What do I need to make sure my old Socket 939 rigs stay alive for another five years?

[thestain]

I was thinking of getting another Motherboard or two to make sure my 3 old rigs will still run for a long time. Is getting these motherboards now a good idea.. Appears there are not many left.

I have 8 GB of DDR memory, 3 Socket 939 motherboards and 3 CPU's, a Athlon 64 San Diego, an X2 4200, and X2 4800. i currently am not using 2 GB of the memory I have.

I was wondering.. to keep the systems going in future, what should I buy now, assuming that some things may not be available in the future??

 

[najames]

thestain, I think you and I could be related. We seem to be two of the minority who don't change hardware every week.

If you get a decent mATX board with onboard video it will free you from buying a spare card to use it, just plug in your spare RAM and any CPU and an old drive. You can always stick in a better spare video card if needed.

I am actually looking to build a new box or two instead of upgrading more 939s because I am short on DDR RAM. I have been accumulating parts slowly as I find a good deal. I have a $30 mATX MicroFly case, some 320GB drives, new Liteon DVDRW, etc. I am going AM2 (maybe C2D, doubtful) with the exceptions above because I got a good deal on 4GB 667 DDR2, might even get some more while it's cheap. I am REAL tired of waiting for new mATX boards + CPU so I can finish the system off. Then the domino OS change and upgrade can begin.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Be sure to test any spare parts that you get. I'd recommend running them with a decent stress tester to ensure that all parts are good for use later.

 

[thestain]

Will put any spare parts to the test... already tested spare memory..

For backup and future use.. what would be more important getting a last Socket 939 motherboard or ??

Will look into mATX.. I like to dabble in Linux.. been using Windoze all my life, and getting paranoid about all the DRM in Vista, etc.. so.. trying Puppy LInux as my tester for ease of use for various hardware.. nVidia seems to be more linux friendly than Ati.. Asus motherboards all seem to work ok out of the box, but I have had some issues I had to overcome with abit or dfi.

I was considering getting at least one more Asus ATX Motherboard. In regards to mATX.. anyone have any recommendations??

Thanks again!

Mike

 

[najames]

Agreed, all the regulations M$ is trying to ram down our throats is scary. I don't like how M$ trys to force their proprietary formats on you either. I think you will appreciate Linux and wonder what M$ is doing with Vista and their ridiculous "requirements". When an OS tells you that you it requires the massive system that M$ wants, something is very wrong.

How about "you can download these codecs anywhere, except in the US, where it is illegal"?

Puppy might be ok, I haven't looked at it in a long time. Also look at trying Ubuntu or Mepis perhaps. They are "bigger" but still come on one CD, should run in live mode so if you like it, you can install it from the desktop icon in the live demo. This is a good way to find out if it will identify your hardware. From what I've read, onboard Nvidia Geforce 610x board should work out of the box with new kernels, ie Ubuntu Feisty (7.04). I don't have the board, just what I read. Some other distros might set up mulitmedia better than Ubuntu. but you can make it all work. Iam using 64bit stuff.

Visit distrowatch.com to learn more about popular Linux distros. You might want to read the blurb about their goals and see if it fits your need.

I am a glutten for punishment and am ordering a AMD/ATI 690G and will try to make it work with Linux next. Gary Key, an AT reviewer, says he got Suse 10.2 to work so it is a very good sigh. Historically, Nvidia has played better with Linux. Always do a search for hardware that is Linux compatible before buying it.