200 Watts --> need a mobo/cpu?

[gujuguy007]

I have this old Sony Pentium computer, but the motherboard just died a couple of days ago. I was wondering what's a good mobo/cpu (doesn't matter if it's intel or amd) combo that I can power with the the 200 watt psu. I don't plan on overclocking and i have a pair of 128mb ddr ram laying around. I don't want to spend much...preferably less than 150-200 bucks...any ideas?

I was thinking this Asus Mobo (A7N266-VM AA) with this Amd 1.33 Athlon Chip. I'm kind of unsure about this combo because of my low wattage cpu.

 

[mechBgon]

www.sandpile.org might be handy for comparing the power consumption of different CPUs. I would avoid any of the old Athlons, since you don't get full SSE capabilities and they are pretty power-hungry too. I see the 1.33GHz Thunderbird (TB) has a max output of 70 watts.

But the first question in my mind is really this one: is the Sony power supply even a standard ATX unit? or does it just look like it, as is the case with some Dells. You don't want to throw good money after bad here, toasting an ATX mobo with a pseudo-ATX PSU that has a different wiring setup.

With that in mind, I would steer towards a new case & power supply unless you can verify that your Sony's PSU is completely standard ATX (or microATX). Antec SLK3700AMB comes to mind. The Asus A7N266-VM/AA is a nice reliable board (and I would know) but a Shuttle MN31N would give you some additional features, performance and upgradeability (onboard GeForce4MX video with dual outputs, onboard nVidia audio processing with six-channel output, USB 2.0, and it'll take 333MHz-based CPUs too). Is your DDR memory at least PC2100 speed? Is it ok-quality stuff?

 

[Peter]

I second that, the Athlon 1333 is quite power hungry.

Once you've asserted that the power supply is actually proper ATX, go for an ECS L7VMM3 all-in-one board. These come prefitted with mobile (!) Athlon XP1900 processors currently, and with their integrated VGA, audio and LAN are the safest bet you can go for. Below $100, complete with heatsink and fan.
One caveat, this board (and many others today) has an additional 4-pin plug for auxiliary power. It for sure isn't there on your Pentium generation power supply, and the board might need it.

L7VMM3