How about a new motherboard and keep the rest?

[sonoferu]

I'm not much of a hotshot at this stuff. 6 years ago I got inspired to actually try to put my own computer together so I went to NewEgg and got a fair amount of advice here, and it's worked fine.

Now I have a flakey mouse/keyboard problem

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=33642100&posted=1#post33642100

and someone helped me determine it's a case of bulging capacitors.

I would be happy to have a magic wand that fixed it and I would go another 10 years with it. I have no hankering to go faster or fancier.

So rather than go all new, I wonder - could I just swap in a new board and plug everything else back in and go on? I hope and expect it would work but would like someone to confirm for me.

It's an ASRock Dual SATA2. I wanted 2 hard drives - I keep the second pretty much just to ghost the first one weekly. I have used that for restoral a couple of times and really appreciated the rescue.

So I have [copying from Device Mgr]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+

4x1gb RAM [I upped from the original 1gb to 4 and then learned Windows only lets me use 2 of them .... geez]
2 Seagate HD ST380011A
PCI Ethernet card
Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-109
NVidia GeForce 8400 GS
USB Mouse and Keyboard

The board has 4 USB, and there is a separate USB card with 4 more ports

Running Windows XP Pro SP3 [I would really like to not have to go to Win 7, I am so used to the old XP and I have to use W7 at work and still dont feel easy with it]

What else ..... hmmm

So would there be a board out there that would be a good match?

thx

 

[utahraptor]

Congratulations on making a system that lasted so long. How is your money situation? To be honest that entire rig is obsolete and your hard drive is probably nearing the end of its reliable life. Your main problem is your CPU is socket 939 and Newegg does not list a single model for sale.

Although if you feel like gambling you could try a refurb replacement:

http://www.aztekcomputers.com/939DUALSATA2BOR-ASROCK-2594822.html

 

[Ratman6161]

I'm not much of a hotshot at this stuff. 6 years ago I got inspired to actually try to put my own computer together so I went to NewEgg and got a fair amount of advice here, and it's worked fine.

Now I have a flakey mouse/keyboard problem

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=33642100&posted=1#post33642100

and someone helped me determine it's a case of bulging capacitors.

I would be happy to have a magic wand that fixed it and I would go another 10 years with it. I have no hankering to go faster or fancier.

So rather than go all new, I wonder - could I just swap in a new board and plug everything else back in and go on? I hope and expect it would work but would like someone to confirm for me.

It's an ASRock Dual SATA2. I wanted 2 hard drives - I keep the second pretty much just to ghost the first one weekly. I have used that for restoral a couple of times and really appreciated the rescue.

So I have [copying from Device Mgr]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+

4x1gb RAM [I upped from the original 1gb to 4 and then learned Windows only lets me use 2 of them .... geez]
2 Seagate HD ST380011A
PCI Ethernet card
Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-109
NVidia GeForce 8400 GS
USB Mouse and Keyboard

The board has 4 USB, and there is a separate USB card with 4 more ports

Running Windows XP Pro SP3 [I would really like to not have to go to Win 7, I am so used to the old XP and I have to use W7 at work and still dont feel easy with it]

What else ..... hmmm

So would there be a board out there that would be a good match?

thx[thx[/QUOTE

Isn't that could socket 939? If so it will be nearly impossible to find a new board at a decent price. Probably cheaper to go with a new low end could with a new motherboard and ram.

 

[sonoferu]

See? Good thing I asked

I have more money than time right now, used to be the other way round. Thing is, I am not enthusiastic to do all the research I did last time, etc.

The HD is relatively new, less than a year old. The last one died and I got a new one exactly the same, and ghosted it back from the backup drive. Well worth the money for having 2 drives.

So if I got a new board and even a low end but solid CPU, I could use the HD's again and keep all my software and OS and all?

Video card is old, I think I replaced it once but early on

Would the RAM be no good in a new board? I bought the extra 3 sticks last year

 

[Ratman6161]

See? Good thing I asked

I have more money than time right now, used to be the other way round. Thing is, I am not enthusiastic to do all the research I did last time, etc.

The HD is relatively new, less than a year old. The last one died and I got a new one exactly the same, and ghosted it back from the backup drive. Well worth the money for having 2 drives.

So if I got a new board and even a low end but solid CPU, I could use the HD's again and keep all my software and OS and all?

Video card is old, I think I replaced it once but early on

Would the RAM be no good in a new board? I bought the extra 3 sticks last year

Is the hard drive IDE or SATA? If its IDE you will have a hard time these days finding a new board that has IDE. Even if the drive itself will work you will need to reinstall the OS and all software. It's possible to just plug the drive into a new system and I've done it, but none of the drivers for the new chipset and onboard components will be the same and even when you finally get it working it won't be right - plan to re-install. Your old memory will not work. It's probably DDR and the current standard is DDR3.

Then again are you really set on building it yourself? Since you don't want to do a lot of research and say you have more money than time have you considered just buying a ready made system from Dell or HP? For $300 - $500 depending on what you get you could get a system that will blow away what you have now. Even low end systems today will be faster than the 6 year old system.

 

[utahraptor]

One thing to keep in mind is that if you opt for a new system with an ivy bridge based CPU the graphics that are built into the CPU are likely stronger than what you have now so that would be one less thing to buy and a single stick of ram that is 4 GB which is equal in space and faster of speed than all 4 of yours combined can be had for $20 new.

 

[sonoferu]

The drives are SEAGATE Barracuda ST380011A 80GB IDE.

RAM is CORSAIR 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)

Those are from my newegg records

And if I face a highly likely reinstall of Windows, that does it. I dont have the install CD. At the time I worked for a company that had a group license for XP Pro and since i had to work a lot at home they gave me the disk and I used one of the licenses to upgrade the W2K I had at the time. I have no way to get that back.

Even low end systems today will be faster than the 6 year old system.

I was actually kind of hoping not to buy a commercial box. I hate all that extra crap to take off it, and I really hate to think of all the reinstalling of the programs I have. There is even one dear old friend, ECCO, that I dont think will run on Windows 7. That has been with me since the Creation. So I have a number of reasons to wish I could keep on with the old world.

But hey .... whaddya gonna do?

 

[tcsenter]

You could try replacing the caps yourself. I seem to recall someone publishing a guide on replacing/upgrading the caps on one incarnation of the ASRock Dual939-SATA or 4Core-VSTA boards on some forum or another (it wasn't Anandtech).

 

[Zardnok]

I have the same board with an Opteron 165 in it and had the same problem of bulging caps after 6 years. I have been looking around to find a "cheap" replacement board to stick in it so I can give the old Opty a new home with a friend that plays WoW on a P4. No dice on cheap boards and I am about to the point of simply retiring it onto the shelf with my other old machines.

Given the price of "New" 939 mobos it would be cheaper to buy someones C2D/mobo/Ram bundle in the FS/T forums and build something twice as powerful as your old 939. Or if you could spend a couple hundred, you could update to a modern system that will last you another six years! How much do you want to spend and we can advise you on the best upgrades for your cash.

 

[lucklessgorath]

Be aware that product support from Microsoft for Windows XP will end on Apirl 8th 2014. What this means is that there will be no more new security updates for Windows XP after this date. I would not recommend building a new PC with Windows XP as you've only got about a year and a half left.

The good news is that Microsoft will be offering users of XP an digital download upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $40. That offer will expire at the end of January in 2013. I don't know if the OP can take advantage of this offer.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Look for new parts. Much much faster dualcore SB CPU is 50-60$, board can be 40-50$. 4-8GB DDR3 cost nothing. CPU got iGPU as well. And a new HD.

Buying new parts for that old thing is useless. Everything is obsolete and standing in line to die.

 

[sonoferu]

Back then I seem to remember the game was Intel vs AMD, and each had a relatively small number of offerings, mostly choice of speed. I looked around a bit and now they seem to have burst out into all kinds of different designs and terminology I never heard of - Ivy bridge, Sandy Bridge, i3, i5, i7, lordy lordy.

Really the driving thing for me is time. I work LONG hours and tons of stuff to overload me on the weekends. I said above that I have more money than time now.

I'm actually starting to think I might go for a laptop. At work I have a company laptop that sits in a docking station and feeds a flat monitor and has a regular mouse and keyboard, so if you hid it no one would know I'm not running from a desktop machine. Given that the current rig is fast enough for me, and the laptops at work are faster, I'm thinking that would be an advantage - I could take it with me on trips if I want to.

Any tips on laptops, or should I go over to the laptop forum?

But just before I leave the idea of rebuilding, can I presume the good old case would still be ok? It is actually over 10 years old. It was custom built for me then and I reused it when I did my own rebuild 6 years back.

With new everything else, would I need new power supply, too?

 

[utahraptor]

Lol. What is happening in this thread? Next thing you know he will be asking about upgrading his 56K modem to a 128K ISDN.

 

[sonoferu]

Come on, I'm not stupid, I'm just ignorant. I come here because people here know more than I do, and I almost always get good advice and good help. 6 years ago I was interested to try putting one together by myself, and I was over my head then and am over my head now, that's all. I love my computer, it has worked great till now. But I have to do something and the idea of a laptop was just something that occurred to me, since I have one running a monitor at work.

I just had the bright idea of trying my wife's laptop running into my 22 inch monitor here. Good thing I did because I learned something I hadnt thought of but might have been obvious. The resolution from the laptop was not what I have from my desktop - 1680 x 1050. It's a very bad looking screen. So unless there is a laptop out there that gives me a good display then that idea is out. The laptop at work is 19 inch, and looks fine there, so today I will look to see what its resolution choices are. I presume the resolution depends on the video card.

I could go to Best Buy and be done but there is still a hankering to have something a little better. I'm not lazy, I'm just pressed for time.

But thanks to all for the advice

Bye

 

[dawp]

have you thought about looking at the for sale/trade forum here? you may be able to find or even request a socket939 board. it will be used but that is what you will be looking at anyways.

http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?f=19

 

[utahraptor]

I am sorry if I came off as rude with that modem joke. I was in a funky mood last night. I think you can reuse the case as long as it is in good condition. You can't reuse the power supply as the wiring connectors have changed over time (more pins to the motherboard, SATA power connectors ect...). I just saw you mentioning the laptop and I was like >.< I just have a prejudice against them.

 

[sonoferu]

utahraptor - dont worry about it, sorry I showed huffiness back. I'm funked out too, tired of being overworked, and now my home computer is maybe gonna fail on me and I dont have the headspace for it until at least the weekend.

Friend of mine at work suggested a local guy where he lives who built some computers for him and for his wife's business. maybe I can just get that guy to make up what I want and I can get a custom rig and just write a check

Off for now, thanks again to all