Motherboard Purchase Recommendations?

[R_Stevens]

I know I come to you guys for all my PC dilemmas, I apologize.
(Mother board Failure)
Alright I had to send in my PC to a repair shop and the told me it was either my processor or my mother board and they think it is my motherboard... I kinda already knew that it was between the two and I thought that they would know exactly what was wrong with it but they worked on it for like 2 days for only $25 so what can I do. Haha

So before I had a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 and I really liked the dualBios feature but was wondering if the ASUS M5A99FX would be a better option since right now since they are the same price or if another motherboard would do better for around the same prices. (~$110)

CURRENT PARTS:

[GPU: r9 290x]

[PSU: XFX 750w] http://www.amazon.com/XFX-PRO750W-Edition-Bronze-Certified/dp/B0045L4BJ6

[CPU: I have FX-8350]

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: [8gb Ram]

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: [newegg.com, ncix.com, tigerdirect.com] USA

OVERCLOCKING: [Maybe]
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: [Maybe later not really interested as of now, my PC case is too small]

MONITOR RESOLUTION: [1920x1080]

CPU: [I have FX-8350]

Thank you to all who have helped me on this site I have went from not understanding that an ATX motherboard is designed to fit all ATX cases (or the latter) to being able to self diagnose to 2 possible parts on my own. (thanks for trying PC repair shop)
I just can't help but take some advice from people that stay up to date with the newest tech.

 

[filippi]

Considering it seems that you are not very much interested in overclocking you should think about upgrade your gaming platform.

You could sell this FX cpu and go:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($176.98 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($71.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $248.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-12 13:25 EDT-0400

This is just another path you should consider...

 

[mcnumpty23]

what symptoms led you to the conclusion of either cpu or motherboard?

and most pc shops wouldnt have diagnostic equipment to tell

double checking with a compatible cpu or motherboard would be the only way

assuming they had one or the other

 

[geofelt]

perhaps this link will help:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2384008/motherboard-tier-list-990fx-chipset.html

 

[utgotye]

The only surefire way to diagnose nose a problem with a core component (CPU, mobo, RAM, PSU) is to systematically replace with a component you know works.

If you are planning on replacing your motherboard and are not an overclocker, a locked Intel chip might be the way to go. That said, if you must replace your old AMD chipset with a similarly ancient board, Gigabyte is still tops as far as motherboards go, with ASUS close behind. You may consider looking at MSI as well.

In that price range:
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3
ASRock 990FX Extreme3 or Extreme6
Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0
MSI 990FXA-GD65V2

 

[R_Stevens]

Considering it seems that you are not very much interested in overclocking you should think about upgrade your gaming platform.

You could sell this FX cpu and go:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($176.98 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($71.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $248.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-12 13:25 EDT-0400

This is just another path you should consider...

I do plan on going intel at some point as the processors are far superior but at the moment I do not have the budget for that buy. My processor does cause the rest of my system trouble.

 

[R_Stevens]

what symptoms led you to the conclusion of either cpu or motherboard?

and most pc shops wouldnt have diagnostic equipment to tell

double checking with a compatible cpu or motherboard would be the only way

assuming they had one or the other

Well really it is just a toss up I don't think they had the proper equipment either. My system hangs/freezes during/on/after login screen and as well if it makes it past the login screen it hangs within a few minutes. (The screen freezes, no mouse/keyboard movement but the display stays. It then shuts off after a minute or so.)

 

[mcnumpty23]

problem is you could end up replacing the cpu to find it wasnt that same with motherboard etc

does it do it in safe mode?

did you immediately boot into the bios and check cpu temperatures?

 

[R_Stevens]

problem is you could end up replacing the cpu to find it wasnt that same with motherboard etc

does it do it in safe mode?

did you immediately boot into the bios and check cpu temperatures?

It is not overheating and on my windows 8 install it would make it even less in safe mode. My vista install it ran in safe mode as far as I remember. But I focused more on the windows 8 point of things since that is what I ran. Is there any way to send a mobo back if I do not need it?

 

[mcnumpty23]

problem is you could end up replacing the cpu to find it wasnt that same with motherboard etc

does it do it in safe mode?

did you immediately boot into the bios and check cpu temperatures?

It is not overheating and on my windows 8 install it would make it even less in safe mode. My vista install it ran in safe mode as far as I remember.

just worried you may spend time and money guessing which part is faulty

could be memory or even hard drive or psu

really you need a friend or some one who can double test your components

 

[R_Stevens]

problem is you could end up replacing the cpu to find it wasnt that same with motherboard etc

does it do it in safe mode?

did you immediately boot into the bios and check cpu temperatures?

I replaced my video card with an old one. The problem stayed.
I tired multiple hard drives. The problem stayed.
I ran windows memory diagnostics. No error. ( yeah it made it that far once lol )
I took out the cd-drive. Didn't fix.

 

[geofelt]

If you can make it into bios, I doubt the motherboard or cpu are bad.
I would suspect a windows/software issue.
Can you use memtest86+ to test? Download it to a usb stick or cd drive.
It does not use an os and should exercise your cpu& ram.

Have you considered doing a clean install of windows?

 

[mcnumpty23]

problem is you could end up replacing the cpu to find it wasnt that same with motherboard etc

does it do it in safe mode?

did you immediately boot into the bios and check cpu temperatures?

Is there any way to send a mobo back if I do not need it?

some countries you will have to pay return postage and a restock fee for returned items

that could add up to a fair bit depending what country and how many restock fees

 

[R_Stevens]

If you can make it into bios, I doubt the motherboard or cpu are bad.
I would suspect a windows/software issue.
Can you use memtest86+ to test? Download it to a usb stick or cd drive.
It does not use an os and should exercise your cpu& ram.

Have you considered doing a clean install of windows?

Yes I have reinstalled windows about 2 times. They did twice as well. Once failing on install with them.

 

[mcnumpty23]

as suggested i would run memtest its probably a better tester than the windows memory diagnostics--though havent used the windows one myself

 

[R_Stevens]

problem is you could end up replacing the cpu to find it wasnt that same with motherboard etc

does it do it in safe mode?

did you immediately boot into the bios and check cpu temperatures?

Is there any way to send a mobo back if I do not need it?

some countries you will have to pay return postage and a restock fee for returned items

that could add up to a fair bit depending what country and how many restock fees

USA.

 

[R_Stevens]

as suggested i would run memtest its probably a better tester than the windows memory diagnostics--though havent used the windows one myself

I will message back when I am done with that I will try here shortly. I may also take a bit to make it all the way through testing as it randomly freezes.

 

[R_Stevens]

as suggested i would run memtest its probably a better tester than the windows memory diagnostics--though havent used the windows one myself

Oh nvm that is bootable

 

[mcnumpty23]

problem is you could end up replacing the cpu to find it wasnt that same with motherboard etc

does it do it in safe mode?

did you immediately boot into the bios and check cpu temperatures?

Is there any way to send a mobo back if I do not need it?

some countries you will have to pay return postage and a restock fee for returned items

that could add up to a fair bit depending what country and how many restock fees

USA.

think it may be 15% to 25% restock fee at their discretion but not in the usa so i might be wrong

 

[R_Stevens]

If you can make it into bios, I doubt the motherboard or cpu are bad.
I would suspect a windows/software issue.
Can you use memtest86+ to test? Download it to a usb stick or cd drive.
It does not use an os and should exercise your cpu& ram.

Have you considered doing a clean install of windows?

I have been running Memtest86 for about 3 hours now and there has been no errors thrown up. I guess I will leave it running for a little longer and seeing that I have swapped out all of my hardware and ran these tests it must be the motherboard. Unless you think I should use some other tools that overclockers use to see if there CPU's will fail on their settings. Like "Stress" here http://wiki.ultimatebootcd.com/index.php?title=Tools#CPU_Tools is that safe?