[mdlug] Well, shucks - motherboard/CPU advice needed

[Aaron Kulkis]

Ingles, Raymond wrote:
> My main linux box is officially toast. Probably literally,
 > something critical overheated in there, it seems. It won't
 > boot anymore, with two cpus or either CPU alone. At this
 > point it wouldn't be cost-effective to replace either the
> motherboard or the CPUs by themselves... and if I'm replacing
 > both I might as well go whole hog and replace the guts with
 > something new.

As long as you're buying new hardware... throw in a cheap
graphics card and try booting it again.  I've used this method
twice to revive what *seemed* to be dead MB/CPU.

For some strange reason, a dead graphics card can prevent
a system from booting.

> 
>  Here's the problem. I have to do this as cheaply as feasible,
 > and for that I want to re-use my existing hardware insofar as
 > possible. Unfortunately, this puts certain constraints on what
 > I can pick, since it's slightly older tech.
> 
>  The main issue is that it's PATA - in other words, ribbon
 > cable IDE for the drives. I have two 120GB hard drives, a
 > DVD-ROM drive, and a DVD-RW drive. I could lose the extra
 > DVD drive, but I've gotta have the disks and the burner.
 >
> It's got an AGP video card, but any onboard Nvidia chipset
 > these days would be better than the card I have, so I'm not
 > *too* worried about that.

Most modern motherboards will have only one IDE connecter.
However, Microcenter carries PATA/SATA converters, such as
these:

Attach a PATA drive to a SATA cable:
http://www.724deal.com/18-inch-ide-to-ata-interface-converter-card-727.html

Attach a SATA drive to a PATA cable:
http://www.724deal.com/parallel-pata-to-serial-sata-hard-disk-converter-643.html

> 
>  I need firewire to pull data off our camcorder, either
 > built onto the motherboard or else a PCI slot so I can put
 > in my existing firewire card. I also have a SoundBlaster
 > Live that I want to keep using - it's pretty good at sound
 > capture and I doubt if onboard sound would do as well.
> 
>  To sum up:
> 
>  Gotta have:
>    - at least one parallel ATA hookup, ideally two

Or some $8 SATA/PATA converters.

>    - firewire or PCI slot
>    - AGP slot or onboard NVIDIA graphics

AGP slots are very rare on modern motherboards.
You're going to be seeing PCI-E x16

> 
>  Strongly desired:
>    - SBLive audio, either built-in or another PCI slot
>    - PCI Express slot for upgradable video later
> 
>  I'd like a dual-core or better CPU, and if I could re-use

Dual core Athlons are reasonably priced. (AM2 slot)
If you get a motherboard labelled AM2+, you can later
upgrade to a quad-core Phenom when the prices drop to
reasonable levels.


 > the RAM I have that'd be nice. (I think it's PC2100 ECC RAM.)
 > But RAM's pretty cheap now, I've heard.

DDR2 is Ridiculously cheap -- like $30/GB

> 
>  Anyway, any advice? Places to look, exceptional deals right now, etc?
> 

Microcenter always has something on sale, and I believe they still
have a sale going on some MB's.

Also, be prepared to upgrade your CPU fan to something costing
$30 or more, and or getting out a Dremel tool with some cut-off
wheels to put another fan or two blowing into the case.

I recently performed this operation on a tower I'd like to
keep instead of spending another $200 or so.  Now I have a
nice 120mm fan blowing right across all my 3.2 hard drive bays.