Need to get a new motherboard, any suggestions?

[Euripides]

My Antec 430W power supply went nuts (nice burning smell from it) and took out my Soyo Dragon Ultra KT333 Motherboard in the process. The Antec is still under warrenty so that is taking care of. I have been out of the loop for a while so I am not up to date on products.

Looking for a decent motherboard replacement for my AMD Athlon XP 2200. I also have 3 PC2700 256meg ram sticks (total of 768) from the machine that fried and would like to carry them over as well.

I use this system mainly for downloading, surfing, movie watching. I do have a Radeon 9800 but only do minor gaming (UT2004).

Any suggestions for a nice reliable board that I can order from NewEgg? Or even a combo deal where I might upgrade the processor as well?

Thanks in advance

 

[Painman]

I'll leave the new mobo suggestions for other people more in the know... I'll simply recommend that you have that RAM checked out on a RAM tester before sticking it into a new board.

 

[Euripides]

Thanks I will check that, I will try loading the PC with one stick of ram.

Doesn't the machine beep when no ram is in there? I got nothing when I tried that. I get a blank screen. I even switched out the Radeon 9800 and tried a 8 meg PCI card. Still nada.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

It depends on your budget, and if you care about overclocking. An upgrade to a Sempron skt754 would be nice, but not really necessary for the things you do.

 

[Euripides]

Looking at a ASUS "A7V8X-X" KT400. Does anyone have one of them? If so, how would you rate it?

Thanks

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

I wouldn't rate it very well. It uses the outdated KT400 chipset.

You may want to look at the A7V600-X and A7V880. These two support FSB400/DDR400 and have the newer VT8237 southbridge with SATA support. If these ASUS boards are a little too much check out the ASRock K7Upgrade-880.

 

[crazyeddie]

Out of date is a relative term, I guess. If the board does what you want it to do, then what's the problem?

I ran my KT400 chipset Biostar M7VIT Pro for years. I just upgraded it a couple of weeks ago, and then only to get a big boost in high end game performance. The board was still running like a champ with DDR 266 memory and an Athlon XP 2400+.

This was a terrific, stable platform for me. If you can find a good cheap KT400 or KT400A motherboard to put your cpu and RAM on, I say go for it!

 

[Euripides]

Thanks for the tips. I went with the Asus A7V880. For $14 more I get much better choices for some upgrades (dual channel, SATA drives and it has a built in gigabite ethernet card).

 

[Tarrant64]

You could also go with DFI, i think they have a nice socket A board too. I don't know what model, but their good for OC'ing if you ever get into that.

I had an Asus A7N8X - deluxe board awhile ago before i upgraded to 754. Not sure about the A7V880 board, haven't looked at it. But you should be able to find a decent board from Asus that's stable and comes with plenty of stuff to keep your XP happy.

CDGNR -

Good point. If you have more in your budget, you could always upgrade to a sempron 754. their powerful AND cheap.