Replacement for "generic" mobo

[marblewave]

Hi All,

I have an Asus mobo that came with my HP. It's the 1st off the shelf system I have ever bought and I've already replaced most of the components. lol Won't go that route again.

My question is: If I replace the mobo with a mainstream enthusiast board, am I likely to see a performance increase?

I can't mess with anything in the HP bios and I have a feeling there is more performance to eek out of my other parts.

AMD X2 4200, Radeon X1900XTX, 2GB DDR2 533, 500W PS, Vista Home Premium

Thanks for your time!

Craig

 

[DaveSimmons]

You may have to reinstall Vista if you change motherboards.

Unless you plan a massive overclock it's probably a waste of money.

Even then, are the things you do limited by the CPU now? Just scoring higher on benchmarks seems pointless.

 

[coolpurplefan]

I don't know why but I have way better sound on my Abit AT8 32X.

I read though that lately, motherboards have chipsets that are about equal in performance. It used to be that if you got an nForce chipset, you were getting something better.

I like my Abit board except I think there's something odd about the fact the temperatures can't be read by certain programs. I installed the Abit Guru thing to see some temperatures.

 

[marblewave]

Thanks for the responses

Mainly I play WoW and want to get the most out of my hardware. I seem to get 25-30 FPS in big cites and a lot of things I've read point towards my system being capable of better performance.

I am going to be upgrading to a 24 inch monitor soon and want to be sure that I'm going to be able to play smoothly at 1920x1200.

Maybe I could do other things to optimize my system?

Thanks!

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: marblewave


Mainly I play WoW and want to get the most out of my hardware. I seem to get 25-30 FPS in big cites and a lot of things I've read point towards my system being capable of better performance.

That seems awfully low for the hardware you've got. What settings / resolution do you play at?

I used to get much higher fps on lesser hardware. WoW is a 2.5 year old game that has never been too demanding to begin with. Something looks wrong. Are you sure your X1900XTX is not running on PCI-Ex4? Does that HP mobo even suppor PCI-E x16? Or dual channel memory?

My opinion is that if you've spent so much in upgrading the system already, why not go the extra mile and get a good mobo and a new case? It must be awfully cramped (and hot!) inside that HP case.

 

[marblewave]

That's the same feeling I've been having too Noema.

I run the game at max quality, with the exeption of the terrain distance being a couple of notches below half. 1280x1024 4xAA and no AF. Last night in Kara I was getting 20-30 fps. It's really frustrating.

I looked at the motherboard description HERE and it seems to show an X16 slot.

The strange thing is that if I remove the 4xAA there is absolutely no change in FPS, same with going to 800x600 resolution. I consider myself fairly adept at this stuff, but am totally confused as to why my rates aren't through the roof like others I have read about with a similar system.

I am using the latest Catalyst 7.5 drivers.

At this point, I'm willing to try just about anything to try and figure this out.

EDIT: As far as I can tell, I am running in Dual Channel Mode.

Thanks!

-Craig

 

[Zepper]

Getting a mobo with a more tweakable BIOS might be worth the effort - the "Idiot-Proofed" BIOS is a really big drawback to pre-pack systems for gamers. But you'll have to buy a new licenses for your OEM OS from M$ (at somewhat less than retail price) as new mobo = new system per their OEM rules. OTOH, getting a retail copy that you can move from system to system with no hassle might be a better idea.

.bh.

 

[Elias824]

usually the standard cases they give out are pretty cheesy only one fan, im sure you video card is dying from the heat so a new case is probably warranted with your setup. Unless you want to OC or you have a problem with the motherboard you have now I dont think it would really be worth replacing. Wow is usually more memory and cpu intensive then really video intensive. On my system I really only get abotu 45-50 fps in wow depending on what im doing, haven't been to kara yet. Id try running like the 3dmark and probably a few other games and see how they run as well

 

[coolpurplefan]

You could always use a Coolermaster Centurion 5 case if heat was an issue. That case has a mesh front and a 120mm fan in the back. Even the 80mm in front of the HD could help temperatures of your video card. I know for a desktop I would use a Silverstone LC20.

 

[zagood]

Like the other guys said, if you replace the motherboard you're going to need to buy a new OS. I just did this to my wife's HP, along with adding an intake fan.

On one hand, you're kind of throwing away money if the system's new. You're pretty much telling yourself you bought the wrong computer.

On the other hand, the level of flexibility and control makes up for that. Free at last!

-z

 

[marblewave]

I just used the "Clean Install from an upgrade disc" trick and the whole system seems to have sped up substantially. I am in the process of reinstalling WoW now, so I will post some results when everything is running again.

I did go into the crippled bios and remove the fan controls. Hopefully them spinng at full tilt will make a difference.

Thanks for all your input.

-Craig

P.S. I applied the sound and IDE driver updates from the HP site. Would I be better served to use the Nvidia drivers for 410/430?

 

[themisfit610]

Definitely. Never use the HP drivers if you're interested in performance... Their lengthy QA process assures that (usually) their stuff is stable, but the bleeding edge stuff is much faster, assuming you know exactly what components you've got on your system. Since you've replaced almost everything, you do know

Use the latest nVidia and ATi Drivers.

Your system should tear up WoW with no issues whatsoever.. When I was WoWing, I had a 3500+ single core, 1gb and a 7800gt, and WoW was perfect. Never any slowdown whatsoever, and that was at 1280x960 with 4x AA Even in Ironforge at peak times, or durring heavy BGs. The only issues I ever had were internet and server related, but those were infrequent given Comcast's excellent service in my area (8mbps down guaranteed, usually closer to 10 )

~MiSfit

 

[marblewave]

arrgh!

I have reformatted a clean install. The only programs on my system are PC Cillin Internet Security and WoW. Got the 410/430 drivers from Nvidia and the 7.5 catalyst drivers for the x1900XTX. I am getting 28-35fps in Shattrah. What the heck else could be wrong?

I do notice a "noise" while my card is under a lot of load. It's almost as though I can hear it processing, if that makes any sense. Sort of an electrical noise would be the best I can describe it. Could it be a power issue?

I have an Allied 500W supply that was highly rated in reviews I read.

-Craig

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

just the fan picking up speed automatically. if you can hear anything "electrical" methinks you'd shortly see blue smoke. Get atitool and read some temperatures off. compare them to what you find by using google, and overclock the 1900xtx

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

just the fan picking up speed automatically. if you can hear anything "electrical" methinks you'd shortly see blue smoke. Get atitool and read some temperatures off. compare them to what you find by using google, and overclock the 1900xtx if temperature allows (try to give it two clear slots if possible). Is the ram something you added, or hp placed parts? OEMs usually put fairly high latency compared to what you can grab online. If its hp-placed ram, add to the fact that any mobo might not be able to overclock that much. as long as you know the model, and its not hardware locked, flash asus's bios. Maybe then you could get some tweaking in.

 

[marblewave]

At first I thought it was the fan too, but the noise comes from the GPU area. I have put my ear right up to the card during the "noisy" period. I've never heard anything like it, and I've heard a lot of fans. The fan is a very different and noticable sound when it ramps up.

I'm gonna try and 3d mark the system to see where I stand with other systems that are in the same range.

-Craig

 

[Old Hippie]

The fan is a very different and noticable sound when it ramps up.

I have the same card. Mine kinda sounds like a jet engine, when it starts and at high temps.

 

[marblewave]

Hehe, yeah that sounds about right. Either that or a dying hairdryer.

Well, I did some 3DMark06 Benchmarks and got a score of 5611. That put me 12/50 with similar systems on the online results browser. That seems to be a decent score.

Now it makes me wonder if there is something within WoW that is causing the slowdown. I have tried the lowest settings/resolutions and turning off all of my addons. The rate doesn't go up as significantly as I would expect from 800x600 with no AA etc. I guess I will keep digging.

EDIT: Just did some further testing. The FPS doesn't go up AT ALL when I go from 1280x1024, 4xAA, High Quality everything (except terrain distance) to 800x600, No AA and Low Quality everything. That just can't be right...can it?

What else could be capping my framerate like that?

Any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

-C

 

[Arcanedeath]

Try shuting off Vsync, and you may be CPU limited as Wow doesn't put that much stress on the Video card.

 

[themisfit610]

No WAY he's CPU limited with a 4200 X2. I had silk frame rates at 1280x960 with 4x AA and max details with my 3500+ and 7800gt with just 1GB of RAM.

 

[Agman]

Your problem is not your motherboard or CPU. But is your sound. I take it your using either integrated audio or a sound card that is not an X-Fi.

If you didn't know Microsoft on Windows Vista completely redid the sound stack removing the object calls for DirectSound3D, in other words they basically removed support for DirectSound3d. World of Warcraft uses DirectSound3d and since there is no support the game offloads everything to your cpu plus it destabalizes the game. Thats the reason your running on such low FPS. If you go over to the Creative forums they have the same explanations.

Now if you had an X-Fi sound card, they have an utility called Alchemy which transmutes the DirectSound3d code into OpenAL which Vista fully support and your performance should go up quite a bit.

Anyways, yeah your hardware is perfectly fine. The only issue is Vista and Microsofts decision to take out support for DirectSound3D, and the fact that WoW uses that very thing.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: marblewave
I looked at the motherboard description HERE and it seems to show an X16 slot.

Hmm...if you look at the board illustration, the PCI Express slot is actually labeled "PCIEX1". It could be a mistake, but...

There are GF 61xx configurations that only have 2 PCI Express lanes total, one of which can be implemented for a PCI Express slot accepting x16 cards but only having x1 lanes (since there is no official approval for PCI-E x2) . This chart from NVIDIA shows such a combination: http://www.nvidia.com/page/gpu_mobo_tech_specs.html

That chart doesn't show it paired with the 6150 LE, but that doesn't mean an OEM couldn't use it. NVIDIA's new single-chip GF6100 also has such a configuration using the MCP61V. e.g.

Gigabyte GA-M61VME-S2

That board features an x16 slot but it operates @ x1. Biostar also has an MCP61V model but refers to the slot as "PCI Express x16 (compatible)".

Check the markings on your Southbridge MCP chip. Note that in the illustration, HP has the labels on the Northbridge and Southbridge reversed. The MCP is actually the chip nearest to the SATA ports. It is also odd that HP's spec sheet lists the SATA ports as SATA-150, not SATA 3Gb/s. The nForce 410 or 430 MCP supports SATA 3Gb/s.

Alternatively, you could use a system info utility like Everest that can report how many lanes are implemented or active on your graphics card.

Have you replaced your hard drive? Every time I've rebuilt or upgraded an OEM, they used a crappy 5400RPM hard drive, or 7200RPM hard drive with 2MB buffer. Upgrading to a fast 7200RPM drive with 8MB or 16MB buffer speeds things up noticeably.