need help finding new motherboard

[mmts]

ok, here is how it is.
I recently bought a new vid card, sapphire 128 9600xt, for my pc which is almost 3 yrs old. I saved up for 2 months to buy one. Stupidly, I didnt look to see if agp 8x is compatible with the 2x slot. So now, here i am with a brand new vid card that i cant use it because of the interface, and the online store from which i bought it will not take returns even unopened( what a deal!, F*&%@ers). So i figure i have two options, 1. sell it on ebay, or 2. upgrade the motherboard.
Im kinda leaning towards option 2 as it is well overdue and i cant afford to buy a new pc.
Seeing as how i know nothing about motherboards i thought i would get help from the experts .
What i have now is a hp model 8765c amd 900 t-bird and the specs are
here http://h20015.www2.hp.com/hub_search/document.jhtml?lc=en&docName=bph05968#P3_107

I am completely clueless and I dont really want to buy something and find out i cant use it and waste more time and money. So if anyone can suggest a motherboard under 150 cdn(120 usd) it would be greatly appreciated
thanks,
clueless

 

[mechBgon]

Welcome to the Forums mmts You've made things pretty easy by providing a link to your system's original specs, and I see it uses PC100 memory. These days it's not so easy to find boards that will accept PC100 memory modules, so let me propose two routes you could take: re-using the PC100, or upgrading to some DDR PC2100 memory.

To get started: archived thread listing some online stores in Canada

Next, the bad news up front: your computer has a skimpy 185-watt power supply. I may be one of the most conservative people around here when it comes to power supplies, but I'm laying good odds that a 185W power supply is going to be hard-pressed to keep your system stable when the Radeon 9600XT is factored in. ATI recommends 300W+ power supplies for systems that will have their upper-end cards in them. So I would counsel you to bail on the HP case & power supply at the same time as the motherboard, and get a case with a respected-brand power supply such as an Antec, Enermax, Sparkle Power, Powerman or even Enlight. Inwin's S-series mid-towers, Enlight's 7000-series mid-towers or Antec's mid-towers all come with PSUs that at least live up to their ratings, if not exceed them. Think it over.

Re-using the existing PC100 For this purpose, look for a store that has a KM266 or KM266A motherboard with SDR memory slots. Here's one from British Columbia: MSI KM2M Combo-L, which has slots for PC100/PC133 as well as slots for DDR modules. I know it only has an AGP 4X slot, but that is compatible with AGP 8X cards. The performance difference between 4X and 8X modes is difficult to measure even using benchmarks, much less real life, so don't stress about that.

This motherboard is only CA$76, leaving you some funds towards a decent case & power supply like this one. Antec has less-expensive models starting at CA$70 that feature their SL300S power supply, but it has a single sleeve-bearing fan where the models featuring the SL350 power supply have dual ball-bearing fans and 50W more power. Down the road, I think the extra power and the better fans may be worth the extra money, but it's your call.

Upgrading to DDR memory For this route, the excellent CA$86 Asus A7N266-VM/AA motherboard and some Crucial PC2100 DDR is a good match for your Tbird. The board also has the finest onboard audio in existence, complete with both optical and coaxial S/PDIF outputs so you can pipe Dolby AC3 digital 6-channel audio straight to your home-theatre system if you want. This onboard audio is typically compared to Creative Labs' original Audigy card in both performance and quality. I have a lot of experience with the A7N266-VM/AA because we use them at work. Very nice boards.

Either way, if you are planning to play games that will truly give the Radeon 9600XT a workout, you'll probably benefit from upgrading to at least 512MB of RAM when you can afford to, and a faster CPU wouldn't hurt either. Hope that helps!

edit: having shoehorned an aftermarket microATX motherboard into an HP case before, I also want to mention this: it may not work without some creativity! I had to remove the retaining clip off one end of the memory slots on the board that I used, that's how tight it was in there. Also, I had to get creative with the case's block of power/reset/LED wires... another pair of reasons to get a new industry-standard ATX case while you're at it.

 

[Zepper]

MSI KT400A or KT600 should do it for you. They are both less than $70. at newegg. If your PSU doesn't have a P4 power connector (4-pin square), you can get an adaptor for a drive power connector. SVC.com usually has them for $2., but they are out again.
. Ooops, didn't notice the memory limitation. If you want to keep the same memory, you could use the MSI KT2 Combo (possibly discontinued but some still in the channel) which can use either SDRAM or DDR, but as Mech says you may also have a PSU problem with that video card. Compgeeks has a couple of microATX PSUs if that is what that case needs. One is 230W and the other is 320W. OTOH, it looks like it might take a full ATX PSU and you will have plenty of options.
.bh.

 

[mechBgon]

Yeah, and I didn't notice at first, but it says it has five PCI slots so it must indeed be a full-sized ATX case, which would also open the door for the ubiquitous ECS K7S5A, which accepts PC100 RAM and would work with the Tbird too.

I guess that would mainly leave the problem of the case wiring... what I did on the little HP I mentioned, was to simply remove all the power-button/reset-button/LED wires from their monobloc plug, and plug the wires onto the pins bare. Pretty chintzy, but it worked, and now we have a little "sleeper" that looks like a 400MHz HP but is sporting a 1200MHz Celeron II on a Biostar M6VLR That one is microATX and I didn't want to stress the little power supply, so the power-sipping Celeron seemed like a good pick.

 

[engiNURD]

if you only upgrade the mobo, keeping the pc100 ram, you wont get much of a performance boost from the 9600xt. besides, it requires at least DDR ram, according to ATI.