Upgrading CPU??

[GrizzleBack]

I currently have
Asus A8v Deluxe Socket 939 k8 Mother Board
AMD Athlon 64fx-53 1mb cache 939 pin
Corsair 2@ 512mb ddr pc3200xl xms
Seagate Barra 120gb 8mb cache serial ata HD(just plugged in too store files currently)
Western Digital Caviar SE 120gb HD WD1200
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 zs 7.1
BFG GEFORCE FX 6800 Ultra 256mb
480 watt Power Supply

I believe that the Power Supply was going, got msg from Video Card software stating that the secondary power hook-up might not be connected. Now the vid card gets artifacts and the main case fan doesn't seem to get enough power to spin.

Anyway I want to upgrade my Mother board to SLI, new vid card and new power supply!!

I already purchased a Silencer 750 quad ATX power supply. What MB could i get and still be able to use my 64 fx53. I wanna spend around $400 more ie. Vid card and PCI express MB.

This will be one of many posts I am gonna have to make, because my Tech skill is somewhat low.

Thx for All help in Advance
Grizzle

 

[GrizzleBack]

would this MB work

ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce SPP 100 ATX AMD Motherboard

And will it work with all of the other componets that I have.
Also the Video Card I have is AGP.

 

[GrizzleBack]

Well that is cool then because I was gonna buy and new PCI card.

Should it be pci-e x1 or pci-e x16?

 

[GrizzleBack]

do i need to get a dx 9 card if i am running windows xp, or can i get a dx10 card??

 

[GrizzleBack]

Well I need more Help!!

I purchased a A8n32-sli Deluxe Motrherboard. I have been unable to post with my Western Digital HDD that was used with my old system config.

I have been able to post with the Seagate SATA, but only after I put a fresh XP operating system on it.

I would really like to get the WD-HDD to run.

What options do I have here?

 

[GrizzleBack]

I am having problems getting my MB to see the SATA as the primary HDD when the IDE HDD is connected.

What is the Slave/Master/Cable cfg that needs to be used so that the sata can be my primary and the IDE the secondary.

The IDE drive has all of my important files on it.

 

[doolittle]

In the BIOS, check out the "boot device priority" under "boot" from the main menu. Both drives should be listed, just move up the SATA drive before the IDE drive and all should be well after POST finishes and the INT13 will search the SATA drive for a boot sector first.

 

[GrizzleBack]

I have tried much of the BIOS stuff already alone and with the HDD jumper settings as well as the Primary PATA cable using the slave and Master connectors.

Again I had it working at one point, but my tech lvl is rather low and I thought I would be able to just Connect the IDE drive with the old OS on it and go. So I kept messing with settings.

Somehow the Primary IDE HDD keeps making the SATA the Slave.

My brain is HURTING!!!!

 

[doolittle]

yea the old drive should work, but windows may have issues since the old A8v is VIA chipset and the new A8N is nvidia chipset, you might get it working but may have some performance issues. Windows mobo drivers are funny like that...

Since you have a fresh install on the new SATA drive, I would disconnect the old drive altogether, see if it boots up and works at all - if so, then connect the old disk, and set up the BIOS for SATA as the primary boot device and you should be good to go. Then I would recover the old data off of the old drive, then when you have everything completely remove the old partition in disk manager then reformat it - which should effectively remove the boot sector in the old disk as well as have a nice, fresh error-free data drive.

 

[GrizzleBack]

Well the SATA does Boot Up and with no Problems. Then when I shut it down and Plug the OLD HDD in the cpu will not boot up. Even if I have the SATA set as the primary boot device.

 

[doolittle]

I took a peek at the user manual (pdf link) on page 4-37 it shows you the boot device setting I mentioned. So just arrow the cursor over to the SATA disk, then hit the "+" to move it above the IDE drive - save and exit, you are good to go.

Another windows hassle, if you installed XP with the other drive installed your XP may not be "C:" it might be "D:" - I hate that crap... I usually install on a standalone disk, then connect the other "storage" drives after the install is finished and all the mobo/GPU drivers are installed. If that is the case, I would do another install with the SATA as standalone then add the other disk like I mentioned before.

 

[doolittle]

Well the SATA does Boot Up and with no Problems. Then when I shut it down and Plug the OLD HDD in the cpu will not boot up. Even if I have the SATA set as the primary boot device.

Interesting... After a bit of research, it is a popular problem with SATA/IDE boot sector problems and mobo confusion. One way to fix is removing the bootable info from the MBR (but not the MBR in its entirety) from the old drive, and I know it can be done in linux - I found a thread that describes a similar problem and booting off of a cd distro like knoppix or DSL (damn small linux) and running
[code:1:9520e9ec3d]dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda/ bs=446 count=1[/code:1:9520e9ec3d]
in a root terminal, with the SATA drive disconnected of course, and the old drive as master/primary.

Hopefully that will work, thats a tough situation to get out of. Admin level problem for sure. Maybe Mpilch will offer a windows method to fix it if you are not familiar with linux at all or don't want to try it.

 

[GrizzleBack]

Yeah I am a CPU bonehead!! Hopefully Mpilch will know what to do.

I have no clue about linux!!!

Thank you for all of your help!!

I think I will go out and grab another SATA drives in the next couple of months!!

 

[doolittle]

I didn't even think of a partition utility, good call :trophy:

check out gparted (gnome partition editor) bootable cd you can do all that good stuff that partition commander did including the boot flag toggle.

IMHO running "dd" would be faster

 

[chief5286]

Get any Socket 939 NF4 chipset mobo OTHER THAN the Gigabyte ga k8n pro sli. That is, unless you want a nice, stable mobo with great features, but are not into overclocking. If that's the case, I'll sell you a great mobo for a fair price. 8)