Looking for help ins electing a new low cost motherboard

Not sure if how many of you read my recent thread about my system problems but that's a miute point really because I had sent ASUS the wrong number I thought was the serial number of my board, it ended up being on the back (who knew?).

Anyways today when i was looking at the board I dropped it, it hit the corner of the table perfectly and broke the socket that holds in the cpu, nice huh?

To make a long story short I need your help in selecting a new low cost motherboard that will take an AMD Athlon 64 AM@ 4000+ Chip, Corsair XMS 2 X 1 GB 240 pin DDR2 800 memory and has spots for 2 Sata HDD's a floppy, 2 cd roms and will handle an EVGA Geforce 7950 GT Video Card and will work with my PC power & cooling PSU.

I don't have a lot of money because I'm disabled and I'm having a very hard time trying to figure out what is available to me for motherboards? Every time I try to search for something on Newegg all I find is two Mobo's and from what I read niether of them will work for me?

Seriously, all help will be greatly appreciated!

Do you need a socket 939 motherboard? or the more recent AM2 socket?

The CPU is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Windsor 4000+, Both Cd's are IDE as they both use a ribbon cable to connect them to the motherboard.

Will any of the motherboars you listed work with the cpu, cdroms, memory and video card I have? What about the information I have on the hard drives? Will that be reachable or is all that lost now to because I screed up the motheboard? I'm really hoping I can at least acces the hard drives so I can pull some files off of them? I do have system mechanic, if I can't get to the hdd' information the regular way, do you think that could pull it off? Thanks again for all the help I;ve been given in here. You guys are really the best place for help and information!

Seems like as my disability gets worse my train of thought and way of thinking is gettig worse .

No thank God. Thanks so much for all your help, I really appreciate it

Sorry I was hoping to get the last question I asked answered? I looked at those boards but I'm at a loss as to if they will be good for Internet, Email, Web surfind, MS Office pro 2003 suite and most importantly playing online game such as SWG and WOW. I was also looking at a couple of those Mob's and seen that some people had orderd a new CPU a AMD Brisbane 5200 X2 2.7Ghz 65W dual core; How much faster would this thing be than my AMD 4000+ Windsor?

Also if a motherboard is for an X2/X3 and says 1066 for memory, will it run fine with a X2 cpu with DDR2 800 memory like I have or is that board specific?

Again, I'm looking to replace a bad motherboard and I have like 150 - 299 to spend all together. When I lok at a lot of thiose board that were reccomended, they also have listing for the new CPU as I stated above but also a video card? I know the card listed is low priced, but is it cheap, will it run online games? IS it better than the EVGA Geforce 7950GT that I have? I'll stop there for now, and I really am sorry I have so many (probably stupid questions).

Any of the recommendations shown here will cover all your computing needs .

With your working budget we can upgrade quality of the parts a bit.
At the low end you could easily get by with your X2 4000+ and a new AM2 motherboard. ASRock A780LM AM2+/AM2 (760G) Motherboard $56

That 2.1Ghz X2 4000+ is still a very capable CPU.
But you could get a nice boost in CPU power for not a lot of money these days.
You mentioned the X2 5200 2.7Ghz ($66) and there is the X2 6400 3.2Ghz ($80). In that same price range there is also
the new AM3 Athlon II X2 250 ($76)

Comparing your X2 4000+ to the new CPUs this chart shows the relative power. For the X2 4000+ we know its slightly less powerful than the Pentium E2160 so use that as your X2 4000+ performance. II X2 250 chart and X2 4000+ chart


That Athlon II X2 250 is showing a very good price/performance ratio.
And I've found a great combo deal for $136 and free shipping: Athlon II X2 250 & GIGABYTE GA-MA785G AM3/AM2+ 785G motherboard
The GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM will work with your Corsair DDR2 800 RAM. You could upgrade the RAM from 2GB to 4GB for about $40-45 but it won't have a large impact on how fast your system will be compared to the amount spent.

If you feel you need to upgrade your 7950GT to try some of the newer games on the market you could fit a 9600GT or a HD 4850 into your budget.
THG: Best cards for the money Sep 09

You should probably list the model of PC P&C PSU so you're using. That could limit which video card upgrade you're able to handle.
PC P&C 420W will handle a HD 4850
PC P&C 370 will handle a 9600GT

You should have no issues with the RAM or with the PSU. I consider getting a 4670 GPU if you want to upgrade the GPU for better gaming. The x2 250 w/the 785 mobo should be a decent combo to get for the $. The 4670 is about $70 or so. The 4850 would be a better upgrade, but it's just about $20 more or so. You could even fit the 4870 into the budget if you want to. What GPU you buy should be based on what your monitor resolution is at. If your above 1680 x 1050 than the 4850/4870 would be a smarter buy. If you at or below the 1680 x 1050 than the 4850/4670/4770 would be a more sensible buy. It's up to you, but that is what I'd consider.

I'm planning on ordering the Athlon II X2 250 & GIGABYTE GA-MA785G AM3/AM2+ 785G motherboard Tomorrow but just want to make sure that I will still be able to plug my hdd's, memory and Video card and it will work fairly well?

I can then over time buy new 1066 memory or additional 800 memory and a video card. I really hate to let the GIGABYTE GV-R467ZL-1GI Radeon HD 4670 1GB $70 and $10 rebate go but in order for me to buy this I'd have to wait until thursday or friday to order it and by then both deals will probably be gone, won't they? If not then I'll wait until Friday and order both of these. From what I've read here in the replies, I would be upgrading my total performance by at least 50% for about $200 bucks, not bad at all! Thanks again for everyone's help!

Thanks guys I just ordered the Athlon II X2 250 & GIGABYTE GA-MA785G AM3/AM2+ 785G motherboard
I'll let you know when it comes in and how it works once I get it in and everything I have hooked up to it. I'm hoping that within the next couple of months I'll be able to order a new video card and faster memory. I'm still a WinXP pro user and have no inclination of going to vista, at least for the forseeable future. Aain, this could have never happned without the help of all of you in here who contriibuted to helping me.

First I want to say that Newegg is without a doubt the best place to get computer parts there is, Bar none! I ordered the new motherboard and CPU combination yesterday and today at 10:35 AM EST the UPS guy was dropping it off on my front porch.


Now to the bad news, after hooking everything back upi and hitting power, nothing happened. I went through everything and even called Gigabyte tech support who also walked me through the trouble shooting to finally come to the conclusion that the power supply is what's bad, not the old motherboard.

That being said I need help in finding a good low cost at lest 550W power supply that has ATX12V2X4, in lamans terms (for my sake) the power supply need to have 2 atx 12v connectors for the CPU as well as the 24 pin main motherboard connector.

Not sure if this matters or not but I need connectors for the two SATA Hdd's, a video card etc.. If you guys could come up with something that has free shipping and is around the $60 - $75.00 mark I'd love it. I'm going to go look now but I'm sure I'll get lost as I look because I always do . Thnaks for all your help in the past and for this., As for my computer problems this has to be the fix for it? right? lol

That PSU would work. Here's a list of the one's to consider:

$80 shipped. 35A on the 12v rails and comes with 1 x 6 pin & 1 x 6+2 pin PCI-e power connectors for your GPU and has 4 & 8 pin CPU power connectors.
PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS500D 500W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply compatible with core i7 - Retail

$65 shipped! Your selection has 32A on the 12v rails and also has the 6 pin and 6+2 pin PCI-e power connectors and 4 & 8 pin CPU power connectors.
Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Retail

$68 shipped! Has 34A on the 12v rails and has 2 x 6 pin PCI-e power connectors and 4 & 8 pin CPU power connector.
SeaSonic SS-500ET 500W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - OEM

You could run on a 400-450w PSU with what you have, but you'll just need to get an adaptor from 2 x 4 pin connector to a 6 pin PCI-e power connector. Usually they come in most GPU boxes when you buy one. If you have one, than you could save a little $ and get a quality 400-450w PSU. This option will limit your upgrade paths a bit, but it will save you a little $ now and you can upgrade later, if you need to.

Suggested PSU's in the 400-450w range:
$50 shipped! Has 30A on the combined 12v rails and comes with 1 x 6 pin PCI-e power connectors and 1 x 4 pin CPU power connector.
Antec earthwatts EA430 430W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.0 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Retail

$50 - $20 MIRc = $30!! Has 30A on the 12v rail and comes with 1 x 6 pin PCI-e power connectors and 4/8 pin CPU power connector.
CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail

Now just remember which power connections you need (PCI-e/CPU) and select the right PSU for your needs. Any of these PSU's will work for you, just remember that you will need a 2 x 4 pin to 6 pin PCI-e power connector on the 400-450w PSU's, if you go that way. This "Y" connector should've shipped with your GPU, so check that out in your shipping box and see if you want to go that way.