So my mom owns the above mentioned socket 939 AMD system from HP and is finally tired of fighting it. USB ports don't seem to work anymore and neither does the optical drive. The old dog takes approximately forever and a day to start up even though there don't seem to be that many programs running on start up. All the uninstall/reinstall type stuff has been done to no great effect. I'm thinking that the mobo is on its way out but I kinda wonder about the power supply as well. As long as she's been running it this way I'm kind of questioning the integrity of the CPU itself.
I've done a little bit (not much) surfing around the internet for socket 939 motherboards but for the price it seems like she might be just as well off in the long run to bite the bullet and step up to a new system.
So, here are my questions:
1. Are my suspicions that the mobo is bad well founded? If not, what's my likely culprit?
2. Regardless of which path I take, will it be possible to/should I bother to reuse the HP case? I understand that those folks like to go the proprietary route with many things. That is to say, will an atx style mobo or non-HP PSU fit this case?
3. And finally, depending on what may or may not still be salvageable, upgrade or start from scratch?
Also, I'm not 100% certain on the budget but the steel reinforced concrete ceiling is probably around $500 USD, probably including a copy of Windows 7.
P.S. Completely unrelated, sidenote bonus question that I probably already know the answer to but would like confirmation on: Will an ATI graphics card work on an MSI NF750-G55 mobo with an NVIDIA chipset?
Thanks in advance for everyone's help.
EDIT: Should probably also mention that she's uses the system primarily for surfing the web, word processing, very occasional movie watching, and some farmtown or whatever that facebook game is.
I've done a little bit (not much) surfing around the internet for socket 939 motherboards but for the price it seems like she might be just as well off in the long run to bite the bullet and step up to a new system.
So, here are my questions:
1. Are my suspicions that the mobo is bad well founded? If not, what's my likely culprit?
2. Regardless of which path I take, will it be possible to/should I bother to reuse the HP case? I understand that those folks like to go the proprietary route with many things. That is to say, will an atx style mobo or non-HP PSU fit this case?
3. And finally, depending on what may or may not still be salvageable, upgrade or start from scratch?
Also, I'm not 100% certain on the budget but the steel reinforced concrete ceiling is probably around $500 USD, probably including a copy of Windows 7.
P.S. Completely unrelated, sidenote bonus question that I probably already know the answer to but would like confirmation on: Will an ATI graphics card work on an MSI NF750-G55 mobo with an NVIDIA chipset?
Thanks in advance for everyone's help.
EDIT: Should probably also mention that she's uses the system primarily for surfing the web, word processing, very occasional movie watching, and some farmtown or whatever that facebook game is.