yeah if you think its the motherboard do you have any other recommendations for a motherboard that would work with my current setup and within a $200 or so price range? Also, I changed my mind and I'm going for a decent-budget gaming setup if you have any ideas for that
So, Caleb, at the beginning I was very dubious about purchasing used hardware especially when it's more than six or seven years old. Seems that didn't play out well, which is what I was afraid of in the beginning BUT at least the CPU didn't cost much in order to get where we are. Memory, IDK what to tell you on that. Sell it. Somebody out there needs it like you did or return it if you can.
This is a perfect example of why buying used hardware from anybody you don't personally know, and trust, is, more often than not, a bad idea. Sure, you'll get plenty of people who are willing to drop into any thread, on any forum and say "But I've never had a problem and I buy used hardware all the time". So, ok. Sure. Maybe. But your sample of ONE is not representative of what MOST people experience, especially these days, in the power days of the scammer. People know they can get away with it and they know that when it comes to retribution, there is very little you can do. Ebay doesn't do a whole lot to protect buyers like they used to and in fact will go out of their way to protect the seller because without sellers they have no site, at all. They can live with 50% fewer buyers, but they can't live or survive if nobody is selling on their platform. So tie or questionable goes to the seller these days. And most sellers won't explicitly say "this part absolutely works like new or I'll replace it" in which case Ebay will tell you to shove off.
Non-Ebay used purchases are even, way worse risks.
So if you want to say this was a failed experiment and get something that you can get a guarantee on that works, and get the most for your money, then I have recommendations. If you want recommendations on trying to find more used parts, that will still have no guarantee, I can do that too but I think it is a much less desirable idea.
Used, this might, MIGHT, be a reasonable option:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/125336006747
But this would be a far better use of your money that would give you like 200% of the performance you could EVER get from that Z97 platform which is at least 8 years old.
PCPartPicker Part List
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G 3.9 GHz 6-Core Processor ($105.64 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock A520M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($76.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $232.61
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-11-21 19:48 EST-0500