Need help building new system.....

[rf37]

I've lost 2 motherboards in the last year. I think it was due to either a faulty power supply(enermax 431), or controller problem. Both amd mbs (iwill kk266-r and abit kr7a-r) lost both ide channels 0 and 1. Really strange....Both motherboards were bought at Newegg. I'm currently using my old abit bh6 w/celly 300a and it still works....what a workhorse w/windows xp.
Well, I'm thinking of going with Intel this time...I had too many problems with AMD. I need the following:

1. new tower and a power supply (480-550wtts truepower)

2. Intel 2.53 ghz (hyperthreading not needed)

3. MB w/400 or 533 bus , promise raid 133, 2 ide 100, floppy, 4-6 usb, (lan, onboard sound optional)
Can use DDR or Rambus. I do have 3 sticks of Mushkin ddr 2100 256. I don't know if they still work because winxp gave me hardware errors when trying to install xp. 0x0000070 ect... could be mem or controller errors with old motherboards.

4. Agp 4x or 8x (1.5v) I would like to use ATI 9700 pro.

I still have the following:
DVD and CDR writer
SB live value pci
Microsoft wireless mouse
Reveal serial keyboard....will change over to wireless soon
Ch Pro joystick 6-7 years old....upgrade?
CTX pr700 17"/16" viewable area.
PNY Geforce 3ti 200 agp
Thank you for your comments. RF37

PS I'm not interested in overclocking anymore, I'm gettting past that stage in my life. I just need a good machine for the next 4-5 years.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: rf37
I've lost 2 motherboards in the last year. I think it was due to either a faulty power supply(enermax 431), or controller problem. Both amd mbs (iwill kk266-r and abit kr7a-r) lost both ide channels 0 and 1. Really strange....Both motherboards were bought at Newegg. I'm currently using my old abit bh6 w/celly 300a and it still works....what a workhorse w/windows xp.
Well, I'm thinking of going with Intel this time...I had too many problems with AMD. I need the following:

1. new tower and a power supply (480-550wtts truepower)

2. Intel 2.53 ghz (hyperthreading not needed)

3. MB w/400 or 533 bus , promise raid 133, 2 ide 100, floppy, 4-6 usb, (lan, onboard sound optional)
Can use DDR or Rambus. I do have 3 sticks of Mushkin ddr 2100 256. I don't know if they still work because winxp gave me hardware errors when trying to install xp. 0x0000070 ect... could be mem or controller errors with old motherboards.

4. Agp 4x or 8x (1.5v) I would like to use ATI 9700 pro.

I still have the following:
DVD and CDR writer
SB live value pci
Microsoft wireless mouse
Reveal serial keyboard....will change over to wireless soon
Ch Pro joystick 6-7 years old....upgrade?
CTX pr700 17"/16" viewable area.
PNY Geforce 3ti 200 agp
Thank you for your comments. RF37

PS I'm not interested in overclocking anymore, I'm gettting past that stage in my life. I just need a good machine for the next 4-5 years.

I don't think the enermax PSU did you in because I run one and have ben running Enermax for a while. I might suggest since you want antec PSu to get an ANtec case. It seems like you have everything planned out as far as components. If I were in your situation I would wait a little bit until I could pickup the new Intel Granit Bay motherboards. They have dual channel DDR controllers. These seem to be the most future proof of all the solutions out there IMO. You could still use your Mushkin DDR then also. Most mobo manufacturers are adding SerialATA RAID to their systems to be even more useful for the long haul.

 

[rf37]

Thanks.....

Is the performance gain worth purchasing a granite bay based MB? Will I notice a big difference going from an Abit KR7A-R w/1600xp (dead by the way) to GB based MB, or is there anything intel related 845/850 chipsets currently available that will have about the same performance +/- 10%?

 

[mechBgon]

If I were you, I'd budget about $150-200 for a good American Power Conversion UPS too. If you have systems kicking the bucket on you, perhaps you have dirty utility power. Regarding the RAM, have you tried testing with just one stick of RAM at a time? Perhaps you have one bad stick.

Hmm, anyway, looking at your feature list... There are an Albatron and a Gigabyte i845PE board here which might fit the bill. I'm really fond of the Antec/clone cases, you might consider a Plus1080, which has the TruePower 430W PSU. The TP PSU's have independent channels for 3.3V and 5V, making them more powerful for their rating than most (the TP330 is the equivalent of most brands' 400W unit, for example).

 

[rf37]

mechbgon,

yes, I was thinking about a ups for the new system. I live in an area which there are frequent brown outs and outages. Calling the power company yields fruitless results. Could a bad cpu cause two ide controllers to go bad and kill four hard drives ? Hmmmm, or rather, a faulty power supply, poor quality mbs/ram? The list could be endless.......

I did check the ddr in different slots/combinations. All ended up with some sort of error while loading winxp pro.....bought at newegg.
The ddr was purchased at Mushkin. I've used a free software memtester program and all was just fine...no errrors. Really strange.

So, I thought about starting all over again. Atleast my Abit BH6/300a is still working with the Enermax 431. The enermax works with this board; however, when I install one of the AMD based mbs.....errors.......0x0000070 ect.....I think its one of the controllers because I ran Norton Utilities in dos and it said my partitions were unrecognizable.....I've built several computers over the last 10 years and I've never had problems like this.

Maybe its a combination of bad equipment....I've heard some motherboard manufacturers used faulty capacitors.

rf37