I need to replace my Asus motherboard (probably cpu and memory) and <sigh> AGP graphics card. I'm looking for a motherboard recommendation. My ~5 year old Asus P4P800E Deluxe (Intel 2.4G P4 socket 478) stopped booting. I get the splash screen and initial boot dialog, then it hangs verifying NVRAM, or so it says. I tried removing the NVRAM battery and using the jumper to reset the BIOS, but to no avail. I feel pretty good about the 480W power supply, case, monitor, speakers, fans and other misc pieces/parts. Graphics is AGP 8x :-( So I need to replace the "guts". More importantly, the dual IDE hard drives are still fine (I think - I have external enclosures on order to verify). I started on W98, went to W2K and finally 32bit WinXP. I have a ton of software installed, a lot of which I can't easily replace (promos that were downloaded, etc). I may even have stuff that won't run on later software like Vista or 64bit OS versions. So, I want to slide a new mobo and graphics card in under my 32 bit Windows XP OS. Alternatively, I would be tolerant of replacing the mobo with an older model equivalent to the one that died (similar processor, memory and AGP) if need be, so I can migrate everything off gradually to a new machine. What are the chances of a successful motherboard migration under the OS without serious issues? I read once that newer gen OS' are very tolerant of HAL checks and adapting to new hardware environments. If true, how far can I push the technology? I'm guessing switching to AMD would be a disaster, but I've read that 64 bit mobos will gleefully run in 32 bit mode if the OS doesn't ask more of them. What about multi-core processors? Will those be a problem? What about the PCI graphics? Until the drivers are loaded, it will just revert to a lower resolution, right? In other words, what would be a good replacement mobo/processor to salvage my existing system? If this isn't doable, whats the most recent "old tech" motherboard that I can upgrade to until I have time to put my old system "to rest" and transition to new tech? Jim EDIT: I found a BIOSTAR P4M900 M4 motherboard that is socket 478 but is PCI instead of AGP. If I can't upgrade safely beyond my current tech, then thoughts on this motherboard appreciated. I've never used Biostar.
Biostar is good, or atleast there current mobos are. If Im not mistaken the world record for +an OC is held on a system with a biostar mobo. None the less try this: http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/1574/ You may not need to switch out much hardware at all.
I recently had to upgrade do to a motherboard crash, so I sympathize with you. I upgraded my Athlon 64 single core to a Phenom II x3 720 Black edition processor.I am personally a big fan of AMD and have used them in my own PC as well as hundreds of other builds. I currently run Windows XP 32bit with SP3. When I upgraded, Windows was able to handle the upgrade quite smoothly. It basically went through its auto find process to configure most of the install new components. Your new motherboard will likely come with a cd that will have any additional drivers/software. As far as the AGP graphics card goes... pitch it, they don't use AGP architecture any more. Get yourself a PCI express card with at least 512MB of DDR3 RAM; these cards are fairly cheap. As far as the drive... IDE architecture is slowly being replaced with SATA and eventually, will no longer have an on-board interface. But for now, you're safe. However, I would recommend getting a SATA hard drive as well, or at least, next. Hard drive space is ridiculously cheap nowadays. You can check out my free guide to picking parts and building a pc here
Thanks so much for the responses! I read the thread on board conflicts with interest. Unfortunately, I have no boards in my system besides the AGP graphics (and of course, there's only one AGP slot). I still plan to troubleshoot a little, clean the memory contacts, etc., but my options are pretty limited, since resetting the BIOS didn't change the behavior at all. I suspect a component failure on the mobo that I can't easily detect. But I am DELIGHTED to hear that with luck, XP will not be affected by swapping out the motherboard. I ordered the model I mentioned in my base note, as well as some memory, and a new SATA drive I hope to migrate (backup) to. I'm going to try it with my existing CPU first, then upgrade it if need be. I have a brazillion fans in the case, and a 475 watt power supply, and the motherboard comes with onboard graphics, so I expect I'll be good as far as cooling and power. Then once I get the system up, I plan to migrate everything I can to a Thecus NAS 4 disk RAID and everything else to my laptop.
