- May 1, 2010
- 6
- 0
- 18,510
In 2010 (yes, that long ago) I built my computer from the ground up - but I'm not a computer guts guru. I used an EVGA E758-A1 3-Way SLT, LEG 1366 Intex X58 ATX motherboard. I have an Intel Cor i7-930 Bloomfield Quad-Cor 2.8 Ghz LGA 1366 130W BX80601930 processor. I did a bunch of research back then to pick what I got, and I'm not really up for the task now.
The problem: I did not buy the full 6 RAM sticks when I first purchased the machine, but finished out the RAM purchases about a year later. When all was said and done, instead of 24 GB of RAM, I've been running with 16. I did rotate all the chips one at a time, and all seemed to work, but still only 16 GB so I'm guessing one of the slots didn't work (and they work in pairs) and since I was out of warranty, I just gave up. Been running it since then and it's been fine until this past weekend.
My ram was at 90% full, so I backed out of everything and shut down for a reboot and Windows would not reboot. Tried several times, etc. and eventually removed all but the main hard drive, and finally got her to reboot. The ram was down to 8 GB. I've rotated the sticks again, and can't get it above 8GB, so I'm assuming another slot went down. I also lost one hard drive, but not one of my essentials... so I'm going to worry about that later.
But 8GB of ram isn't going to cut it for my work, which is as a Freelance Graphic artist, running mostly Adobe InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator, although I have the Master Collection in CS6. I often have all three programs, as well as Acrobat Pro, and some ebook editing programs going at the same time, at least in the background. So I need more RAM.
So that apparently means replacing the Motherboard with something equivalent with at least 4, preferably 6 RAM slots, but that will use the same CPU, as well as work with my current RAM sticks, none of which can be blamed for the problems. And I don't want to be replacing my power source, and all my other perifs...
So the question is, how do I go about finding a compatible motherboard. I checked on New Egg, where I bought everything before, but when I check for a motherboard that will support the CPU (1366 socket) I only get one available board, but although it calls for an LGA 1366, it says it's a Xeon Dual or Quad Core. Is this compatible with the LGA 1366 Intel i7?
It says it has 12 slots and will take DDR3 SDAM, so I'm assuming that's compatible with my G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Desktop Memory Model chips.
If the CPU socket works, how do I determine if my power source is ok, as well as the other goodies (hard drive support, etc.)?
If it's impossible to replace just the mother board, I figure I can bite the bullet and replace both the motherboard and the CPU chip, OR the Ram chips, but really can't afford to do both right now. Would like to get something reasonable going on the cheap for now, and start saving for a full upgrade in 6 months to a year. Even then, I hate to clean out the whole tower...
Oh, will be sticking with Windows 7 if that means anything, as I have no use for 10 with the programs I use. Have no desire to upgrade them anytime soon either, as the upgrades don't really apply to the work I do (book layout for publication).
The problem: I did not buy the full 6 RAM sticks when I first purchased the machine, but finished out the RAM purchases about a year later. When all was said and done, instead of 24 GB of RAM, I've been running with 16. I did rotate all the chips one at a time, and all seemed to work, but still only 16 GB so I'm guessing one of the slots didn't work (and they work in pairs) and since I was out of warranty, I just gave up. Been running it since then and it's been fine until this past weekend.
My ram was at 90% full, so I backed out of everything and shut down for a reboot and Windows would not reboot. Tried several times, etc. and eventually removed all but the main hard drive, and finally got her to reboot. The ram was down to 8 GB. I've rotated the sticks again, and can't get it above 8GB, so I'm assuming another slot went down. I also lost one hard drive, but not one of my essentials... so I'm going to worry about that later.
But 8GB of ram isn't going to cut it for my work, which is as a Freelance Graphic artist, running mostly Adobe InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator, although I have the Master Collection in CS6. I often have all three programs, as well as Acrobat Pro, and some ebook editing programs going at the same time, at least in the background. So I need more RAM.
So that apparently means replacing the Motherboard with something equivalent with at least 4, preferably 6 RAM slots, but that will use the same CPU, as well as work with my current RAM sticks, none of which can be blamed for the problems. And I don't want to be replacing my power source, and all my other perifs...
So the question is, how do I go about finding a compatible motherboard. I checked on New Egg, where I bought everything before, but when I check for a motherboard that will support the CPU (1366 socket) I only get one available board, but although it calls for an LGA 1366, it says it's a Xeon Dual or Quad Core. Is this compatible with the LGA 1366 Intel i7?
It says it has 12 slots and will take DDR3 SDAM, so I'm assuming that's compatible with my G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Desktop Memory Model chips.
If the CPU socket works, how do I determine if my power source is ok, as well as the other goodies (hard drive support, etc.)?
If it's impossible to replace just the mother board, I figure I can bite the bullet and replace both the motherboard and the CPU chip, OR the Ram chips, but really can't afford to do both right now. Would like to get something reasonable going on the cheap for now, and start saving for a full upgrade in 6 months to a year. Even then, I hate to clean out the whole tower...
Oh, will be sticking with Windows 7 if that means anything, as I have no use for 10 with the programs I use. Have no desire to upgrade them anytime soon either, as the upgrades don't really apply to the work I do (book layout for publication).
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