Advice on old Motherboards (socket 478)

[Guest]

Hey basically I have quite an old computer and I just need it to last me another year. It is a prebuilt system I got 6/7 years ago so it is very old and I need a new psu and motherboard as the psu is massively underpowered and my current motherboard is on the way out (the heatsink keeps dropping of it and I keep on having to stick it back on with thermal tape). The mobo I have at the moment is a
ASUSTek Computer Inc. P4SD-VX, as it is OEM it is really hard to get much info about it off the internet.


I know next to nothing about PCs and I just want to know that all of the current components I have will be compatable with this new mobo I am thinking of getting:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ASRock-ASR-P4I65GV-MOBO-S478

I am pretty certain my current CPU will be fine with it, it is a 2.8ghz p4 Northword 800mhz FSB. This mobo is the correct socket and supports 800FSB with HT so that should be fine.

What I am worried about is whether the RAM, Hard drive and the disk drives I have at the moment with be compatable.

My current RAM is DDR, which is the memory this mobo requires but the RAM I have at the moment is 200mhz and on the specs for the mobo it says DDR 266, 333 or 400. So will my old RAM work with this, if it doesn't I am not too fussed about buying new cheap stuff that will work as it ain't that much.

The other concern is all of my drives. My hard drive and my DVD RW and DVD ROM plus my floppy all have an IDE interface. Will all of that work with this motherboard, I mean will it support all of that?

Finally, last question, I think I caused the heatsink problem on my last mobo when I fitted a 6600gt a couple of years ago. Do you think there is enough room between heatsink and AGP slot on this new mobo to fit my 6600gt. There is a picture of the board here : http://www.scan.co.uk/Images/Products/1035456-a.jpg
Also I was thinking of getting an ATI HD 3850 at some point. Do you reckon that would fit on the mobo without interfering with the heatsink as well (like my old gfx card did on my current mobo)?
There is a picture of the gfx card here:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-173-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=403

Sorry for this long post, even if someone could just answer one or two of the questions that would be a great help and just any problems they think I might have changing to this mobo. Also would the Asrock mobo be worse than my last board at all?

 

[o1die]

Asrock motherboards are pretty good; the board you are getting should work fine. You may have to install the motherboard cd drivers when you boot up and reactivate windows (depending on which version you use), but the chipsets of both boards are almost identical so you shouldn't have to format the hardrive. The agp card should also work fine. Your ram may read as 200, but it's probably 400 speed. The motherboard fsb of the ram is usually half the actual speed; cpuid is a free download, and it should id your ram as pc3200. Check your power supply fans and be sure they're turning and not covered with dust. I use a special canned air product with a solvent that cleans and evaporates quickly. They cost $5 or less at electronics stores. And finally, the asrock board should work with your agp card and have no special clearance issues; it has 2 ide ports, so it can handle up to 4 ide devices plus a floppy drive. It also has 2 sata ports if you want to upgrade the hardrive to sata someday.

 

[Guest]

Really helpful response you answered everything. Thanks very much!

 

[englandr753]

What power supply are you using? A good 400 watt psu or greater is plenty for your setup. (You could get by with a quality 350 watt psu but why not get a little more headroom?)

Get either Corsair, Antec or PC Power & Cooling as these are the most used among enthusiasts. There are other good psu's but you will need to check the psu tier to make sure its good enough:

http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx

Don't buy a brand below tier 3... 😉

 

[bgd73]

any 865p with 4 memory slots (4gb addressable..check your cpu model numbers)...and good to go...
there is bad apples in every bunch however, if you get one, blame the manufacture. In fact..go find a real intel mobo for the 865 if you can. crazy fast manufactured generation when those came out...and still saving the planet from lga lubbers.

If you had full atx option, I recommend the 875 chips for some deeper integrity.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all the replies very helpful.

My psu is some rubbish OEM one which from what I can deduce from the sticker is only like 300 odd watts :S ... really don't know how my computer starts up with that little juice from a rubbish psu.

Also had a quick look at this board:

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/40616/Biostar-motherboard-P4M900-M4-with-2-year

It is cheaper than the asrock one and also supports 4gb of ram. Although it supports ddr2 rather than ddr and it only supports pci-e. That isn't too much of a problem as i can get hold of some ddr2 ram pretty cheap and a pci-e card pretty cheap that is better than my current gfx card. Only worry is, is that it is a brand I have never heard of (should I have!?) and it is a completely different chipset which isn't intel, it is like VIA or something.

What do you guys think would it give me a tiny performance boost with ddr2 rather ddr? Also I found another Asrock mobo that supports ddr2 and is pci-e which is slightly cheap than the original mobo I posted.

Here's a link:
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/41814/Asrock-motherboard-P4I945GC-Intel-socket-478-DDR2

I also found another ASrock mobo which has the 865 cheapset you spoke about bgd73, which supports ddr ram, also I can't tell whether it has agp or pcie gfx slot. Here's a link:
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/39792/Asrock-motherboard-P4I65GVskt-478-i865G-800FSB-on

So basically what do you think is my best bet!? The biostar mobo is the cheapest and supports 4gb of ram while all the ASrock ones only support 2gb. I am tempted by the biostar one because it is cheapest and I only want a little upgrade to last me a year, but i am unsure about the chipset and brand. Any more comments would be much appreciated and thanks for the hlep so far!

 

[englandr753]

If you were going to build on this system to last 2-4 years I would recommend you get a cpu/mobo combo and go ddr2/ddr3 with a pci-e expansion slot But to spend all kinds of money on new ram, motherboard and a video card to get by for 1 year, I can't recommend it since you are still using a single core older cpu.

Stick with your original idea with a mobo that supports your current hardware, save the rest of your money and apply that towards buying your new components for your much faster system next year.... 😉

 

[o1die]

Yeah. Skip ddr2. When you have more money, get a ddr3 system. Dell, hp and others will be changing over their low end stuff pretty soon as ddr2 prices rise and inventory dries up.

 

[Guest]

Yeah think I might just stick with my current mobo and by a new heatsink for it for £6 and then a new psu as I think this one will give up the ghost pretty soon and then a 1gb of ram and if I can find a decent agp card on ebay for a good price I might get that as well.

Thanks for all your help!!!!!!

 

[core i7 ownage]

P4I65GV is very reliable mobo. I used it for years, it never failed nor needed a BIOS upgrade.