Advice on new MB and Harddrive

Bemused

Dear all,

I am looking to replace my Asus A7v8x-x and AMD 3000+ and (old) hard drive while keeping my Nvidia Leadtek 6800gt 256mb DDR3 AGP graphics card, RAM, etc.

I was thinking of the following hard drive:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=309535

but am a bit stumped when it comes to motherboard and processor. I can currently play most of my games (e.g. BF2142) without much problems at 1024x768 and medium textures etc. Trouble is, I have been having increasing computer freezes. I have checked the usual suspects, and when considering reformating the harddrive decided it would be better to upgrade. What would you recommend with an AMD 64 and motherboard (with AGP slot)? Would like to keep the price down, keeping in mind that I am happy to play at the above resolution. PSU is 400W btw (I think).

Thanks to all that reply.

P.S. After (another) crash last night, when I restarted I could not open a webpage - my connection to my wireless router is fine and I checked the modem feed using my laptop (again wireless) - and it was fine. I haven't had time to troubleshoot - anyone have any bright ideas as to what may be causing this?

8T8

The hard drive will do fine though keep in mind your current motherboard does not have SATA ports so you could not use it with it.

As for the crashing have you tested the system with Memtest+ it would be a shame to replace components in the system only to find out it still happens because the RAM was bad.

If it did turn out to be the RAM then you would save money by not having to replace anything bar the RAM.


If replacing the CPU and motherboard you can get S939 AGP supporting boards though they are a little tricky to come by now, eBay or second hand places is usually the best place to check for nForce 3 motherboards which were socket 939 and supported AGP. There were even a few rare nForce 4 boards as well that supported AGP but you will probably find searching for nForce 3 a lot easier.

if you were interested in getting something with a bit more kick did a little digging on Dabs & found this Asrock board for €47, now Asrock are known for making mutant boards that support odd configs but this would be a nice way to save your current parts and get one of the latest CPU's the Intel Core 2 Duo.

Asrock 775i65G uses the Intel 865G chipset with DDR and AGP support but this board also supports the latest Core 2 CPU's.

Then just get a Core 2 Duo E6300 €182 and you have a modern & much faster CPU that you can later on if you want take over to a newer system etc. Downside is the price of the new CPU of course but it is a lot better.

Bemused

Thanks 8T8,

Any thoughts on a board that I could order from komplett etc without resorting to e-bay?

8T8

There isn't much on Komplett these days the only DDR/AGP boards I can see are;

This S754 board - out of stock, supports Sempron CPU's.

This S775 board - Supports Intel Pentium 4 CPU's.

This S775 board - supports Intel Pentium 4 CPU's.

Komplett do not sell Semprons worth getting you would have to go to Dabs to get a Sempron 3700+ which will be a bit better than your current Athlon XP 3000+.

(Dabs.ie do not have any S754 boards supporting DDR/AGP so wont be able to get the board from Dabs. I think Pixmania might have one or two will have a check.)

Pixmania have these;
S754 nForce 3 chipset -supports Semprons, in stock.

S754 VIA chipset - supports Semprons, not in stock.

SAM2 nForce 3 chipset - supports latest Athlon 64 & Athlon 64 X2 CPU's but requires DDR2 RAM but it does have an AGP slot.

Bemused

8T8,

There is an Asus A8V AGP Socket 939 Motherboard closing soon on e-bay with a bid of 54 Euro at the moment - what do you think of this MB?

Thanks for your help

8T8

That's fine it is a VIA chipset & it has AGP\DDR & SATA support so you should be able to keep everything you need.