Ok all, as some of you may know, I've been having all kinds problems with a computer and have decided to upgrade the motherboard. Being that the computer is a few years old now, I will will have to upgrade the CPU, the memory, and the OS (to XP64) at the same time.

The old M-board is an ASUS P4PE-X with a 2.6GHz Celron with 1GB DDR-RAM. When I talked to the local shop (2x's now), they keep trying to sell me a complete system and quote about $6-700. For some reason they just wont listen to me when I say, I don't need the peripherals like a dvdr/cdr drive, floppy drive, heat sink, power supply, case, video card etc. So I'm taking my money elsewhere. So this brings me to you guys :).

Can someone recommend a decent, middle of the road CPU and MB? Gaming is rather limited on the machine as it is my parents. The only real workout it gets is Civilization 4 and Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth. Both games play decently on the Celron, so any upgrade should make them fly.

I have taken a look at the other threads concerning new builds, but I'm still not too sure which direction to go in. There are many opinions on the different boards, but it would be nice to get something that can be upgraded down the road. They are looking to spend around $300CAN for the board and CPU. If we could get the RAM included in that, that would be great.


Neil

The best bang for your $300.

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=10520BD4923&vpn=775Dual-VSTA&manufacture=ASROCK

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=12200BD1282&vpn=BX80557E6300&manufacture=INTEL

This AsRock board is excellent. I have built two computers with it. It will take your old DDR ram and AGP video card. If you decide to upgrade the ram and video card later, it will also take DDR2 and a PCI-E video card. You just cannot mix DDR and DDR2 ram.

EDIT: the review on the motherboard says it doesn't read the ram right. If you install PC3200 DDR, the motherboard will default the ram frequency to 166Mhz (PC2700 DDR). You need to manually change the ram frequency to 200Mhz in the BIOS.

Wow, thanks for the quick replies guys! :) I spoke with my parents and they are willing to spend the money so I will be going with the items you suggested Mark. That fits in with the budget quite nicely and they like the fact that they can keep all of their original parts. They don't need the latest and greatest considering dad only checks his e-mail and runs IM while mom basically plays solitaire. She's not fast enough to outplay the machine just yet. :). My brother, well he'll still get to play his current games. If he wants more, well, TS :D

I think I'll also hold off getting a 64bit version of XP as well. I wasn't sure if the new chip would run all that well off of the standard XP. If so, thats great because this setup will last them for years to come.

Thanks again for all the replies guys.


Neil

Also look at getting this...

http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=10450AC4602&vpn=FREEZER-7-PRO&manufacture=ARCTIC%20COOLING

It will take the order over $300 CDN. Meaning you'll get free shipping and save $10-13. In reality, the HSF will end up costing a net of $9-12 making it great value. It's quieter than the stock Intel HSF too.

Ok, I just purchased this ZALMAN HS the other day because the old one wouldn't spin unless I gave it a bump first. Will the zalman install on the new board?

Neil

No, it won't.

Damn. Back it goes I guess. Good thing I kept all the original packing. So I'm assuming that the processor you are referring to in the other post is the E6400. I'll also pick up the cooler you mentioned as well.

Thanks again for your help.

Neil

Yes, that's the correct CPU.

GL with your upgrade. Remember that you'll have to reinstall Windows XP.

Thanks Mark! Everything has been ordered and should be here in a few days. Can't wait to get it up and running. Should be quite an improvement over the old Celron they were running.

N

The parts arrived today and I have finished installing them. I am now currently in the process of installing XP home and all the drivers/updates. That thing really hums along and it ran the first go round too :).

Now to my question, the RAM reads the full 1GB (2x512DDR sticks in dual channel mode), but the computer recognizes them as 333 instead of the 400 that they actually are. You mentioned that I would have to set that up manually, but I'm not clear on how to do that in the BIOS.

Neil

Hunt around in the BIOS. You'll find it.

I don't have that computer connected to a monitor so you'll likely find it faster than I would.

Right again. I've gotten the RAM issue all straitened out now. Thanks for all your help :-) Everything is up and running smoothly. I made a disk image with TrueImage so should anything go wrong, it's a matter of restoring everything in 20 minutes :)


Neil

Have you flashed the BIOS yet?

No I haven't. With the exception of the RAM registering at a lower rate, everything seemed to register fine at the POST screen so I had just left that the way it was. I did notice that the USB ports do not register as 2.0 and when I try to install the drivers from the disk, they only provide a link to windows update.

Will I have to download a BIOS update online, or does the disk come with them?


Neil

I just found that the sound is not working either. I downloaded the audio driver from the ASRock site and am getting an error message that reads "Microsoft Bus driver should be loaded in your system before installing Real teck HD Audio driver!"

I like the emphasis expressed with the ! at the end as if I should have known what the Bus driver is :lol:. Are you familiar with the problem at all?


Neil

The bus drivers should be on the CDs that came with the motherboard. Do you have anything flagged in Device Manager?

You said "at the end as if I should have known what the Bus driver is"

I say: he's the guy thats sits up front behind the steering wheel.The Bus driver directs people or programs to their seats or positions.:-)

>You said "at the end as if I should have known what the Bus
>driver is"
>
>I say: he's the guy thats sits up front behind the steering
>wheel.The Bus driver directs people or programs to their seats
>or positions.:-)


Yea, but he refused to sit still in the case and apparently he left :lol:


Shelly,

I do not have anything flagged (yellow "?") in the device manager. I have gone into BIOS and enabled the audio devices as well.

Mark,


I've downloaded the newest drivers, but they keep telling me that the MS Bus driver needs to be installed first. When I go into the newly downloaded driver from the RealTek site, I navagate to the MS quick fix installer first, install the file for XPsp2, then try to install the HD Audio driver. I still get the error.

I have also googled the problem and came up with a ton of hits. I have gone through THIS site's recommendations as a number of others have been having the same problem, but nothing has worked so far.


Neil

Go to the Control Panel --> Add/Remove Programs --> Uninstall the Audio drivers.

Reboot --> BIOS --> disable the audio in the BIOS --> Save and Exit --> Once in Windows, check the Add/Remove Programs to make sure the drivers are uninstalled

http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?Model=775Dual-VSTA&s=

Download the latest BIOS here. If you use the Windows version make sure you disable any antivirus software before executing it.

Look at the note on the 1.90 version BIOS. See if any of that looks familiar. Also, download and install the latest BIOS. I am running version 2.40 and the audio works fine.

Once you have updated the BIOS, enable the audio, boot into Windows, and reinstall the drivers. Try the R1.41 from the ASRock website first.

Thanks for the help Mark, I'll post back with the results as soon as I can pry my parents off their new machine. They love it so far :).


Neil

Thanks Marko! Everything is now up and running. I must have been too frazzled to deal with it yesterday because it went through without a hitch! :7


Thanks again for everything you've done for me! pcqanda.com ROCKS because of helpful people like you and all the others!


Neil

Glad to help!

You can download more updated drivers directly from Realtek's website.

These are the latest drivers with HD support:

ftp://202.65.194.211/pc/audio/WDM_R154.exe

Before you go for 64-bit XP, you should get some opinions from other members(Vijay!) and research compatibility problems that others have had.

Ya, forgot to mention that. You do NOT want to install a 64BIT O/S for basic computing.

Here you go: this system will tear thru your games without blinking, features a 2Xcore AMD proc. Should be within your budget, although its USA dollars. Not sure what rate of exchange is, but at least you can get an idea. I don't know if Newegg ships to Canada, though. Check it out.Maybe a buddy in the US will accept delivery and ship it to you.
Board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127010
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103747
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145566

Only problem with this is that you will need a PCIe video card which shoots you way over $300. There some adequate ones for $130-$150 or so. If you go socket 939, be aware you have no upgrade options in the future; 939 is at the end of its life cycle. On the other hand, you can get a real nice setup based on 939 for a low price. On the other-other hand, two years from now if the proc or board goes puff, you are into another upgrade because there won't be any replacements any more. I just did one for a friend whose AMD Barton chip went out, and she ended up total upgrade because there are no more Barton chips out there to replace it with. Mark's got some good suggestions though, if you want to go that route.

He's Canadian, so NewEgg is out of the question to most Canadians.

Also, socket AM2 is pretty much a dead end. Most importantly, however, the E6300 is a better option than any other dual core AMD CPU available. That said, I would still buck up the extra $40-50 CDN for an E6400.

It wouldn't be a problem to buck up the extra cash to get the E6400 especially if I can get free shipping. $300 was the rough idea. Extra performance for that little extra is not a problem.

Yea, I am in Canada (Prince George, British Columbia) so most of the US stuff is out of the question :(.


Neil

Go for the E6400 then....

>He's Canadian, so NewEgg is out of the question to most
>Canadians.
>
>Also, socket AM2 is pretty much a dead end. Most importantly,
>however, the E6300 is a better option than any other dual core
>AMD CPU available. That said, I would still buck up the extra
>$40-50 CDN for an E6400.

Hello, I am considering building a system with the socket AM2 and was curious why you mentioned it is a dead end :). (note: it will be first time ever building a system so am reading oodles and oodles right now and this mobo thread hooked my attention :) )

At some point in time it was believed that AMD would produce a quad core (4 core) processor with socket AM2 compatibility. Now, it doesn't look like this will happen as AMD has introduced a new socket type (socket F).

That said, if you are the type of person to buy a new computer every 3-5 years with no upgrades in between it really doesn't matter what you buy now.

>At some point in time it was believed that AMD would produce
>a quad core (4 core) processor with socket AM2 compatibility.
>Now, it doesn't look like this will happen as AMD has
>introduced a new socket type (socket F).
>
>That said, if you are the type of person to buy a new computer
>every 3-5 years with no upgrades in between it really doesn't
>matter what you buy now.


Sounds like continuing to play around with my 939's isn't such a bad idea now. :D

I'm going to hold off with the next major step until AMD's answer to Intel's Quad core and I see some comparison reviews.

I am running a QX6700 overclocked to 3.3Ghz now -- it rocks!

If AMD can come up with anything better than this all I can say is WoW!

>>He's Canadian, so NewEgg is out of the question to most
>>Canadians.
>>
>>Also, socket AM2 is pretty much a dead end. Most
>importantly,
>>however, the E6300 is a better option than any other dual
>core
>>AMD CPU available. That said, I would still buck up the
>extra
>>$40-50 CDN for an E6400.
>
>Hello, I am considering building a system with the socket AM2
>and was curious why you mentioned it is a dead end :). (note:
>it will be first time ever building a system so am reading
>oodles and oodles right now and this mobo thread hooked my
>attention :) )
>

Oh I see - didn't know about the newest one! Thank you for the fyi! :D. I probably will replace it in a few years, depending on the market so I suppose it will be A-OK for now ;)

- Gauthreau - good luck on the new motherboard! :). (Sorry don't have too much else to contribute lol)