New motherboard advice needed.

[curious_guy (imported)]

I intended to replace my desktop motherboard more than a year ago. I did not because I just did not feel well enough. Now I have to replace it because my old motherboard has failed and I doubt it can be repaired without more expense and work than replacing it with a much faster motherboard and cpu.

I need a motherboard that uses DDR2 memory because I already have four gigs of DDR2 memory. I want integrated video, sound and network. I want at least two PCI slots (not PCIE). It must have solid polymer capacitors.

Can anyone recommend a good motherboard for me? I live in the US, if that matters. If I cannot get one with integrated video, can you recommend a motherboard with an inexpensive PCIE graphics card? I do not play any games.

[speedvogel (imported)]

Determine which processor socket you will need. Then browse through the massive assortment of motherboards offered at//www.newegg.com/

Speed

[daifu-orchid (imported)]

Good advice.

I used one of theirs for a MOBO transplant for a server at the college a left recently. There is, as is widely known, a nasty surprise for M$ Win users doing this. (Mercifully we ran the show on another OS, so no issue.) Each MOBO is serial-numbered, and this is needed for Win activation. If the number changes, previous Win activation is usually invalidated, and in turn, the activation of some other installed packages may also need reactivation.

We had leaking capacitors as our original need for change. We did it, restored the server to full performance, but in retrospect it perhaps wasn't so wise. We might have used our backups to rebuild in more modern -faster more versatile hardware and actually improve performance. Instead, we just restored the old and familiar.

[talula]

I do appreciate the concept of re-using parts you already have (such as the memory sticks) but it might be more cost effective to purchase everything new and upgrade hardware-wise.

If that is not an option you may wish to explore the purchase of a refurbished computer. I just picked up a 2.8 gig dell core duo with 8 gigs of memory and windows 7 pro for $200.

Just some thoughts.

tal

[Paolo]

Find me one of them dual core mammas and ship it down here!

[talula]

Gaak. Sorry. Only 4 gigs of memory. My mistake. P, when you come up we need to fix you up.

[daifu-orchid (imported)]

Only 4Gb? Interesting. The old server I did the MOBO txp on had just 2MB.

As an educational project, I perpetrated another server recently, building in just a Pogoplug v2. -just 246Mb RAM, and I still managed to run full versions of Apache webserver, Postfix mail, MySQL, two phpBB3 bulletin boards, and a Wordpress Blog @ 1.3GHz.

Sometimes I wonder if we squander resources. With a little care, you can save resources, money and still get blistering fast performance. The clue? Look for speed bottlenecks, and be aware that they may not always be where folk who want to sell you something tell you.

I'd give you my url, but my name is all over it. for now I'd be more comfortable telling you about it and how it was done.

-And yes, it cost $15 new from Amazon +shipping. The software? All legitimately free, and updated daily.

We've just had the account of what we did accepted at a national meeting. Seems that we found something.

Would this piddling little solution do for EA. No. It might for some of the time, but would soon show poor performance at peak load time. That said, $15 leaves you with much for beer, and even that trip to Thailand, Detroit, Atlanta -wherever....

Now that Win 8 has stuck a big hole in the PC market, it has never been a better time to pick up hardware bargains.

My 2c - worth: don't even think of replacing a MOBO nowadays!

[talula]

Um err. Sure you can do that. I've got a production server at work that runs the company database, all the software that it takes for order entry, fufillment, shipping, and inventory. Runs as a file server and domain controller. 256 Mb ram, 1.1 gig processor. Uses Gentoo. Kernel is compiled to the hardware.

Of course we waste resources. Tis the nature of convenience. Software isn't written to be sleek anymore because it isn't needed in many cases. Operating systems load every driver known to man just in case they are needed.

No biggie.