New mobo for athlon xp?

Synapse

One of my older computers has been having a lot of trouble the past few months with turning on and off, and various other BIOS settings reseting, so forth and so forth. I need to replace it.

Problem is, it's an athlon xp board, which only a few manufactureers even make any more. Newegg carries one xp board that's in stock, and it seems to be super faulty....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813185074

I don't mind cheap, considering it's not my primary rig, but I'd really rather not go through the whole RMA process, trying to find a working pcchips board.

Any suggestions for a good online shop that carries another brand of athlon xp boards? I only ever use newegg, have always heard terrible things about tiger direct and buy.com...so any directions?

clsCorwin

Grab an ASUS A7N8X-E Delux board, its what I use and it hasn't failed me yet.

http://rd.ss.yahoo.com/SIG=16g0gep01/M=510023492.0.0.0/D=shp/P=f2g2pso013000000/S=14489115:GRID/G=.5/I=0/A=1/R=0/J=1171777244781230.c1973f131/cid=95939952/lnt=1;_ylt=AlxlxDG5s5SxXxp1hTV8VRgbFt0A;_ylu=X3oDMTBuYjFmYmVoBF9zAzIzNTAxMzc5BGx0AzIEc2VjA3Ny/**http%3A%2F%2Fwww.superwarehouse.com%2Fp.cfm%3Fp%3D352510%26CMP%3DKNC-0FD189281302

robaal

I think you could get a socket 754 or socket 939 motherboard and a new CPU for ~$100. Newegg seems to have Athlons 64 3200+ at <$50 without fan. AFAIK Athlons 64 can work with slower DDR memory, though I don't know how much that slows them down.

If you need AGP then I think you'll still be able to find some nforce3-based motherboards, the VIA 'boards shouldn't be too bad either.
Of course if you don't game or anything on that box then you could just as well get an nforce4-based motherboard and some cheap, used, PCI video card.


The other option is to buy a used socket A motherboard, but checking eBay makes it seem that they tend to be as expensive as the above option...

Synapse

Well, that's the thing;I don't want to replace the cpu or the graphics card...I just need a cheapish mobo...nothing fancy.

JWFokker

Unfortunately, you're looking at about $80-100 for a decent Socket A mobo these days, due to the fact that supplies have dried up. Even refurbished boards on ebay are $50 and up. Anything less than that and you're looking at flaky, garbage quality boards. Believe me, I just checked. I have to recommend a budget 754 or 939 mobo/CPU combo also. For the same amount, you can newer, better hardware that supports your RAM and AGP video card.

See here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819104245

and if you look towards the bottom, there's a combo offered for $72 for the processor and NF3 AGP mobo, which IMO is definitely the way to go.

Synapse

That combo may actually be my best options.Thanks,JWFokker.