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Motherboard Dead. Need Replacement.

Discussion in 'Technical Discussion' started by Jay T., Oct 17, 2015.

  1. Jay T.

    Jay T.

    It takes an idiot to do cool things... Member
    So, my motherboard died on me recently, I think due to my video card crashing or something of the sort. When I turn my computer on, I get power and everything, but nothing on the monitor. I tried numerous things like reseating, resetting bios by battery, and so on. I checked things out by plugging the monitor in the computer without the graphics card, and it didn't work. I also turned the computer on for a few and felt heat generating from the CPU, so that does at least tell me the CPU and GPU are OK. The Motherboard probably needs changing anyway since it's the oldest part on there (Well, sides the RAM).

    Anyway, I need help finding a replacement, but there's a couple of things that concern me. One specifically, is how will my Hard Drive be affected. I unfortunately haven't backed up my drive lately, and I'm afraid I'm gonna lose a lot of stuff. I keep hearing mixed things such as it won't, but it's recommended, and other things as well. At least from what I gathered, things should go better if you buy the same model, but the one I'm currently using isn't being sold new. If I get the same Motherboard, it's gonna be used.

    I think it helps if you find one with very similar specs including the same chipset. Also, Windows 7 is retail, so I shouldn't have too much trouble reinstalling it.

    So, can you help me out? I wanna try to order the new (or used, if I don't have a choice) Motherboard by Monday, if possible, especially since I have classes online and all. Here's what I got in terms of current parts.

    PSU: CORSAIR GS series GS600 600W
    CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
    Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-M68MT-S2P AM3 NVIDIA GeForce 7025/nForce 630a chipset Micro ATX AMD
    RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
    Video Card: ASUS 2GB GDDR5 Memory Graphics Card GTX650TIB-DC2OC-2GD5
    Hard Drive: WD Blue 1TB Desktop 3.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s 7200rpm Internal Hard Drive
    OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.
     
  2. Meat Miracle

    Meat Miracle

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    I did not check prices but maybe you'd be cheaper off getting a better APU and some higher speed RAM, and ditching the videocard. With fast enough memory, it shouldn't be too much worse in games.

    And stay the hell away from nforce chipset motherboards.
     
  3. Jay T.

    Jay T.

    It takes an idiot to do cool things... Member
    It kind of boils down to price. I don't have that much, but I definitely got enough for a new motherboard. Maybe I could get something else, but I mainly want to get a motherboard for the time being since that seems to be the main issue I'm having right now. I do plan on upgrading to a stronger computer later down the line, but I just need something to hold me for a while so I can do things like my homework and until I get some more money.

    If I get a new Motherboard with a different chipset, how problematic would that be? If I can, I want to make sure my Hard Drive's data remains intact. I know I'll have to reinstall Windows 7, but I should be able to do one where all previous data is in the windows.old folder, right?
     
  4. Jay T.

    Jay T.

    It takes an idiot to do cool things... Member
    Sorry to double post, but I may have found the motherboard I'm looking for. I've used this site to try and recreate my computer, and tried to stick to the Gigabyte brand like before. There isn't many motherboards from them that are compatible with my CPU that are being sold currently. I did find these though.


    GIGABYTE GA-970A-D3P
    GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3P
    GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 R5 (rev. 1.0)
    GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5 R5 (rev. 1.0)

    Judging from what I've seen on various sites about good motherboards, the 990FXA-UD3 R5 seems to be the more popular, I think. The UD5 seems to be similar, but with a more of certain features. I have to wonder though, should I buy more RAM? I know generally 8GB is the sweet spot, so to speak, but will 16GB help? I know it helps when you run multiple resource heavy programs, but I'm not sure. I'm still a little worried about my Hard Drive, but I think I can install without deleting. Heard various things about it, really.

    Also, at the moment, I'm not exactly "upgrading." I'm mainly trying to get something to hold me until I can have more money to get more up-to-date parts, but these are definitely better than my previous.

    So, what do you guys think? I'm leaning towards the 990FXA-UD3, but if you guys have any other recommendations, let me know. Also, should I buy more ram with it? I really want to try and buy a Motherboard tomorrow (Monday) or at least soon enough where it'll arrive on the same week since I got online classes and all. Fortunately I don't have much to do next week, but after that, it's another story.

    Please help.
     
  5. Rosie

    Rosie

    aka Rosie Member
    Your hard disk should be fine, but Windows will most likely need to be activated again, as if there's a new motherboard it will assume it's in a different PC.

    I'm guessing you're not doing anything too resource-intensive, so really there's no need to get any more RAM. You don't really need more than 8GB unless you're doing something like rendering or audio production.

    Get an SSD instead, it's the best upgrade you can get and they're relatively cheap these days. Use that for the system drive and keep the old mechanical plugged in for other stuff.
     
  6. rata

    rata

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    ^^This

    If you can't afford (or just don't want to) an SSD, is not a problem at all. Regarding to your current HDD, you said that you have a retail W7, so you can make a booteable USB device from it and when running the installer, make a partition on your HDD to install Windows there, so it will run perfectly. All your data will be in your old partition, so if you have enough space you can move it from one to another, erase the one with the old OS and from there it's easy cake.
     
  7. Jay T.

    Jay T.

    It takes an idiot to do cool things... Member
    It's good to hear that my Hard Drive should be OK. Reinstalling Windows 7 shouldn't be a problem. I already have it as a USB disk. As for the SSD, I'll think about it. For now, I cannot get it. Thanks.
    Probably gonna order the Motherboard tonight or tomorrow. Hearing good things about the UD3 so far.
     
  8. rata

    rata

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    Trying to be useful somehow.
    I just remember that W7 installer doesn't let you shrink the main partition, so you may have to install the new W7 in the main partition WITHOUT formatting (the one that creates the windows.old directory). Of course that if you already have more than one partition you can proceed as I said before.