The Conservative Cave
The Help Desk => Computer Related Discussions & Questions => Topic started by: Thor on August 07, 2009, 02:51:30 PM
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Recently, one of my computers has taken ill. It just arbitrarily locks up from time to time, causing me to have to reboot. No BSODs, Error messages (from the Event Viewer in the Admin Panel) seem to point to the ide controller. The numerous and frequent power outages that we seem to have seems to have contributed to the problem because this didn't start until the time before last power outage. Usually, my motherboard has rebounded without flaw. However, it is getting old. My 1.4 GHZ AMD Athlon Thunderbird, seems to be ok and holding it's own. It has been a workhorse, that's for sure. My options are to obtain an Abit KG-7 RAID motherboard for around $35 and do a direct swap with no software problems or obtain a newer motherboard, processor, RAM, vid card, etc at a much higher expense and rework windows for the new motherboard. I probably need to consider the power supply, too. What would you tech heads recommend?? (bear in mind, I have extremely limited funds)
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Good lord.
1.4 GHZ AMD Athlon Thunderbird
You probably won't find any boards to support your CPU, but here's a bundled board, and you might be able to use your RAM
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3441557&CatId=1181
BAH! It's a micro ATX. It's gonna be damn hard to find ANYTHING, even a 939 socket board I have dosen't show up anymore.
Really, really think about a bare-bones system.
This is about as cheap as you'll get: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4545143&CatId=332
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I found a direct replacement KG-7 RAID board on eBay. Says it is "NEW".
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I woulden't trust E-Prey for comp stuff, but if your'e brave..................................
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The one you showed me wouldn't work. :( This is a "server" machine and I have like 5 hard drives in it, plus two optical drives. Hell, my PCI cards wouldn't even fit on that board !!
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Would a workaround like installing a PCI IDE controller card and abandoning the onboard one work in this case ?
You can pick them up fairly cheaply here (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1070704&CatId=508)
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I woulden't trust E-Prey for comp stuff, but if your'e brave...
I've used it two or three times with success, but I avoid auctions. I only buy from stores with fixed prices. I haven't gotten burned yet.
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Would a workaround like installing a PCI IDE controller card and abandoning the onboard one work in this case ?
You can pick them up fairly cheaply here (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1070704&CatId=508)
That could work, but for twice as much, I could get a replacement motherboard. Still :???:
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That could work, but for twice as much, I could get a replacement motherboard. Still :???:
If you can get a exact or similar mainboard where you don't have to get new processor/ram to go with it , then it will only cost double. Without upgrading the CPU or RAM you won't get any increase in speed.
Guess it comes down to whether you want to do a patch-up job or spend a bit more and get an upgrade.
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At this point, I don't really have the money for a total upgrade. That would include hard drives, probably the optical drives, processor, ram, new power supply, etc. and then all the fuss trying to get windows to work again with a different motherboard. The 1.4 GHz athlon seems to do what I need it to do. It performs as well as the 2.8 GHZ Pentium with Vista on it that I use at the VFW Post.
The board is identical. It's an Abit KG-7 RAID board. So, no sweat with the changeover. The eBay ad says it's "NEW". I kind of doubt that it is. It's probably a "pull", which would be OK, as long as it's not DOA.
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Well, the guy's ad on Ebay was somewhat misrepresented. I got only a KG7 board, no RAID. Oh well. A spare PCI IDE controller and I'll be set. I finally installed the KG7 and ran into a major problem. The PC kept faulting & rebooting. It was something about ACPI calls and some other things that made me think that there was an IRQ conflict someplace, even though windows didn't show it. After doing an extensive search of the files stored in my brain, I suddenly recalled that Abit boards had a problem with their PCI slots and hardware conflicts, namely PCI slots 2 and slot 4. This is something I ran across many years ago (2000-2001 timeframe). I had forgotten about that problem until I finally recalled that info. I had installed the sound card in slot two and the NIC in four. I moved them to slots 3 and 5 respectively, et voila, no more problems. Everything's running well this morning and I'm somewhat happy. :-)
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Well, the guy's ad on Ebay was somewhat misrepresented
AHEM!
Glad it's worked out for you. :-)
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Shoulda just gotten that PCI - IDE Controller card first :-)
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Shoulda just gotten that PCI - IDE Controller card first :-)
I had bought one of them at Circuit City @ 2 years ago. I went back less than a month later to buy another one and nobody in the computer area had any clue as to what I was talking about.
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I had bought one of them at Circuit City @ 2 years ago. I went back less than a month later to buy another one and nobody in the computer area had any clue as to what I was talking about.
I had some entertainments watching the noob counter drone at a local store try to decipher what a "scuzzy card" was - despite one being prominently displayed in the cabinet under the counter...
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I had some entertainments watching the noob counter drone at a local store try to decipher what a "scuzzy card" was - despite one being prominently displayed in the cabinet under the counter...
I got a chuckle when I walked into a parts store and told the 18-year-old behind the counter I needed parts for a Datsun. The blank stare was priceless.
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I had some entertainments watching the noob counter drone at a local store try to decipher what a "scuzzy card" was - despite one being prominently displayed in the cabinet under the counter...
I'll admit that I had no idea, but seeing it's SCSI, it's no wonder. I'm only familiar with what's found in most pedestrian desktops.
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Well, it turns out that I had more than one problem. Not only was the motherboard losing a couple of drives, but my sound card had gone to hell, too, causing conflicts and reboots. Now I'm sans sound on this computer. I'll have to replace my Audigy card. After some playing around, downloading the MS debugging tool and symbols kit, it showe me some hardware conflicts. Trial and error taught me that it was the sound card. However, the motherboard install went pretty good, all in all.