Looking for info on a replacement motherboard

Shinotsa

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Apr 16, 2012
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My motherboard recently started malfunctioning (as far as I can tell) and I'm looking for a replacement. I've been looking into the ASRock Z97 Extreme4, but have a few concerns.

Firstly, I currently have a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan. On my current mobo this cooler blocks the first RAM port by maybe a centimeter, making it unusable. Would I have the same problem with this motherboard? Is there any way for me to tell?

Secondly, I recently bought some G.Skill 1866 DDR3 RAM (2x4gb), would this perform worse than if I bought pricier 3000 or 2933 RAM? Also, I have some G.Skill 1600 DDR3 RAM (2x4gb). Would it be worth it to install this with the 1866? I'm not sure if there's a way to get them to play nice, or if I should just spend the extra 60 bucks to get another 8gb.

Thirdly, I'd love any advice or questions that anyone can provide about good Mobos or anything else!


Here are the parts that will be in the build as of right now:

Case: Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Mobo: ASRock Z97 Extreme4 (Possibly, not yet purchased)

Current, damaged Mobo: ASRock Z68 PRO3 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge Quad-Core 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W BX80623I52500 Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2000

GPU: EVGA 04G-P4-3975-KR GeForce GTX 970 SSC ACX 2.0+ 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Graphics Card

HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply

Owned RAM possibility 1: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

Owned RAM possibility 2: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9D-8GBXL
 
Solution
trouble with socket change is just that, socket change. You wont be upgrading that cpu any time soon. Your only option is at best a i7 3770k max on the same socket or maybe a xeon e3 seeing as you have a gpu.

which really is only the difference between i5 and i7, not much of a difference for gaming purposes. The next gen wasnt much of a perf difference to warrant upgrading to.

There are only 3 connections you can get wrong for your cpu to not get power, 24 pin, cpu, and cpu fan. but depending on the sink you would have smoked your cpu as soon as you turned on if it was just your fan.

if you can spare £30 you could get a dirty lil celeron g1620 cpu to install and see if it was your cpu, but if there is no fan movement from your board...

drtoast

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May 10, 2013
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Wrong socket type buddy, wont fit. z77 is the best/most recent chipset you can use for your cpu.

RAM Clearance is a suck it and see issue unless you google for a few threads on it, pray someone else has it who will tell you.

RAM speeds don't have too much of an effect under normal usage, you could possibly get the pair to play nice (manually under or overclock one of the pairs) but no guarantee so its usually better to buy matched pairs.

Why do you think your board is to blame?
 

Shinotsa

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Apr 16, 2012
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It's either the board or CPU, I have another thread attempting to figure it out right now (http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2648732/mobo-cpu-damage.html). However, currently I'm not able to boot up, not getting any beeps, and I'm not getting power to my cooler fan , USB slots, or (possibly) CPU. Getting power to case fans, GPU, and front LEDs. Might have messed up a connection somewhere when trying to deal with the ram clearance issue.

And oh damn, I checked a few things but I guess I missed something glaringly obvious. Would you have any suggestions to something that would work with my CPU yet allow me to upgrade to a better CPU in the next year or so? I'm low on funds at the moment, and just want to get the rig working asap.
 

drtoast

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May 10, 2013
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trouble with socket change is just that, socket change. You wont be upgrading that cpu any time soon. Your only option is at best a i7 3770k max on the same socket or maybe a xeon e3 seeing as you have a gpu.

which really is only the difference between i5 and i7, not much of a difference for gaming purposes. The next gen wasnt much of a perf difference to warrant upgrading to.

There are only 3 connections you can get wrong for your cpu to not get power, 24 pin, cpu, and cpu fan. but depending on the sink you would have smoked your cpu as soon as you turned on if it was just your fan.

if you can spare £30 you could get a dirty lil celeron g1620 cpu to install and see if it was your cpu, but if there is no fan movement from your board then yea its likely the board. But beware you may have done in the cpu too.

As for budget boards, I really struggle to select them as I can't handle the downsides to them. but you could get zome other sandy supporting board, cheaper chipsets just to get it running. z series chips are premium, always a b or h could suffice.
 
Solution

Shinotsa

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Apr 16, 2012
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I'm hoping the CPU is fine, as it never even made it to bios and the power never came on. I've got my money on the hope that it just had no power the entire time.

As for the Mobo, I'm looking to spend around $150 on it, give or take maybe twenty bucks. Cheaper is better, of course, but I don't want to compromise the long-term performance of the machine just so I can avoid eating ramen for a week.
 

Tradesman1

Legenda in Aeternum
Check what you have - you may want to bench it, have a guide that may help here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-1753671/bench-troubleshooting.html

among things to look at, try with a single stick, and if it boots, set manually to 1333 (and can try 1600 later) your CPU prob isn't going to carry 1866 sticks. Also note on the 212 EVO, - your fan is height adjustable - so yes you can use slot 1, I've used that cooler with full loads (4 sticks) of Tridents many, many times (in fact on your mobo, I ran 32GB of 2400 Tridents w/ a 3570K and the EVO on my IB build I had)
 

drtoast

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May 10, 2013
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well z's features only really help overclockers or those with raid set ups/ max number of hard drives and usb devices. choose your chipset by the features you will use then use pc partpicker to sort boards of the chipset out in price order, then check reviews for each one that matches your requirements.
 

Shinotsa

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Apr 16, 2012
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It's dead, Jim.

Sadly the Mobo, no matter how capable it was before, is not giving power to certain places. I've tried many different suggestions and nothing has allowed a boot or restored power to those places. Hence the upgrade.


However, now I've pinpointed an ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard as a good fit, but I've noticed that it and my case don't play nice in terms of USB ports. Case has two 3.0 and four 2.0, new Mobo has the reverse. Is there any way to hook up a 2.0 on the case to a 3.0 on the motherboard? Is there a product that fits in a 5.25 optical drive slot and uses the motherboard slot to provide to a usb 3.0? I've tried browsing newegg for one and I'm coming up with external devices or internal ones that use PCI-E slots.