Need socket 478 mobo recommendations

[mchef]

I recently had a asus p4p8x board die. Had a whiny cap, and finally won't post. Was hoping to just replace the board. I have a 400 watt ps, geforce 7800gs agp, 184 pin memory, sata hd, 3ghz 478 pin processor. I was hoping to just swap out the bad mother board to avoid having to reinstall s/w.

I've tried searching for reviews of motherboards from back then, but can't find any. Also searched a bit here, and fig'd I'd post. I have found a few on ebay, mainly gigabyte, and asus. I could go with a asus p4p800 as I remember that choice when I originally bought the p4p8x, and the specs match my needs, but I would consider other boards based on price, performance, reliability, etc.

 

[StrangerGuy]

My advice is try to find a 865PE/875P board with passive mobo heatsinks, like the P4P800. Although, I must say those mobos are going to be really old by now plus some of them are plagued by bad capacitors so you will definitely need some luck in finding one in a good working condition.

 

[TJCS]

I wouldn't recommend trying to revive your system with another 478 motherboard. There are budget parts on the market today that will offer notable performance boost for you. I can see you want to reuse your old parts, and in that case I recommend:

• $66.99 ASRock 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 - Combines new & old tech. You can reuse your old stuff with this with a more updated cpu.
• $67.99 E5300 - Depending on your budget you can search on newegg for E4xxx~E7xxxx series cpus (I am assuming you have ddr400)
______________
Total cost: ~$135

I put together a system for my dad using the above Asrock board with E4500, and it provides very reasonable performance in Win7 64-bit and even better in Xp. My dad is a light-user, he uses the PC for web browsing, office documents, pictures/music/videos, etc...

 

[mchef]

Yes, I did look at that, but was trying to go simplest cheapest route. This is my wife's computer and she doesn't do much with it, kids play webkinz, etc. I would also probably need a new psu as well for that setup.

I am actually now wondering if it's the psu that has failed. My original symptom for many months has been a high pitched whine coming from the computer - not thru speakers. And I would only hear the whine when moving the mouse. A friend suggested it was a bad cap on the motherboard, and I trusted what he said. After recent research, I am not so sure anymore.

There is a cost threshold that once reached I'd most likely build something completely different. Probably based around a core i3 or i5.

 

[zagood]

Check the video card.

If you "have" to replace the motherboard, P4P800 series is excellent, but pretty expensive for how old they are.

 

[mchef]

Thanks. I thought about that too, but I do not have a spare to swap it with. I did try powering up with the graphics card, but not sure if that's a valid test.

 

[zagood]

Diagnostics sucks with old equipment unless you have spares lying around. Since the easiest way to test is to replace equipment, if you're wrong on the first part, you can end up wasting a ton of money replacing an entire system with old parts simply because they're not compatible with new ones.

 

[vailr]

Check freecycle.org. There's never a cost involved, except for the transportation to get to whoever locally is giving away the item. You may be able to get enough free spare parts, to be able to better troubleshoot your existing system. Specifically: an AGP or PCI video card, and a spare PSU.

 

[mchef]

Thanks again for all the replies. I will get the psu tested tomorrow at a local intrex. That will solve one piece of the puzzle. I can't believe I had just donated my old graphics card too.

 

[mchef]

Just wanted to let you all know that my problem was actually the psu, so I've bought myself a little more time. Thanks again for all the replies.