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Mobo dying .... suggestions please on upgrading my system ...
Carol Haynes:
OK Been and gone and done it .... :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o .... anyone want to buy a tired old body to help finance it :-[
This is what I have ordered ...
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Antec NeoHE 550W Modular ATX2.0 PSU - looks kind of neat and quiet
Asus A8N32-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi X16 (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard - Deluxe version really because it came with all the cables and brackets - and has more external connectors.
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego (Socket 939) - Retail (I was tempted by an X2 4600 but couldn't really justify doubling the price of the CPU - I can always upgrade later when the prices drop ...)
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (mainly because this is what Overclockers recommended for this board)
To take advantage of the SATA2 interface ... (wasn't expensive - and I still have 4 PATA device connections so I can still use my old Caviar Drives)
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Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
Not the greatest and latest but looks good enough for someone who only occasionally plays games ...
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OcUK GeForce 7300 GT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
I like to watch TV while I am working and so this will give me the options of Digital or Analogue TV signals ...
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Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1100 Freeview TV Tuner
What do people think ...
All a bit scary now that I have done it! I was planning to go skiing but that has fallen through so I can use the money set aside for that!
f0dder:
I recently got an Antec Neo HE550EC - quiet and neat, and I love that it's modular. The voltage readings in the BIOS are still not what they should optimally be, though, so I'm guessing the BIOS just can't do readings properly (my system is stable, probably wouldn't be if the voltages were wrong). And after switching to the Antec, they don't really fluctuate anymore.
Hm, you got yourself a socket 939 - that is being phased out in favour of their new AM2 socket, so it might be difficult to find a CPU if you want to upgrade later on. Since you got s939 and not AM2, that also means your ram is DDR and not DDR2.
That being said, the system is probably pretty good bang for the buck. I had a 3500+ before ugprading to a 4400+, and that was a fine machine. But I've become addicted to dualcore and the overall better system responsitivity. Of course price wasn't an issue when I bought that CPU (ouch).
So: pretty decent box, probably very good performance/price ratio, but don't have illusions that it will be easy to upgrade (when is that ever the case, though? >_<)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
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Seems like a good choice. The WD disks are pretty silent and performant, from what I can tell. Just, as with all harddisks, remember to keep them cool. I made a mistake in choosing a mini-atx casing for the fileserver I built for the museum, which lead to heat problems... and one of the two WD320 disks dropping dead within a month. Good thing I ran raid mirror.
My current system could probably last some years, but I hope to set enough money aside that I can get a core2duo by March or April; the greatly reduced power consumption would be nice, main reason is that my brothers need a new box. They can't afford a brand new one, so I want to sell them this one cheaply.
Carol Haynes:
I recently got an Antec Neo HE550EC - quiet and neat, and I love that it's modular. The voltage readings in the BIOS are still not what they should optimally be, though, so I'm guessing the BIOS just can't do readings properly (my system is stable, probably wouldn't be if the voltages were wrong). And after switching to the Antec, they don't really fluctuate anymore.
Hm, you got yourself a socket 939 - that is being phased out in favour of their new AM2 socket, so it might be difficult to find a CPU if you want to upgrade later on. Since you got s939 and not AM2, that also means your ram is DDR and not DDR2.-f0dder (November 06, 2006, 08:04 AM)
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Yes that's what I thought - but there still seems to be a lot of 939 stuff out there - and in a couple of months it probably won't worth upgrading anyway as by then everything will be 256 bit and octupal CPUs ;)
That being said, the system is probably pretty good bang for the buck. I had a 3500+ before ugprading to a 4400+, and that was a fine machine. But I've become addicted to dualcore and the overall better system responsitivity. Of course price wasn't an issue when I bought that CPU (ouch).
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That's why I went for it. The mobo looks good and seems to have solid reviews. From my point of view it allowed a certain amount of backward compatability with hard discs etc. that I have and has 3 PCI cards which allows me to plugin the things I need - I might even try it for a while with the onboard surround sound ....
I am still wondering whether to ring up and go for the X2 processor - but can I really justify nearly £100 extra - probably not.
So: pretty decent box, probably very good performance/price ratio, but don't have illusions that it will be easy to upgrade (when is that ever the case, though? >_<)
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Quite that is prceisely why I have ended up buying a new system effectively - not that it will look any different from the outside :down: but I couldn't justify new monitors, keyboard, case etc.
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
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Seems like a good choice. The WD disks are pretty silent and performant, from what I can tell. Just, as with all harddisks, remember to keep them cool. I made a mistake in choosing a mini-atx casing for the fileserver I built for the museum, which lead to heat problems... and one of the two WD320 disks dropping dead within a month. Good thing I ran raid mirror.
My current system could probably last some years, but I hope to set enough money aside that I can get a core2duo by March or April; the greatly reduced power consumption would be nice, main reason is that my brothers need a new box. They can't afford a brand new one, so I want to sell them this one cheaply.
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I have 4 WD Caviar drives in my box now and I have been very please with them - a good reason to stick with WD but obviously this will be my first foray into SATA. The two biggest discs will stay in the box and the smaller pair (120Gb each) will be used for external storage.
My system is now going to have to last for at least 3-4 years now! The current one has served me well for the last 5 years so it doesn't really owe me anything.
One extra goodie I have bought is a Netgear network storage unit. I have a couple of WD Caviar drives which won't fit in the new box (without PATA->SATA adapters) so I thought I would share them on my network for backup and data storage - possibly music/video too. The Netgear box takes two IDE drives of any size and plugs into the router so with the new Netgear 11n wireless network I have just installed they could prove pretty useful ;)
f0dder:
I am still wondering whether to ring up and go for the X2 processor - but can I really justify nearly £100 extra - probably not.
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Well, it depends. Even if you only use single-threaded applications, you should notice a general improvement in system performance/responsitivity when the system is under load. If you use applications that support threading, then you might get some really nice speedups here and there; I think some photoshop filters support threading? Many 3D rendering programs do. And with recent versions, WinRAR added threading support for compression, giving a decent speed boost.
But whether you can justify it depends on how much pressure and pain you put your computer under, and how often :)
daddyman:
Hi Carol,
I have a ASUS mobo that I got as a replacement for a bad mobo. It has never been installed but it is new. I think it would be a good replacement for your bad mobo. You would need to get a new cpu but other than that you should be set. Let me know if you are interested and I will get the specs for you. I would only ask that you pay for shipping.
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