I need a new mobo. Help!

[unitee311]

I'm nervous about selecting a new motherboard for my computer which has 3 year old parts in it. I was thinking about the Asus A7N8X Deluxe but I'm not sure if it will work with my existing stuff. Maybe someone can help me out? Here's what I have:

AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.2 with brand new Thermaltake fan (Dorb3)
256 Crucial memory
ATI Radeon graphics card
Soundblaster sound card
ATI TV Wonder tv card (brand new)
D-link NIC
1 firewire card
2 40G HDs
1 CD/RW (1 year old)
1 random CDROM
1 random floppy drive

 

[Insane3D]

The Asus is a decent board, but the Abit NF7-S is probably a better choice IMO. I'm guessing that Crucial memory is PC133 SDRAM? Your choices are severely limited if you want to stick to SDRAM. One thing to consider. The nForce 2 high end boards, like the Abit, have things like firewire, onboard LAN, and best of all, the nForce Soundstorm integrated APU (Audio Processing Unit) that sounds better and is much more powerful than you SB soundcard. Also, you get stuff like USB 2.0 as well. The Firewire should be a tad faster as well since it is not running on the PCI bus like your firewire card, but it's native to the chipset and runs on a high speed interconnect, leaving more PCI bandwidth for your other components. You could sell off your SDRAM, soundcard, firewire card, and NIC, and use the money towards getting some DDR ram.

What sort of budget are you dealing with?

 

[unitee311]

I don't know what kind of RAM it is I can't remember offhand. I just checked Crucial's website and it seemed to indicate that I MUST use SDRAM, so I guess you're right

My budget... hmm. Well I don't want to be spending $150 dollars, that's for sure. I found the A7N8X-X for about $60 on newegg.

By the way, what is the difference between A7N8X and A7N8X-X?

 

[Insane3D]

The A7N8X-X is a budget version of the A7N8X IIRC. Neither of those boards will take SDRAM, so you will need memory one way or the other. The NF7-S is only about ~$85 and well worth it for the extras over what you would get on the AN78X-X.

You are pretty much going to have to spend about that much ($150) for memory and a motherboard...can you swing that. If money is tight, you get get the Shuttle AN35-Ultra which is only about $55 and has onboard LAN and sound. If you absolutely must keep your SDRAM, I'm not even sure if you can still buy a SDRAM board...the ECS K7S5A was a good choice, but I can't see it for sale anywhere.


Edit #1 :

Here's an option...

Shuttle AN35-Ultra - $54.95 shipped

256mb Mushkin PC2700 DDR - $43 shipped

Total : $97.95

That option would allow you to upgrade to a 333mhz or 400mhz FSB Athlon in the future, but still run your 1.2 ok. You also would be able to add another 256mb stick down the line and run 512mb in Dual Channel mode. That is probably your best, and cheapest option.



Edit #2 :

You could sell those things I mentioned, other than your firewire card, and make some money back that you could use to either upgrade the CPU, get more memory, or just put it back towards what you spent. IIRC, since SDRAM is being phased out, it is worth more than the newer DDR to people looking for it...IIRC. You might be surprised what you could sell that old SDRAM for, especially since it's good stuff (Crucial). Hope this helps...

 

[unitee311]

Well I didn't want to have to pay that much, but I guess I gotta do what I gotta do. I can't keep not having a computer like this! It's driving me crazy

 

[KGB]

unitee,

If you can still find someplace selling an ECS K7S5A, you could still use your existing SDRAM while still allowing you to upgrade to DDR at a later time (it uses either type).

edit: I found it.

 

[unitee311]

Thanks for the tip!

Is that a good board?

 

[o1die]

Computer geeks has an Iwill sis 748 board for only $35 plus shipping. Add a stick of generic pc2700 or pc3200 memory from aib.com. I've purchased 4 sets of memory from them. They have free lifetime warranty, and even helped me get replacements when I lost my original receipt. They ship by regular mail, so if you want insured, it will cost you a little more.

 

[Insane3D]

The K7S5A would be cheaper and allow you to use al lyour current hardware, but IMO it's a waste of money to buy that board that isn't even being made anymore, with a way outdated chipset that won't even work with any of the current 333mhz and 400mhz XP's. For ~$40 more, you would have an curent board and chipset, that would allow you to upgrade your components down the line easily.

It's your call, but I think it's a utter waste of money buying that out of date board for $55, when you could get a much better board in the Shuttle for the same price.

But hey, it's your call.

 

[mechBgon]

Bigger picture: what is the underlying problem? If you're having stability problems (wild guess), perhaps your older power supply (wild guess #2) is simply wilting under the load of five drives, five add-in cards and a 1.2GHz Thunderbird. What brand and model does the power supply's label say it is? example of what I'm after, this is visible when the computer's case is open.

Also, could you nail down what model of Radeon you have, because if it's a 3.3-volt AGP card, you won't want to try to use it in a late-model motherboard. That would be one of the K7S5A's strong points (accepts 3.3V cards), although you could alternately get a new motherboard that has onboard video and do an end-run around the 3.3-volt AGP issue that way.

What I bought for my mom was a Shuttle MN31N, which is an nForce2 board with an integrated GeForce4MX AGP video adapter plus an AGP slot for expansion. It also features integrated Firewire, USB 2.0, NIC, and the fancy nVidia audio processors as well. The only add-in card needed for Mom's rig was a 56k modem. It performs pretty well considering it's running just a 1.0GHz Duron. You would probably need a new power supply to accompany it, since it'll need a power supply with an ATX12V plug (photo), and I'd suggest an Antec SL350, Enermax 365-series, or Fortron 350W unit since they have good reputations. And since this board uses DDR memory, you'd need to invest in some of that as well, probably PC2700 so you are ready for future upgrades if needed.

If you do get an MN31N, I guess I should add that it's going to work well with Win2000 and WinXP, but might be finicky about Win98 or WinME. And for Win2000 or WinXP, I'd suggest 256MB or 384MB respectively as the beginning of the sweet spot for light usage patterns (and some of the memory will be used by the onboard video, you can set that to suit your purposes, up to 128MB maximum).

 

[Sylvanas]

download sisoft sandra (google search it) and then you can get all the specific info on your computer

 

[GroundedSailor]

Originally posted by: o1die
Add a stick of generic pc2700 or pc3200 memory from aib.com.

What the correct URL for aib.com? It takes me to a bank.....

thanks