Recommend a good Socket 478 MoBo

[OfficeLinebacker]

My Aunt's Gateway died a few months ago and she gave me the case. MoBo is bad, but AFAIK processor is still good. What's a good MoBo to drop in there to get a working system going?

 

[Trashman]

Good choice would be a Intel motherboard, or any board with the 865PE chipset would give a bit of room to upgrade later on if need be....exact motherboard recommendations....kinda hard to throw out, depends on price and what features you need/want.
**Be aware that oem cases may or may not work with some motherboards**

 

[OfficeLinebacker]

Originally posted by: Trashman
Good choice would be a Intel motherboard, or any board with the 865PE chipset would give a bit of room to upgrade....exact motherboard recommendations....kinda hard to throw out, depends on price and what features you need/what.
**Be aware that oem cases may or may not work with some motherboards**

The case is not a problem, I have lots of em....Do you mean form factor issues or something else like the leads for the power switch and whatnot?

Let me throw out three that I saw highly rated on Tom's:

Asus P4C800-E Deluxe

Biostar P4TCA Pro

AOpen AX4SPE Max II

I think they may be overkill though.

 

[Trashman]

....Do you mean form factor issues or something else like the leads for the power switch and whatnot?

pretty much all that...i had a old HP micro-atx, i picked up what i thought was the exact same mobo to replace, but the memory slots were located it different location...being micro and HP crap, it wouldn't fit in case, think the PSU blocked memory slots....so it can vary.

as far as those boards you mention, all good boards, maybe more than ya need, but thats for you to call.

Take a look in the FS/FT forums, bet you could get something reasonable there.

 

[OfficeLinebacker]

Originally posted by: Trashman

Take a look in the FS/FT forums, bet you could get something reasonable there.

Yeah I did but it's hard to decipher. On eBay you can just search for Socket 478 Motherboards, but on the forums it's harder to tell.

I'm gonna keep my feelers out; maybe in a little bit I will post a WTB Socket 478 MoBo thread. I don't like to do that because I feel like when it's perceived as a need or a want people are more prone to ask for more $$, as opposed to when they are putting it out there trying to get rid of it.

People seem pretty helpful and friendly though. Who knows. What do you think?

 

[jbh129]

AI7

 

[TStep]

Just watch out. Some of the newest chipsets such as 865 may or may not work with a Willy (as far as I know all 1.5's were 256L2 and 1.75V), but I've seen conflicting info on this as well. I think the latest SIS, VIA and ATI based boards will still work with a Willy. The latest Intel based Willy compatible board is a 845PE chipset board.

 

[blinky2004]

The description of the post says

For a P4 1.5Ghz processor

All 1.5GHz are Willamettes (256Kb cache), the slowest Northwood was the 1.6(A).
Most of the Willamettes were socket 423, so you'd better check the socket type before getting a motherboard

Officially, Springdale (865) and Canterwood (875) don't support Willamette cores, although I think the Asus P4P800, might support them. I had one for a few months before it died.

 

[Rachet]

I am in the same boat except I have a 1.7 Willamette processor.

Asus P4P800 SE will work with the Willamette processors if it is a 478, some are 423's

Here is a link to the board

http://www.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=P4P800%20SE&langs=01#

Link to compatible processors:

http://www.asus.com/support/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx

Asus has other boards that will take Willamette and Northwood processors and so does Gigabyte, however this board has gotten some good reviews and the price is under $100.00 at NewEgg.

Good luck

 

[Trashman]

I apologize, was not aware of Willamette P4 limitations, guess it's been to long, and just overlooked.
TStep suggested the 845PE chipset....best look for board with that chipset.
Which probably could bring up another question....what type of memory was/is in that old Gateway board SDRAM or DDR-SDRAM? i think there were boards that supported both types, if i recall.

 

[blinky2004]

Could even have been RDRAM...

At least it still goes for a decent price on Ebay

 

[OfficeLinebacker]

Great Discussion.

Yes I am sure it is a Socket 478. My roommate mistakenly identified it as a Socket 423 so, without performing due diligence, I ordered an Asus socket 423 board off of eBay. Much to my surprise, it came with the processor (1.4Ghz P4) and HSF!!!!! After that happened I counted the pins on my extant processor and voila, 478.

So I am still in search of a home for this socket 478 CPU, and I appreciate everyones' comments!

And the 1.5 was mounted on a MoBo with 256 MB of PC133 memory.

 

[Keitero]

Well if the aunt's machine died, if the ram still works too, just get her an 845 board

 

[Trashman]

Looks like a tough board to find, doing some research i found this Intel Chipset that supports PC133 memory LINK.
I was able to come up with this board here
don't think its worth that price, hopefully you can come across something on ebay....just make sure you get a I/O shield or backplate with board.

heres one on ebay link...use your own judgement on that....found 1 or 2....do a search for 845 in desktop motherboards on ebay maybe you'll have better luck.

 

[VirtualLarry]

www.compgeeks.com has a bunch of cheap S478 boards right now, although I don't know if any of them support SDRAM, wow. Sure you don't want to just pick up a cheap 845 board, and then throw in a 256MB of DDR? $25 for the board, and $35 for the RAM (AR), you're looking at around $60+tax+ship.

 

[OfficeLinebacker]

Sorry guys, don't know where you guys got the impression I was insisting on a Socket 478 MoBo that took SDRAM, I'm cool with DDR, I have a spare stick of that laying around.

I'll look into compgeeks.

What are the overclocking possibilities of this 1.5Ghz Socket 478 processor? I'm looking for a good combo of value and performance. For example I'd pay an extra $10 if I could get 1.6GHz out of it.

 

[OfficeLinebacker]

Oh yeah, definitely want to avoid RAMBUS stuff, and used/refurbed is OK too.

Onboard LAN and Video save me some effort, but I know the kinds of boards with onboard VGA also tend to be the kind that dont' support OCing.

 

[Trashman]

Originally posted by: OfficeLinebacker
Sorry guys, don't know where you guys got the impression I was insisting on a Socket 478 MoBo that took SDRAM, I'm cool with DDR, I have a spare stick of that laying around.

And the 1.5 was mounted on a MoBo with 256 MB of PC133 memory.

thats pretty much where i got that impression, if you were to have stated that you wanted to change/upgrade memory to DDR, that would have helped.

good luck with your search

 

[OfficeLinebacker]

I was just trying to provide as much information as possible.

 

[Mucker]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
www.compgeeks.com has a bunch of cheap S478 boards right now, although I don't know if any of them support SDRAM, wow. Sure you don't want to just pick up a cheap 845 board, and then throw in a 256MB of DDR? $25 for the board, and $35 for the RAM (AR), you're looking at around $60+tax+ship.

:thumbsup:

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