Mother Board Toast

punkin

punkin

Univalve & Avatar Speaks
Well, looks like I'm shopping...

Here's my current machine set up;

ASUS P4C800 Deluxe Motherboard
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AGP
SoundBlaster II
2 M-Audio Delta 1010 LT Cards
2 IDE Western Digital Hard-drives
2 SATA Western Digital Hard-drives
2 IDE Optical Drives
1 USB (internal) Card Reader
Windows XP Pro
SONAR Producer ver 8


The PC has been a great machine and served me very very well. The motherboard (ASUS P4C800 Deluxe) has died and now I'm a bit in a bind. I've not found a direct replacement on line and I find myself toying with replacing it for a newer more current/faster model. This means of course a new CPU(s) and memory as the old board had a 3.0 Pentium and 2 GB DDR. But what pushes me back is the possibility of having to replace all my IDE devices as many of the modern boards don't support them.

I guess I'm looking for some advice...my budget is approx $700...i really can't justify going over that right now. I know this is a bit open ended but I'm still dealing with the emotional trauma of loosing a good and reliable family member. What do ya think? Keep searching for a direct replacment...a different MoBo product (suggestions welcome), step up to something slightly more current or forget it until I can afford a 32 bit i7 extreme monster?

Thanks :D
 
You don't need IDE drives anymore. Just suck it up and buy a single SATA drive that is equal to or larger than both of your current IDEs and partition as needed, and keep your current SATAs. They sound like they are old enough that they could die any day anyways. You can get a 700gig WD for $150+/- I think.

I feel for you, my comp has seen its best days. I am cheap, but I also realize all the components have given me 5 solid years of daily use. Its time to retire them all....sans the CD/DVD drives. I am holding out for BluRay to come down in price.
 
Thanks Outlaws...

The hanger for me on the drives is data recovery...need to get my tunes and other stuff off and, as you pointed out...the optical drives...slightly pushes my budget envelope.

Thanks though...I'm leaning your way in thinking.


Peace man!:D
 
You can get an IDE to USB external enclosure for around 20 bucks and transfer your data to a new Sata drive.
 
I had the same thing happen (same board, too. All my USB ports crapped out). Been looking to upgrade & I've kept it to right about $650. Everything from newegg. Replacing the MOBO, CPU (going Intel Quad), three new drives, video card, 4gb memory & one new DVD burner. Reusing the case, OS (XP Pro), soundcard & a Plextor DVD drive. So, you can get it done.
Interesting about the USB enclosures. Didn't know that. That was one of my concerns, as well.
 
Hey thanks guys! Good info...especially the IDE/USB adaptation...takes a load off my mind.

say, Rtech...if you wouldn't mind listing some the hardware items? Mobo, Video card...what did you go with? Also, what audio interface are you using?

Again, thanks a bunch gents.
 
Well, I haven't actually bought yet, but this is what I am toying with-

MOBO: either GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX or ASUS P5Q SE/R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX

Vidcard: ASUS EN8400GS SILENT/HTP/512M GeForce 8400 GS 512MB 64-bit

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core

PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX 450W ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

HD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA or Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 SATA (2 of either of these)

RAM: 4GB of something. Not a great price difference between them, it seems.

These are a bit different than those I posted a couple of days ago, but I think these will work nicely.
 
I think I'm starting to sound like a broken record but I can vouch for that Corsair PSU. You'd be hard pressed to find something as silent as this thing. :D both those MOBO's are nice as well. You could also look into the E8400 CPU.
 
buckkillr8 said:
I think I'm starting to sound like a broken record but I can vouch for that Corsair PSU. You'd be hard pressed to find something as silent as this thing. :D both those MOBO's are nice as well. You could also look into the E8400 CPU.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I too am an ASUS and Corsair XM fan. served me well until the recent failure.

thanks for the ideas gents...shopping as we speak. Hard to keep up with the latest terms. My biggest concearn now is how or if I can keep my Delta 1010LT cards. PCI vs PCI express..not so sure.


Thanks!
 
I saw a motherboard at Fry's that ran an LGA775 dual core and had 4 or 5 regular old fashion PCI slots. Made by Gigabyte, can't remember the model number, about $99.

It's hard to keep up with all the new stuff anymore. My interest waned when I got a Pentium 4 many years ago. Now I'm feeling old... :o

Cheers,
 
Thanks Chili,

I know what you're sayin'...there's just so much stuff and info out there to filter though. Talk about sensory over-load!

Thanks for the heads up...I'll put gigabyte's on my research list.
 
punkin said:
Thanks! I too am an ASUS and Corsair XM fan. served me well until the recent failure.

thanks for the ideas gents...shopping as we speak. Hard to keep up with the latest terms. My biggest concearn now is how or if I can keep my Delta 1010LT cards. PCI vs PCI express..not so sure.


Thanks!
Click to expand...

ASUS makes boards with a PCI slot or two still. Newegg lets you select the features you need in your search on the left hand side via drop down menus. ie how many PCI slots you require.
 
Yep...thanks!

Currently studying the "Rampage Formula" board with the Intel 2 Duo E8600. The DDR2 memory makes this a bit more cost effective.
 
You do know that SATA controllers are fully backwards compatible with ATA drives, right? All you have to do is get yourself an $8 adapter that translates between serial and parallel signaling. It's such a lightweight conversion that the chip in question doesn't even qualify as a bus bridge, IMHO. :)

BTW, ASUS motherboards are notorious for capacitor problems. Probably just a dud electrolytic---most likely one or more of those seven electros near the CPU....
 
You can also buy a $20 PCI IDE controller card which will control 4 IDE devices.

Although in general I agree that if you can afford to do so, its best to just upgrade your drives to SATA.
 
Well...after some surfing and on-line shopping here's what I'm kicking around...as I've been hearing much of my stuff is out dated and the new Mobo will cause me to step up a little bit here's my list...opinions on my selection welcome;

ASUS Rampage Formula LGA775
Intel QuadCore Q9550 Yorkfield
Corsair Dominator 4 GB DDR2 1066
Saphire 100245L Radeon HD512 MB

I'm thinking a power supply may be in the future as well. My current unit is a 650 watt enermax.

I realize this is looking a little bit like a gaming machine but it's not what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm running dual monitors and do some video editing from time to time as well. My existing AGP video card isn't reusable in with this board so I thought to pick something mid-stream with dual outputs.

Waddaya think?
 
I think if I'd just had an ASUS motherboard bite the dust, my next one would probably be built by somebody else---Gigabyte, MSI... probably not Abit since they are leaving the motherboard business....

Just my $0.02.
 
Thanks Dgatwood...I'm feeling your advice...really. Which board model would you go with? I'm gravitating to the ASUS simply because of my familiarity with them and going by reviews and price breaks. As for my failure looks as though some foreign object damage...burned trace low on the board. Found a little bit of ... I donno something laying across one of the PCI cards and a trace on the MOBO...burned up chip and trace.

I like the layout of the board, the number of ports and slots n stuff. Toss me a bone if you would ;)


Thanks!
 
Well, Im a MAC person so I say if you can get one, go that-a-way

BUT I can say if you want to use this Comp to record, focus on a good motherboard that has lots of ports for recording (especially FIREWIRE 400) and remember to go with lots of Memory! It really helps in the recording process.

As for the CPU, Like many guys are saying and because its not that much of a price difference, I would shoot for a Quad-Core, they are really worth it.

As for GPU, If you record, its not that big of a deal BUT you want as high as a Screen Resolution as you can get, so you can see as many Tracks as you can at once...

I say this all guessing you use this comp to record, you are on a recording forum after all...

Julien
www.electricblustudio.com
 
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