and add some grief ... minimum purchase ... mobo, cpu, graphics card and probably memory too + whatever is necessary to keep my current WD Caviars running!
All probably because a capacitor is dying!! 50 cents worth of kit and five minutes with a soldering iron!
Carol Haynes:
As for 32- vs 64-bit XP, I haven't yet seen any reason to install 64bit even though I have an AMD64x2 4400+. It's very little software that can take advantage of the additional address space, and the extra & wider registers don't help that much for much software. So unless you have some software you know can take advantage of 64bit, it isn't worth it yet imho.
-f0dder (November 02, 2006, 09:36 AM)
--- End quote ---
I was very disappointed to note that on my box which dual boots 32bit and 64bit XP that the 7zip internal benchmark ran faster under 32bit XP than under 64bit. In hindsight I should also have tested a 32bit exe running under 64bit XP, might do so later.
I never looked into this further, though it would be interesting to check out some other programs.
-Eóin (November 02, 2006, 09:45 AM)
--- End quote ---
Maybe you need an extra 5Gb of memory to make XP64 do something interesting ;)
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