My Motherboard Burned Out...

[TheeGoatPig]

So the motherboard on my home PC is around five years old and burned out. I need a new motherboard, CPU, operating system (I'm figuring OS7), hard drive, and RAM. Anyone have any suggestions? I'm looking "bang for buck", as almost anything on the market right now will be an upgrade from what I have.

 

[sunandshadow]

You don't want to replace multiple pieces in a system that old, trust me. Just get a whole new system, you can get a tolerable one for under 1k or a really good one for under 2k. And just copy your data over to the new hard drive, because hard drives rarely last longer than 6 or 7 years anyway.

 

[YoursSINSerely]

I love my laptop.

 

[Saxon Stonedyke]

I just got a kit. AMD FX black label 3.0 6 core processor, 6 gigs of ram, motherboard, DVD drive and case for $399 at tiger direct. I used my 2gig vid card and OS from my old system. I am a happy geek playing with it Edited to add it came with he HD as well.

 

[Edward Teach]

If you are going to "build" a system, 3B Tech is hard to beat. I have bought a dozen or so systems from them, plus lots of peripherals, always got good prices, and never had a problem.

If you want an off the shelf system, however, Walmart is hard to beat. They can sell you a decent computer, monitor, printer, ready to go for under $500.

Also, the eMachines are good values.

 

[Handley_Page]

Have you considered looking at E-Bay ?.
I got a respectable PC for a very modest sum.

 

[ishtat]

I have a 2001 Compaq that hasn't missed a beat in 11 years of heavy use. However, as I only use it for word documents, spreadsheets and similar documents, its shortcomings are not usually evident.

More modern gizmos are needed for anything else.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

You don't want to replace multiple pieces in a system that old, trust me. Just get a whole new system, you can get a tolerable one for under 1k or a really good one for under 2k. And just copy your data over to the new hard drive, because hard drives rarely last longer than 6 or 7 years anyway.

The graphics card is only two months old, the power supply works fine, and I see no reason to replace the case or DVD drive at all.

 

[colddiesel]

I remember a coupla' years ago you bought an expensive new motor and talked about it here. You could replace your entire computer for about one months payment on the car - and which would you drive the most?

 

[TxRad]

The graphics card is only two months old, the power supply works fine, and I see no reason to replace the case or DVD drive at all.

Yeah, but the question is, what burnt out the motherboard?

 

[Saxon Stonedyke]

Yeah, but the question is, what burnt out the motherboard?

Exactly! If you plan on keeping anything keep the vid card and the DVD drive but a power supply can screw up the whole works. Also, if you do not replace the case replace the case fan/fans because the little bearings in those only live so long before they dry out and die. If the fan goes you may not notice it until it's too late and the whole works has overheated.

I've been building my own for years. I buy from 3BTech, Tiger Direct, Newegg and Geeks. I had a horror story of a dispute with directron and would not recommend them to anyone for anything.

A question. The vid card is only a couple of months old did you upgrade power supply to handle the new vid card? Most of the better vid cards these days need at least a 400watt power supply. You may be having a power issue instead of a motherboard issue.

 

[R. Richard]

You can buy a complete low end system from Dell or other low cost suppliers for less than $500 (get at least 6GB of RAM.) You can sell the old parts in eBay. The new system has all new parts, so that you don't wind up with a monor part failing during a critical time.
(Shameless plug, you can buy my book about tranferring your old files to your new machine. You'll have to first plug in your old hard disk to your new machine.)

 

[TheeGoatPig]

You can buy a complete low end system from Dell or other low cost suppliers for less than $500 (get at least 6GB of RAM.) You can sell the old parts in eBay. The new system has all new parts, so that you don't wind up with a monor part failing during a critical time.
(Shameless plug, you can buy my book about tranferring your old files to your new machine. You'll have to first plug in your old hard disk to your new machine.)

I play computer games. They require a bit more than a low-end Dell.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

I play computer games. They require a bit more than a low-end Dell.

Skyrim!?

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Skyrim!?

No... Minecraft, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Serious Sam 3, Crysis, I was looking ahead to Planetside 2...

 

[Mrtouf]

As far as power supplies go, it's better to overestimate your needs than try and get it bang on target. A PSU which spends most of its operating life running at full load will wear out quicker.

If you're a fan of AMD processors, the bare minimum motherboard you want is one with socket AM3+. An Athlon II will do fine in there (I have just a basic dual-core version) but you can go for a Phenom II if you can afford it. A socket AM3+ processor can be used on an AM3 board, but it is not officially supported by AMD.

As far as RAM is concerned, the more you can cram in there the better, because 64-bit games will be coded to take advantage of more memory. But obviously don't just stick any cheap crap in there, get the fastest RAM your CPU can run (they have the memory controller on die now).

You may want to consider an SSD (solid state drive) if performance is important. They do not have any moving parts so they are more reliable than hard disks, and the latest generation doesn't have problems with repeated writing (which killed some first-generation SSDs, apparently). Unfortunately you will pay quite a lot for much less capacity, so you would probably still need a hard disk to do the donkey storage work. They're cheap and if you want to max out your disk read speed (read: faster loading times) you can RAID several disks together.

Pretty sure you would be able to buy an OEM version of Windows with the motherboard so that would save you some money. However, the slight downside of OEM is that your license is tied to that motherboard once you activate. With the retail version you pay more but you aren't tied down to that one computer.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

I don't think I mind OEM anymore. My motherboards have all outlasted several Windows upgrades.

And my old power supply is a 650 watt, which should do with any upgrades I need.

I have no opinion on solid state versus standard old analogue hard drives. Not enough info on either for me to make up my mind. I haven't been paying a hell of a lot of information to the hardware scene the last 8 years, hence, this topic

 

[Derroreaper]

What exactly went wrong with the motherboard? I've had many people ask me to upgrade machines due to failing motherboards, when it turns out to be a four dollar battery, or a bad stick of ram.

In twelve years of running overclocked AMD processors, I've only had one bad motherboard. So make sure yours is bad first

 

[sans_sheriff]

Newegg.com is your friend. They've had some killer deals lately on mobos and RAM. Also as an FYI - if you haven't already, upgrade your OS to Win7 64-bit vs. 32-bit. 64 recognizes more than 4GB of RAM which will come in real handy.

I only have 4GB of RAM in my machine and I can't imagine Max Payne 3 being anything other than a slideshow when cranked to full res.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

What exactly went wrong with the motherboard? I've had many people ask me to upgrade machines due to failing motherboards, when it turns out to be a four dollar battery, or a bad stick of ram.

In twelve years of running overclocked AMD processors, I've only had one bad motherboard. So make sure yours is bad first

I sent it out to find out what was wrong with it. they told me the motherboard needed replacing.

Newegg.com is your friend. They've had some killer deals lately on mobos and RAM. Also as an FYI - if you haven't already, upgrade your OS to Win7 64-bit vs. 32-bit. 64 recognizes more than 4GB of RAM which will come in real handy.

I only have 4GB of RAM in my machine and I can't imagine Max Payne 3 being anything other than a slideshow when cranked to full res.

I know where to go. I don't know what to get yet, not that I have much money right now...

 

[PennLady]

My husband's computer just died. He's looking for the recovery discs. He's been looking at getting a new computer and naturally this one has to die before he gets a new one. Guess he'll be buying a new one today.

 

[Safe_Bet]

My husband's computer just died. He's looking for the recovery discs. He's been looking at getting a new computer and naturally this one has to die before he gets a new one. Guess he'll be buying a new one today.

I just got an email from CompUSA and they had some GREAT pricing on refurbished / off lease laptops and systems. I was actually pretty surprised.

 

[PennLady]

I just got an email from CompUSA and they had some GREAT pricing on refurbished / off lease laptops and systems. I was actually pretty surprised.

Thanks, I'll look at that. He's got his eye on a couple of systems he saw at Best Buy. One thing that's a killer is there seem to be so few system bundles with monitors included anymore.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I'm Frugal Freddie.

My eMachine $300 WHIZZBANG OBAMA-RAMA is a year old and still purring.

Why crunch numbers with a Cray when a $5 calculator does the same thang!

 

[Saxon Stonedyke]

I just got this offer in E-mail from tiger direct. Now I kind of wish I hadn't got the 6core I did back in Feb.

http://http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=2826919&sku=B69-0567&SRCCODE=WEM3119BY&cm_mmc=email-_-Main-_-WEM3119-_-tigeremail3119&utm_source=EML&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=WEM3119