Upgrading main components of old PC to a budget gaming build

[Nvidiaguy07]

Phenom II's actually have both memory controllers onboard and so will work in AM2+ boards. Your board supports the Phenom II X4 945 with the 5001 BIOS.

Ah didnt know that. So do all AM3 chips work? What about AM3+?

And I still am kinda hesitant since the motherboard is kinda old, and the errors I was getting. Im guessing chances are it is because of the old CPU, but could it be the motherboard as well? Or maybe the memory?

I would even get weird boot disk errors, but I ran a test on the hard disk and it says its not failing - so not sure what it could be besides the motherboard.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

And I still am kinda hesitant since the motherboard is kinda old, and the errors I was getting. Im guessing chances are it is because of the old CPU, but could it be the motherboard as well? Or maybe the memory?

I would even get weird boot disk errors, but I ran a test on the hard disk and it says its not failing - so not sure what it could be besides the motherboard.

Could be many things but CPU failure/problems would be at the very bottom of the list of possible failure points.

 

[mfenn]

Ah didnt know that. So do all AM3 chips work? What about AM3+?

And I still am kinda hesitant since the motherboard is kinda old, and the errors I was getting. Im guessing chances are it is because of the old CPU, but could it be the motherboard as well? Or maybe the memory?

I would even get weird boot disk errors, but I ran a test on the hard disk and it says its not failing - so not sure what it could be besides the motherboard.

Not all AM3 chips work, just the ones mentioned in the link. Not saying that is necessarily a better option than getting an new Intel platform, but it is an option. It's definitely attractive if you can find a used Phenom II X4 for cheap.

If you have corruption in your bootloader, it is most likely the drive going bad. A failing drive doesn't necessarily throw SMART errors. In order of likelihood, I would say:

1. HDD
2. Memory
3. Motherboard

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

Not all AM3 chips work, just the ones mentioned in the link. Not saying that is necessarily a better option than getting an new Intel platform, but it is an option. It's definitely attractive if you can find a used Phenom II X4 for cheap.

If you have corruption in your bootloader, it is most likely the drive going bad. A failing drive doesn't necessarily throw SMART errors. In order of likelihood, I would say:

1. HDD
2. Memory
3. Motherboard

I used UBCD to boot into WD's drive testing tool (cant remember the name). Ran the long test and didnt get any errors, so Im pretty sure the HDD is ok.

If anything it probably is the memory, motheboard, or cpu. I gave those parts to my cousin, so he can mess with that if he wants to.

Put the new build all together, just looking for a Power supply for my primary PC. (the one I was putting in this build died)

 

[mfenn]

I used UBCD to boot into WD's drive testing tool (cant remember the name). Ran the long test and didnt get any errors, so Im pretty sure the HDD is ok.

HDD self tests and SMART can give false negatives. In other words, if they say there is a problem, then there is definitely a problem. If they say there's isn't a problem, that doesn't mean the HDD is OK.

Anyway, since you've got new parts you might as well monitor it for further weirdness before replacing anything else.