Author Topic: PC Upgrade - still possible to reuse old components? (Read 33,631 times)

lanux128 · « **on:** August 19, 2007, 07:41 AM »

i was wondering if i were to upgrade a Pentium 3 with SD-RAMs and IDE hard-disks to let's say Pentium 4 or Celeron (with its AMD equivalent) is there a motherboard that will be able to accommodate the RAM and the hard-disks?

i made substantial investments on those components and would not want to see them wasted now that there are DDR memory slots and SATA slots for hard-disks. and it goes without saying that i'm on a budget..

so any ideas on this one? or perhaps there is a website where i could list down the features and see which motherboard still supports these antiquated slots?

Josh · « **Reply #1 on:** August 19, 2007, 01:29 PM »

The hard disks shouldnt be a problem, however, memory is where you might run into an issue. To take advantage of the speed that a newer processor has over your old, you will need memory that can keep pace (after all, your system is only as fast as its slowest link). While it might support your older memory, it will not run anywhere near as fast as the older ram would. Especially if you mix two types of memory together (IE PC2700 and PC3200), in this case your system will only run at PC2700's speed.

lanux128 · « **Reply #2 on:** August 19, 2007, 01:46 PM »

i'm not looking to mix RAMs of different speed but i didn't know that newer processors would require faster memory..

already i had to leave my 8x AGP nVidia card out of the list due to latest motherboards' using PCI-E.

*mini-Rant* for all these talks on global warming and conservation, PC makers certainly don't try to make a machine that will have a longer shelf-life and inter-usable components..

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #3 on:** August 19, 2007, 02:29 PM »

It's almost impossible to find new mobos that take older RAM sticks.

You may find a suitable mobo in a 'bin end' or second hand on eBay.

lanux128 · « **Reply #4 on:** August 20, 2007, 04:01 AM »

yes, i have come to the same conclusion - RAM sticks are definitely out. if i'm lucky, i might be able to get a motherboard still with two IDE slots..

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #5 on:** August 20, 2007, 02:42 PM »

There are a lot of new boards about with both multiple SATA and IDE controllers (for 4 devices). Almost all come with at least one IDE socket (for 2 devices) because there aren't that many SATA optical drives around yet (though they are appearing). Sometimes it is difficult to tell from the mobo descriptions because IDE is not a big selling point any more. If in doubt go to the manufacturer website and download the manual.

lanux128 · « **Reply #6 on:** August 20, 2007, 04:51 PM »

thanks, i'll keep that in mind.. but if i buy a motherboard with a single IDE, then i'll have to get a rack to stack up hard-disks..

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #7 on:** August 20, 2007, 05:08 PM »

You could always use a PATA > SATA adapter

Armando · « **Reply #8 on:** August 20, 2007, 07:45 PM »

If your worried about recycling and/or loosing your investment, you could sell your old RAM through ebay. It's amazing but there are buyers for anything.

lanux128 · « **Reply #9 on:** August 21, 2007, 01:13 PM »

i have started collecting flyers from local IT stores and i'll be going through them to find a motherboard that comes closest to my requirements..

yes, maybe i'll sell off the excess RAM sticks online.. any takers here?

lanux128 · « **Reply #10 on:** August 26, 2007, 06:51 AM »

all my searches for contemporary mainboards with 2 PATA have returned nothing. so i'm considering this Gigabyte mainboard, apparently for the reason it provides SATA to PATA cable and also that the vendor is reputable (in case of repairs and warranty). somehow, i have to shoe-horn two optical drives and two hard-disks into this motherboard.. has anyone had any experiences with this model?

• http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Spec.aspx?ProductID=1874

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #11 on:** August 26, 2007, 11:52 AM »

How about this one - it has a single IDE connector for two optical drives.

http://uk.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=101&l3=301&l4=0&model=1160&modelmenu=2

Hard disc drives have come down in price remarkably so it might be worth buying a big SATA drive and using your existing drives in a USB housing or as network storage.

Actually the board you list looks potentially interesting - it does appear to have two IDE interfaces it is just that they are different specs. Just use the ATA66/100 version for the optical drives (which don't use ATA133 anyway) and the other one for your hard drives. Having said that I would personally avoid anything with a Promise Controller onboard (I was seriously unimpressed with the Promise RAID interface on my last board which seemed to suffer from constant disc writing errors but didn't notify the user). I am also dubious about any manufacturer that bundles Symantec crapware too (personal gripe I suppose).

The PCIe slots look a bit strange on this board too - why would anyone want 3 PCIe x 1 slots and only one PCIe x 16 slot? You also only have 2 PCI slots which is very limiting if you want to add any extra cards in the future.

lanux128 · « **Reply #12 on:** August 26, 2007, 01:30 PM »

the Symantec thingy caused some concerns for me too but normally i'll ignore bundled software.. and from the website you linked, i googled and found this: P5VDC-X.

- LGA775 socket for Intel® 65nm Pentium D/Pentium 4/Celeron CPU
- VIA PT880 Ultra+VIA VT8237A
- 1066/800/ 533 MHz
- Dual-channel DDR2 + DDR
- 1 x AGP 8X
- 1 x PCI-E X16 (max. X4 mode)
- 2 *ATA133 ,2 x SATA
- 10/100 LAN
- 6-Channel HD audio

this board does have 2 IDE slots and looks quite good, as it checks most of the boxes for me but i'm confused by AGP/PCI-E slots. does the mainboard have both, or there are two different models?

• http://uk.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=206&l4=0&model=1126&modelmenu=1

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #13 on:** August 26, 2007, 05:11 PM »

Quote from: lanux128 on August 26, 2007, 01:30 PM

this board does have 2 IDE slots and looks quite good, as it checks most of the boxes for me but i'm confused by AGP/PCI-E slots. does the mainboard have both, or there are two different models?

• http://uk.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=206&l4=0&model=1126&modelmenu=1

If you look at the enlarged image you can see that the link you point to here has AGP / PCIe slots next to each other. Look at the enlorgement of the image and you can see 3 x PCI slots (white), the next black slot looks like a PCIe slot (see the small curved clip at the bottom of the slot) and the final slot looks like an AGP slot with a typical AGP clip.

If you are going to buy a new mobo why not buy one that is a little more future proofed - like the AMD board I quoted?

This AM2 board appears to have 2 IDE connectors (the red and blue sockets on the bottom edge - the black socket is for floppy):

http://uk.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=101&l3=300&l4=0&model=1207&modelmenu=2

and as it is AM2 socket / DDR 2 memory should remain expandable for the foreseeable future. It is also PCIe compatable and you can add two PCIe cards in full speed SLi mode if you want or potentially run two monitors. Not sure about the PCI-X slots though - I haven't come across those before ??? See PCI-X Wiki for details - it suggests that most newer PCI cards are compatible with PCI-X but not PCI cards that require 5V.

Lashiec · « **Reply #14 on:** August 27, 2007, 03:54 PM »

Well, I think you'll have to reuse some diapers for your baby daughter as that mainboard looks expensive

One thing that worries me is that PCI-Express port, which is VERY near to one of the heatsinks, something that could be troublesome. You have the other one of course, which thankfully runs at x16 as well, but forget about doing SLI (a waste of money anyway).

lanux128 · « **Reply #15 on:** August 28, 2007, 01:07 AM »

yes, on a quick check i found the mainboard's price is quite forbidding so i'm thinking of rather hanging on to what i have, for the moment..

lanux128 · « **Reply #16 on:** August 29, 2007, 03:19 AM »

just an update.. i have taken into account Carol's advice on future expansion, so i'm down to these two budget mainboards.. let's see, both are based on AM2 socket, 2 IDE slots (yeah!), DDR2 slots and obviously no SLI. some comments would be nice..

AM2V890-VSTA
[attach=#]

ECS 761GXM-M
[attach=#]

• ASRock AM2V890-VSTA
• 761GXM-M (SIS)

P.S. i plan to add an nVidia gpu to go with it..

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #17 on:** August 29, 2007, 09:58 AM »

The AS-Rock looks the better buy to me and rings all the right bells if you don't want SLi. Plenty of expansion - more PCI slots and memory slots are useful - effectively the SIS board is limited at 2Gb (OK theoretically it can support 4GB for find 2Gb modules - and if you do there is no guarantee they will work and will probably cost an arm and a leg!).

I haven't had any experience with SIS chipsets but the only drawback of the ASRock to my mind is the VIA chipset - their drivers then to be a bit iffy at times - rule of thumb find a version that works and stick with it unless there is a pressing reason to upgrade.

lanux128 · « **Reply #18 on:** August 29, 2007, 10:50 AM »

yes, the chipsets are a bit of concern for me too but there is always this unknown factor when it comes to budget boards. e.g. i googled and couldn't any find any reviews on the ECS board. if anyone can find one, let me know..

also, one of the vendor told me that 2GB is the maximum i need since anything above 2GB won't be detected under WinXP. just how much of this true? and after changing the mainboard & the processor, can i boot up without re-installing & let Windows detect the new hardware?

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #19 on:** August 29, 2007, 11:32 AM »

Not true - there is a 2Gb max per application in Windows XP and Vista 32 bit versions but windows can recognise more memory and use it if you have more than one app loaded. 64 bit versions (presumably just around the corner for most of us) have no such restriction - and on the AS-Rock board you could increase to 8Gb!

Quote

Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 Memory Support. The maximum amount of memory that can be supported on Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003 is also 4 GB. However, Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition supports 32 GB of physical RAM and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition supports 64 GB of physical RAM

See Microsoft article on memory

This article is also interesting http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/pae_os.mspx (it is linked from the previous link I quoted).

Lashiec · « **Reply #20 on:** August 29, 2007, 12:17 PM »

Have in mind that both mainboards would not hold too well future upgrades, as they only have 2 SATA ports. Other thing that worries me is those ATX connectors, you'll have to do some cable management to avoid PSU cables getting in the way with the CPU heatsink. Hmmm, tricky. The ASRock is worse in that regard, but feature-wise seems better. VIA chipsets used to be OK back in the Pentium III times, now the poor guys got a little behind, but so did SiS, also a decent manufacturer. RAM, even if you put 4 GB, you won't use it (unless you plan to run Photoshop & Crysis side by side

)

EDIT: Of course I saw something wrong with the ECS, it uses the MicroATX form factor, that explains the two RAM sockets, although, funny enough, it says that supports 16 GB. Hmmm, finding two 8 GB DIMMs will be difficult and EXPENSIVE

. Besides, the ECS uses AC'97 for sound, while the ASRock uses HDA and the top-of-the-line Realtek chip as well.

lanux128 · « **Reply #21 on:** August 29, 2007, 12:19 PM »

thanks for the links.. with the memory issue is out of the way, the ASRock mainboard looks the better prospect.. now going to hunt if there is stock available..

lanux128 · « **Reply #22 on:** August 29, 2007, 12:50 PM »

thanks for the pointers, Lashiec.. i don't quite understand what you mean by cable management.. i hope you can elaborate a bit. this pc will be mainly for word processing & casual surfing and other than that, i'm planning to install some educational software for my kindergarten-going son..

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #23 on:** August 29, 2007, 12:54 PM »

Quote from: Lashiec on August 29, 2007, 12:17 PM

Have in mind that both mainboards would not hold too well future upgrades, as they only have 2 SATA ports. Other thing that worries me is those ATX connectors, you'll have to do some cable management to avoid PSU cables getting in the way with the CPU heatsink. Hmmm, tricky. The ASRock is worse in that regard

I agree - it is really badly placed - what were they thinking? Lanux the issue is that you want to keep cable bunches out of the main air fow path to allow for the best cooling. On the AS-Rock board they have place the main ATX power connector between the CPU and the main venting point on a standard ATX case - so any fan sucking air out will have to suck through the main power cables. You will need to think how best to route the cables to avoid disrupting the airflow too much.

With massive SATA drives growing in size all the time is only 2 sockets really a big issue (ok it is nice to have more if you want to build big RAID arrays, and eSATA would be a nice feature) - you can easily have ~1 Tb of storage with just the SATA sockets, but you can also have 2 PATA drives two as well as IDE optical drives.

f0dder · « **Reply #24 on:** August 29, 2007, 02:13 PM »

I wouldn't go for any other chipset than intel for intel CPUs, nvidia nforce for AMD CPUs. Things might have improved in the last a-bit-more-than-few years, but I've been burnt by both SiS and VIA chipsets.