Time for a complete system upgrade, been out of the loop for awhile.

[exodus454]

Hey all-

I need some help here. Recently on my old XP 2500+ system, I had been having problems with random reboots for about a week and finally my system stopped booting. I tried every trick I know, and then I finally disassembled everything and took the mobo out to check for shorts when I found that 3 pins on the power connector of the mobo were burnt to a crisp.

What do I do now? I really dont think with current hardware and the diminishing availability of Socket A products that I should even bother fixing this system. Would this be a good assumption to make?

I've been looking at upgrades - and I really want something not too expensive, but I definitely want it to be a step up from what I had. It seems I'm going to need new RAM, processor, video card and motherboard.. I'm pretty sure none of the current stuff I have is compatible with newer technology.

I was thinking of going with an A64 x2 3800+ w/ 1gb of ram, or an Opteron 170. My old system only had 512mb of RAM which I always found a bit lacking but never got the kick in the butt from anything to force me to upgrade. I do lots of multitasking, photoshopping and net browsing, with light gaming every once and awhile. I was also thinking of going with the EPoX EP-mf4 Ultra-3 motherboard, seeing as EPoX is a trusted name but couldnt find many reviews.

Can anyone suggest any better routes or does my setup sound fairly good?
Normally I'd go scour google, but I've already been without a computer for 2 weeks and cant stand anymore downtime.

Also, for a setup like the one I suggested, would a 500w PS be sufficient?

Really, thanks for any help you can give. It's much appreciated.

 

[jpeyton]

Budget?

 

[exodus454]

$400-500.

 

[Moose1309]

For Intel system:

E4300: $169.00
ASRock 775Dual-VSTA LGA 775 VIA PT880 PRO - $64.12 This is purely "for example," since I haven't been shopping for these.
2x1GB DDR2 set = $180

Total: $413.12.

The ASRock would allow you to continue to use your AGP graphics card, and even your 184-pin DDR memory if you'd like. There are other options too in that price range, but people seem happy with the ASRock. The Intel route is especially good if you plan to overclock - in which case, add $40 for a good heatsink.
___________________________________________

AMD's current socket is AM2, it uses DDR2. I don't see any AM2 boards with both AGP and PCIe slots - only one or the other. If you want a new vidcard:

AM2 A64 X2 3800+ - $109
MSI K9N4 Ultra-F - $69.12 Again, purely "for instance," others may give you better opinions.
Pick a videocard: $150
RAM: $180

Total: $508.12

Or Socket 939. Many will tell you to steer clear, since it's not much of an upgrade path, but this could be your best bet IMO
ASRock 939Dual-VSTA - $73.12 This is the updated version of what I'm using with my Opteron 165, and it's served me well. It also has AGP + PCI for upgrading video later.
Opteron 148 Retail - 109.00
2x1GB DDR400 RAM: $150

Total: $332.12. Add $80 to go dual-core Opteron 170, or knock off $50 to get an OEM 939 Venice chip if you already have a cooler.

 

[moosey]

I'll use Newegg as a reference here...

Do you need a case? Also, a 500W PSU is MORE than sufficient. You could go with something like one of these since you're tight on budget.
FSP 400W
FSP 450W
Xclio 460W

Can also check out some of these MBs, they're more recent chipsets than the NF3
Biostar NF5
Biostar NF4

Choose an Athlon X2 AM2

Then just pick some RAM
1GB Kits
2GB Kits
With a lot of multitasking, go for 2GB if you can afford it.

For light gaming, I'd think something like a 7600GT would do, but if you think you need more power, you can check along the lines of a 7900GS

Very rough estimate on socket AM2
$80 MB
$50 PSU
$170 2GB RAM
$110 CPU
$100 Video Card
~$510 TOTAL
w/ 1GB figure taking off ~$70 and you're at $440

edit: spelling

 

[Moose1309]

Hi Moosey! Is that actually a nickname, I had friends that called me that. Looks like you've had the name longer than I.. I swear I wasn't trying to copy you!

Anyway looks like your AM2 suggestion was the same as mine, except you added a PSU and subtract for cheaper videocard. I assumed he already has anything, just needed to replace mobo...

EDIT: Holy. You can get the Biostar 550 with the Brisbane 3600+ for 149. That plus 7600GT + 2GB DDR2 800 < $450 = teh win

 

[nordloewelabs]

Originally posted by: exodus454

I need some help here. Recently on my old XP 2500+ system, I had been having problems with random reboots for about a week and finally my system stopped booting. I tried every trick I know, and then I finally disassembled everything and took the mobo out to check for shorts when I found that 3 pins on the power connector of the mobo were burnt to a crisp.

for about a year, my XP 3000+ had the same symptom (occasional reboots) as yours, but last week one of those reboots caused corruption on my HD's Partition Table and i lost access to my OS and data. i was able to get the computer up and running again in 24hrs, thanks to an old backup, BartPE and GetDataBack, however the recovered system was terribly unstable and sometimes it wouldnt boot at all.... i ran several diagnosis tests on the drive (a 250Gb Maxtor Diamond Plus) but they all pointed to a healthy HD....

so i decided to open the computer case to check the situation inside the PC....after some investigation i noticed that the four (red) 5V-rail pins of the PSU's connector to the Motherboard were burnt! that led me to believe that i needed to replace both the PSU and Mobo (and a new CPU to go with the new Mobo).

i boldly/stupidly decided to replace only the PSU and "re-condition" the Motherboards power plug.... i carefully pulled the damaged PSU connector off the plug and cleaned the plug as much as i possibly could. then i plugged the connector of new PSU on the "re-conditioned" power plug of the original Motherboard.

well, it's been 48hrs since the PSU replacement and the system has showed no problems so far! no reboots, instability, noise or smell.... i know i should prolly get rid of the Motherboard but i had a hard time finding a "brand-new" replacement for it and i wouldnt buy a second hand Mobo.

it's worth noting that the pins on the Motherboard's plug were in good condition....only the 4 pins on the PSU's connector had burnt. also, i wanna stress that you might not have the same luck i did if you re-condition your Mobo's power plug.

 

[Nocturnal]

The thing is, anytime anything is burnt, be it just the PSU side or the mobo side, it's extremely hard to say if the mobo has been damaged. Chances are it has and it will show its affects down the line rather than right away. I would definitely not keep extremely important data on that machine and if possible, always have a recent backup. I know many others would say the same.

 

[exodus454]

Originally posted by: nordloewelabs

Originally posted by: exodus454

I need some help here. Recently on my old XP 2500+ system, I had been having problems with random reboots for about a week and finally my system stopped booting. I tried every trick I know, and then I finally disassembled everything and took the mobo out to check for shorts when I found that 3 pins on the power connector of the mobo were burnt to a crisp.

for about a year, my XP 3000+ had the same symptom (occasional reboots) as yours, but last week one of those reboots caused corruption on my HD's Partition Table and i lost access to my OS and data. i was able to get the computer up and running again in 24hrs, thanks to an old backup, BartPE and GetDataBack, however the recovered system was terribly unstable and sometimes it wouldnt boot at all.... i ran several diagnosis tests on the drive (a 250Gb Maxtor Diamond Plus) but they all pointed to a healthy HD....

so i decided to open the computer case to check the situation inside the PC....after some investigation i noticed that the four (red) 5V-rail pins of the PSU's connector to the Motherboard were burnt! that led me to believe that i needed to replace both the PSU and Mobo (and a new CPU to go with the new Mobo).

i boldly/stupidly decided to replace only the PSU and "re-condition" the Motherboards power plug.... i carefully pulled the damaged PSU connector off the plug and cleaned the plug as much as i possibly could. then i plugged the connector of new PSU on the "re-conditioned" power plug of the original Motherboard.

well, it's been 48hrs since the PSU replacement and the system has showed no problems so far! no reboots, instability, noise or smell.... i know i should prolly get rid of the Motherboard but i had a hard time finding a "brand-new" replacement for it and i wouldnt buy a second hand Mobo.

it's worth noting that the pins on the Motherboard's plug were in good condition....only the 4 pins on the PSU's connector had burnt. also, i wanna stress that you might not have the same luck i did if you re-condition your Mobo's power plug.

EXACTLY what happened to me. Four red pins were burnt to a crisp, and I'd still really like to know WHY it happened. I bought a quality PS and the mobo I have was once top of the line.. i was overclocking to 3500+ speeds though, but never had any stability issues other than the reboots that recently started happening.

Originally posted by: moosey
I'll use Newegg as a reference here...

Do you need a case?

Nope, gunna reuse my old ATX case.

Also, a 500W PSU is MORE than sufficient. You could go with something like one of these since you're tight on budget.
FSP 400W
FSP 450W
Xclio 460W

Can also check out some of these MBs, they're more recent chipsets than the NF3
Biostar NF5
Biostar NF4

Choose an Athlon X2 AM2

Then just pick some RAM
1GB Kits
2GB Kits
With a lot of multitasking, go for 2GB if you can afford it.

For light gaming, I'd think something like a 7600GT would do, but if you think you need more power, you can check along the lines of a 7900GS

Very rough estimate on socket AM2
$80 MB
$50 PSU
$170 2GB RAM
$110 CPU
$100 Video Card
~$510 TOTAL
w/ 1GB figure taking off ~$70 and you're at $440

edit: spelling

I really do next to no gaming anymore, so I was just gunna get a cheap $40 video card for the time being, and I think I'm gunna put the extra money towards a 36gb Raptor. I was thinking of getting a mobo with onboard graphics, but most of them seem to be for micro ATX and only support 1-2 hard drives. I have 3 EIDE drives, a DVD burner and soon to be a raptor, so anything below ATX is outta the question.

 

[engiNURD]

3 IDE drives? jeez... how big are they? You could always move one or two to an external HDD enclosure and use it as a backup drive. Another option is an IDE controller card. $500 could build a nice AM2 system.

$150 - COMBO: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ + Biostar TForce 550 Socket AM2 microATX ($24 combo discount)
$170 - G.Skill 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-800 F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ
$30 - Zalman CNPS7000B-ALCU 92mm CPU HSF (Quiet)
$38 - XClio 450BL ATX 450W
$30 - Freetech PX6200TD-128M GeForce 6200 128MB ($40 - $10MIR)
$10 - Rosewill RC-200 PCI IDE Silicon Image RAID (0/1/0+1) Host Controller Card
=========
$438 + tax and shipping - $10MIR <= $500

If you want a new HDD:
$90 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB 7200RPM SATA300 16MB Cache
$105 - Western Digital Raptor WD360ADFD 36.7GB 10,000RPM SATA150 16MB Cache

My raptor gets about 78MB/s avg transfer rate, while my seagate.10 gets about 65MB/s. I think the Raptor is overpriced and not worth it, especially with your budget.

EDIT: Sell whatever parts you can, if you can find out if they work. This will help offset the cost.

 

[nordloewelabs]

Originally posted by: exodus454

(...) i was overclocking to 3500+ speeds though, but never had any stability issues other than the reboots that recently started happening.

(...) I have 3 EIDE drives, a DVD burner and soon to be a raptor, so anything below ATX is outta the question.

you were overclocking an XP 2500+ to 3500+.... that sounds like a lot to me. could definitely explain the reboots you were going through. the PSU might have put up with it for a while but got tired at some point. still regarding your system, did you have 3 HDs in it? that's my scenario too. one 160 Western Digital and two 250Gb Maxtors.

my original power supply was called "EVA", which is probably a lame brand and had +3.3V (20A), +12V (10A) and +5V (30A). i'm no expert in PSUs but my guess is that i put too much stress (XP 3000+, 2GB RAM, 3 HDs, 2 PCI cards, 1 AGP card, running for 2 yrs) on a lame Power Supply. the strange thing is that the PSU wires that fried belonged to the +5V rail, which (supposedly) had a decent amperage....(?)

 

[Zepper]

I don't see that anyone here checked the caps on the mobo for bulging/leaking tops - shorts in the caps can cause that "burning" on the +5V wires. Haven't seen one of those in a while. Also can just be cheap loose female contacts in the PSU-side ATX shell. I'd replace the female contacts on the +5 wires with some real Molex or Amp contacts and you'd probably be good to go assuming the mobo's caps aren't bad. Another option is to avoid Socket A mobos that don't power the CPU from the +12 rail (have the P4-12V socket on them). I still use Sock-A a lot and strictly avoid mobos w/o that 4-pin socket.
. I don't see the make and model of the mobos either - ECS Sock-A mobos can be real Amp suckers.

.bh.

 

[exodus454]

Mine was an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe.. supposed to have been good back in the day.

Good call on the burnt caps too, I do recall a burning smell before the whole thing quit on me, wouldnt it be funny if some of them popped.

 

[Moose1309]

Let us know what you get Exodus. I vote for EngiNURD's recommendation above. Did you mention what brand/model PSU you had? By the way: I've heard most people advise you to stay away from the 36 GB Raptor - its performance isn't really better than standard desktop drives. The newer 74 GB one is very fast and reasonably priced, look at the Anandtech review.