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New motherboard
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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by RedWood on Mon Mar 19th at 9:43pm 2007

I'm going to make a long story short. I plan on building a computer from scratch for myself, but not for 1 or 2 more years. my cpu is slow (+2400 sempron). I see a AMD Athlon +3000 socket 754 chip for 50$ on new egg. Sweet, I'll buy it and i should be set until i upgrade a few years down the road. The store i (my mom) bought the comp from told me i had a 754 socket. i pull off my cpu cooler and find a have a 462 socket (WTF! this was severely obsolete when i bought it)
I told someone what had happened and he told me to just upgrade the motherboard for cheep. i told him i didn't want to go through reformatting the hard drive and all that crap. I admit I'm fairly ignorant to computers, but my common sense told me this can't be done. He said that you can take a hard drive and just plug it into a new motherboard and it would work just fine. I figured settings with the board wouldn't be in sink and it wouldn't even be able to read the hard disk. Don't you have to set up a bios or something like that?
Is this possible??!!

EDIT:
Sorry i meant a new 3200.



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by rs6 on Mon Mar 19th at 9:52pm 2007

The Hard drive would work just fine on a new mobo. Don't bother "upgrading" to a 3000+. Thats not even worth $50 IMO. Save up and shell out a couple hundred dollars for a whole new mobo, CPU, memory, and video card. Then rip out the harddrive, and cd/dvd drives from your old machine.



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by Juim on Mon Mar 19th at 9:53pm 2007

Your hard drives will work fine on whatever mobo you decide to go with, unless they are fried. The bios is stored on the mobo( I believe) and has nothing to do with your hard drives.



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by RedWood on Mon Mar 19th at 10:13pm 2007

Thank you for the quick replies.

Wow, really. Cool. Think I'll spend 60-80 on a new mobo and give my self a little upgrade.

Ya, i agree that is stupid to spend money on such a small upgrade, but right now I'm pretty much satisfied with my comps speed. I'm just looking a year and a half down the road. I'll wait till quad possessors a affordable and i got my moneys worth out of my AGP graphics card.



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by Junkyard God on Mon Mar 19th at 10:16pm 2007

The only things you'll need to watch out for when upgrading your motherboard, are the CPU socket, the RAM type and i guess these days sometimes the GFX card socket. I think the other stuff should fit just fine, ofcourse, the cooling system of your CPU might need a change if you change socket, but i guess that's not too major of an investment. The bios is indeed stored on the motherboard, your had drive really only contains all the data you install on it, like windows or whatever OS you might use, your games, music, and all that kind of stuff. I think it would be nice to go for a AM2 processor, since that's AMD's new line, and it will have a longer life span, and maybe some more upgrade abilities in the near future, than other AMD sockets.


Hell, is an half-filled auditorium



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by Orpheus on Mon Mar 19th at 10:22pm 2007

? quoting RedWood
I'm going to make a long story short. I plan on building a computer from scratch for myself, but not for 1 or 2 more years.

In one or two years everything will prolly be moot by then.

Anything you price today could very well be so old, that the prices will actually be higher than say, a 939 pin mainboard, or something newer.

For instance, 72 pin dimms are higher than 168 pin simms. Both are available but the dimms are much older, and as such, harder to find now.

/ruminating.





The best things in life, aren't things.



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by Junkyard God on Mon Mar 19th at 10:25pm 2007

Good point Orpheus, I think that if you are planning on upgrading in a year or 2, like i did a long long time ago, you should just save up as much money as you can, to buy a completely new pc.
Since you might also find your Graphics card, and that sort of thing, to be outdated and obsolete by then.


Hell, is an half-filled auditorium



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by RedWood on Mon Mar 19th at 10:29pm 2007

I haven't priced anything yet. I can't even imagine what prices will be 2 years from now. All i know is that i plan on investing 700 to 800 on a entirely new computer when the time comes.



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by Riven on Mon Mar 19th at 10:42pm 2007

Well, watch the power supply as well, you don't want to put something in there and then have a melt down! A little over a year ago I bought the parts and built the computer I'm using now from scratch, that is: all new. I bought the AMD +3700 for $325, and now I can get it for about $100; it sickens me...

Two things I have not seen go down in price much are HDDs and RAM; not sure why. But because I'm using a 939 socket type, my comp is already dated, but it can run all of todays games just fine with a 7800 gt and fast enough loading times with 2 gigs RAM. Not sure how adequate it'll be in 2 years though; there's still room to upgrade. All I'm saying is: beware of the POWER!!

/2 cents & rant...




Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by Junkyard God on Mon Mar 19th at 10:49pm 2007

I tink 700-800 euros/dollars would be a fairly decent price to pay for a new pc, i think mine was about 700 euros.
HDDs and RAM don't go down in price too much because the older types don't get made as much as the newer ones, and the newer ones are... new, and thus insanely over priced usualy. <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">

The power supply shouldn't be that much of a problem if you get one set correctly to your wall outlets power outage right?
(I know the US has something like 10 volts more or less than in Europe or something and that could fry your pc/psu)

Also, don't try to get the best of what's out there unless you have the money to spare, often, slightly lesser equipment can save you 10s if not 100s of euros and will still be good enough to meet your demands.


Hell, is an half-filled auditorium



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by RedWood on Mon Mar 19th at 10:57pm 2007

LOL, i already learned that the hard way. I installed my ATI x1600 thinking i had a 350 power supply. When i went to replace a buzzing power box i found i had a 250 (eek). Not to mention that i didn't take into account my sound card. I'm now running a 430 W.



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by Junkyard God on Mon Mar 19th at 11:11pm 2007

Hehe, I've got me a 450W just to be sure my future upgrades won't need a new psu, I hate replacing that thing hehe, maybe I'll just go for an external one if i need a new one next time. <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">


Hell, is an half-filled auditorium



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by RedWood on Tue Mar 20th at 2:28am 2007

I just learned something. The speed of your chip determines the speed of your ram. I'm sure I'm the only one hear who didn't already know that. (but if i wrong tell me) By the time I'm done i'll spend close to 200$. So F@#$ it. I'll save my money. Nice knowing that i can swap drives when i need to though.



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by Crono on Tue Mar 20th at 3:08am 2007

That's completely inaccurate.

The speed (clock speed) of your CPU does NOT determine the speed of your memory. That's just ridiculous.

What you may be thinking of is the BUS speed, however (Front Side Bus, in the case of CPU to Memory connections). In which case, yeah, the bus speed will be the lowest of all possible bus speeds.

If your CPU supports a faster FSB speed than your ram is able to go ... then, that directly contradicts the idea of what you are saying.

Waiting isn't a bad idea, though, especially the current state of things.

Personally, I'd say save your money for the "real" upgrade. Plan on getting some SM4 video card with a Dual or Quad core CPU and lots of RAM.

Even building a machine like that right now could still be done for slightly less than $500 USD, assuming you're upgrading only the board, processor, ram, and graphics.

But, in the meantime you may want to brush up on what parts do what and the type of connectors they have ... you were asking if your current HDD would work or not. You should be able to look at the supported socket types of a given motherboard and figure that out on your own.


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by RedWood on Tue Mar 20th at 6:56am 2007

I chose my words poorly. My bad. Though, what I'm thinking is probably still incorrect. But am i wrong in thinking if i upgrade to a faster possessor ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103035 ) that my current ram at a speed of 333 wouldn't be compatible? And what does "memory standard" mean? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186069 Is it the maximum speed the board can take or is it the only speed it takes?

And ya, I've been reading a lot off this site lately. http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/ saw a link for it some ware in SP. Sweet site, its answered just about any question I've had so far.



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by Crono on Tue Mar 20th at 7:33am 2007

If it's the same socket type as the motherboard, then it is compatible.
In general, speeds like what you're talking about don't determine compatibility (though it is important to note that there aren't any 66Mhz DDR ram modules out there)

Seriously, if you're going to get a new processor and board, don't get that socket type. It's already dead.

You should also stay away from OEM stuff when it pertains to vital hardware (CPU, Memory, GPU, Motherboard/Chipset), you want a warranty on those types of things. Most of those are only 2 to 3 years as it is.

If you want any sort of longevity, you need to spend a little more than $150 range. The other issue is that right now there are a lot of legacy issues. AGP, DDR, and 754/939 are all being extinguished. This is a really bad time to do a "minor" upgrade from 3 year old systems. The physical connections are drastically different. Right now is a "Major" upgrade period (has been for about a year).

If you can't spend enough to really build a system, then don't waste your money (buying dead technology to try to upgrade is frivolous). Just wait until you can.

Again, I mentioned that for under $500, right now, you can build a decent system (one that's actually moderately better than mine).

MSI AM2 Socket, nForce 500 SLI chipset (2-3 Year warranty)
Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Processor (3 Year Warranty)
1GB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Memory (Lifetime Warranty)
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB Graphics Card (Lifetime Warranty) [Note: I'd go with the BFG, but it's more than $100 more expensive!]

So, it's not impossible to do some upgrading on a thin budget. You could even massively modify this set up to get something affordable that can be upgraded later.

I remember some BFG GeForce 7600GT cards being sold for under $100! I would imagine they're still under $200 (And they are).

Just don't try to buy shoddy parts to impulsively upgrade at the moment.

In fact, here:

Board: MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550 $73 (2 Year Warranty)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ $89 (Only $14 more expensive than a 3200 single core!) (3 Year Warranty)
Memory: Patriot 512MB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) $38 (Lifetime Warranty)
GPU: EVGA GeForce 7600GT 256MB $100 (Lifetime Warranty)

Total: $300
You can find other boards or chips too. The point is, a decent system can be build for not an extravagant amount. Too bad it's twice as much as your price range smiley


Blame it on Microsoft, God does.



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by wil5on on Tue Mar 20th at 7:59am 2007

On your motherboard, the set of wires that connects the CPU and ram is known as the FSB. This runs at a certain speed, in your case, 333mhz.

In most cases, the FSB should be set to the maximum speed of your memory. The speed the memory actually runs at is, generally, determined by the FSB speed. The speeds shown on ram are just rated maximums, so having the FSB set to a lower speed than the number on your ram wont cause any problems. Setting the FSB too fast might damage the ram, it might not, best not to try.

As for the CPU, the CPU speed is set at the FSB speed multiplied by some number. So for an 1800mhz CPU, on a 333mhz FSB, the multiplier would be something like 5.5. Again, the speed on your CPU box is just a rated maximum, you can run it faster than that but theres no guarantee it will survive. You set the FSB and the multiplier in your BIOS settings to give the best match for your CPU and RAM.

Hope that helps, its really "for all intents and purposes" style information but it helps to have a general idea of whats going on in the machine.




&quot;If you talk at all during this lesson, you have detention. Do you understand?&quot;
- My yr11 Economics teacher



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by Junkyard God on Tue Mar 20th at 10:13am 2007

Nice peice of info, I think now I get why my pc is so slow, my FSB isn't up to par with the memory etc. I think.

Nice bit of info Wil5on <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif"> cheers!


Hell, is an half-filled auditorium



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by RedWood on Tue Mar 20th at 7:49pm 2007

Thanks guys, I've learned a lot.

I bought the chip thinking it would be a quick, cheep, simple, cheep upgrade, <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/grenade.gif"> Did i mention cheep?

While I do have enough money to build the computer of my dream (24" monitor and all). I'm just waiting for a good time to upgrade. Seams like Crono thinks that would be now.

When i do upgrade i'll be buying
case
mobo
ram
hard drive
new gfx card (about 200)
chip (200_400)
So that already about $800. EEK!



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 Re: New motherboard
Posted by Andrei on Tue Mar 20th at 7:58pm 2007

stay away from the geforce6600




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