Motherboard Upgrade Compatibility with Vista

[Gameking]

Hello,

My Current System is like this:

Processor: Intel P4 478 Pin 2.0 GHZ
PSU: 250 WT PSU
HDD: Samsung 40 GB IDE
RAM: Hynix 256MB 184-pin Unbuffered non-ecc
Motherboard: Asus P4V533-MX
LAN: D- LINK 10/100 Ethernet
Video Card: None (Using Integrated Video in motherboard)
Optical drives: LG CD Burner & LG DVD+-RW Burner

Now I want to upgrade to the following:

Motherboard: ASRock P4VM890
RAM: Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
HDD: Hitachi 7K250 160GB SATA 150GBts/s
CPU Cooler: Thermaltake P4 Spark 7+ A1715 70mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler - Retail
PSU: ENERMAX EG495AX-VE FMA ATX12V Ver 2.2 485W Power Supply 100 - 240 V
Graphics Card: EVGA e-Geforce 8800 GTS 640 Mb PCI-Express

According to the ASRock company: All the components are compatible with this asrock motherboard model except RAM and PSU.

Now I have some doubts in mind, they are.......???

Audio: I have a 2 channel speaker configuration + an audio headset but i would like to use both the speakers as well as the headset at the same time.... i.e. i would like to hear sound from my speakers as well as my headphone

I was able to here sound form both my headphone and speakers but the volume at which sound was coming from my headphone compared to my speakers is VERY LOW even though my hardware(physical speaker & sound driver) is set to MAX VOLUME and my headphone set to MAX Volume...

:| I checked the hardware, reinstalled it, reconfigure it out but was not able to solve it. I even changed the Speaker configuration of my hardware settings from 2 channel to 4 channel mode but was unable to get the required result.. This should not happen on the motherboard that i'm going to buy.


Second thing i would also like to monitor the RPM of my PSU which im going to buy. But this motherboard doesn't have a POWER FAN HEADER,( it only has a cpu fan and a chassis fan header).. IF i connect the power fan header of my PSU to the chassis fan header of my motherboard?? will i be able to monitor the PSU fan RPM without having to take any kind of risk that the motherboard or the PSU will get damaged.

I'm also going to buy an NVIDIA e-Geforce 8800 GTS SuperClocked card.
I doubt that this card will bottleneck my CPU (Intel Pentium 4, Socket 478, 2.00Ghz, 512kb L2 cache) Will it????:|

Lastly I wish to install vista on this system. But i found out that the Audio CODEC (Realtek AC'97 ALC653 5.1 channel) on this motherboard has no support for Vista. Microsoft says that this can be solved by getting vista compatible drivers for this audio codec which Realtek offers. Will i get Good sound Quality by installing this Audio codec vista compatible for my motherboard audio hardware. Will it work on Vista??? (http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...tDown=false#AC)


Please help......


ThankYou very much for your help and co-operation.....:thumbsup:

 

[aka1nas]

It's really a waste to pair that card with a 2Ghz P4. If you're going to all that trouble to buy new RAM and a board, you might as well get a 320MB GTS instead of the overpriced superclocked 640MB model and grab something like an E4300 with a decent motherboard. With such a weak CPU, you wouldn't be able to play games at resolutions that would require the 640MB model.


DDR2 is probably cheaper than PC3200 DDR at this point with all the prices dropping.

Regarding your sound, what you want would only be possible if you use some sort of audio splitter from the output.

Fan headers are nothing special, but the PSU you wlll buy has to actually have a 3-pin connector for the fan, some do not. If it does, you can use any available fan header on the board.

What's your budget like? You could do much better overall by building a more balanced system than you are suggesting.

 

[Gameking]

I'm getting all the parts at half the price so i am able to easily afford it, total would be around 400-450$

 

[Gameking]

I know the card is currently overpriced but the card right now that im buying is 400$ market price (640) I'm getting it at 200$.