Upgrading broken PC, LGA 775 to 1155

All_A

March 6, 2012 8:40:55 PM

Yesterday my PC from 2008 broke down and my conclusion is that the MB/bios is guilty.
I was considering just replacing the MB, but
a) Its hard to find LGA 775 MB that fits my needs;
b) Its about time to upgrade imo.

Instead of buying all new, I want to keep what I can and upgrade the rest later.

Current Build:
Keeping:
GFX-card: GeForce 8800GT 512mb
Case: Antec P182 Performance One
PSU: Corsair VX550W
Misc: 4 HDD, 22" Samsung Syncmaster, Samsung SH-S203P DD, mouse, keyboard etc.
Replacing:
MB: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
CPU: Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4 GHz
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master X?
RAM: 4GB Corsair DDR2 800

Quick info: Time frame is this week; Prefer to buy locally(Denmark); No OC; No sli/crossfire.
Budget: No exact amount. Best value for money, but should last ~4 years.

My plan is to jump to the LGA 1155 platform, and here is the replacements Im currently looking at:

MB: Asus P8Z68-V LX
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml...
CPU: Core i5 2500K
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml...
CPU Cooler: ? Any suggestions here?
RAM: 8GB G.SKILL Ripjaws Series (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1333
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

This sums up to around 330$.

About my use/requirements:
I want to be able to play most games with good performance, but wont be playing for at least a month or two. When I have the time I play FPS games and mmorpg's like wow etc, and I'm planning on getting The Secret World from Funcom.
When I work I usually have lots of applications/browsers etc open, some of them very memory hungry. Minimum RAM should be 4gb, prefer 8gb and would probably want 12gb or more later when I need to run virtual machines.
I don't (usually) OC, and I tend to build a new PC after 4-5 years.

I would appreciate any inputs/suggestions in this little upgrade project. Will the PSU do fine with the new components? Im planning to upgrade my gfx card only when the need arises, but any suggestions on what to aim for would be great too.

Extra info on the broken PC: (Only for the curious)
I bumped into the case with my chair, and everything froze on the screen. I powered down by holding the power btn. Since then it does a endless reboot whenever I power it on: Starts up, LED lights on MB light up/CPU fan running etc, but after ~10sec it kills the power, waits 3-4sec and starts the cycle again. (it will do so untill I pull the plug). (blank monitor btw).
Ive tried unplugging everything/plugged some etc, reset the bios, ram change etc, but nothing changes.

More about : upgrading broken lga 775 1155

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geofelt

March 6, 2012 10:26:00 PM

Your replacements look good, and are appropriate.
Tne "K" in the 2500K allows you to increase the default multiplier from 30 to 40. Almost every 2500K will do this, and with safety.
It is worth while exploring that option.

It is time to change anyway.
If you are a big multitasker, 16gb would be ok too. Ram is very cheap these days.

Your 550w psu is fine. The newer parts will actually take less power. In fact, the new 28nm graphics cards, like the 7970 will be OK with a 500w psu.

The stock Intel 2500K cooler is OK, but can get noisy.
See if you can't buy a adapter for your current 775 socket cooler.
If you can't an inexpensive cooler like the cm hyper212 or Xigmatek gaia will be all you need.

At this time, can you consider using a SSD for the os and a few apps or games? It will make your pc feel much quicker.

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All_A

March 10, 2012 11:14:00 PM

Thanks a lot for the comments and advice geofelt.

I ended up with the MB, CPU and 8gb Ram listed above, but using the stock cooler for now. It is noisy so will look into replacing it but not a priority atm.
I also ended up buying a 128gb SSD for my OS as you suggested, and although that decision resulted in a few problems initially, I'm very happy with the speed.

I ran into a mix of problems during this upgrade which others might use/learn from when they need to upgrade:

First I switched out the MB/CPU/RAM and hooked up my original HDD with Win7. This resulted in endless BSOD and I never actually got Win7 started up. This is a common problem when changing MB/CPU, and the best (only) solution is really a clean install of win.

I still had stuff on my OS disk I wanted to keep so decided against a format+install on that, and bought a SSD disk instead.

After some research I went for the OCZ Vertex 3 120gb. Unplugged all other drives (important when installing OS on SSD), plugged in the SSD and powered up. The disk showed up in bios, where I checked the settings were correct and rebooted. During the Win7 install it couldn't find the disk.. I rebooted and went into the BIOS which now couldn't see the disk either.
I tried everything, but after a little research/googling it was clear that a lot of ppl had similar problems with the OCZ drives.. I RMA'ed it and got a Samsung SSD 830 128gb instead. (The tech ppl in the shop tested it while I was there and confirmed it was "a bad disk" - took 5min to get a new one

The Samsung works without a problem, and Im up and running on my new and greatly improved PC.

I did have some problems mounting both of the 2.5" SSD in my Antec P182 though. The problem with Antec 182 and others is that the screws just doesn't match with the mounting bracket/case (too long/short, big/small). I came up with a custom solution though.

The OCZ Vertex 3 I attached to the included mounting bracket with screws, and attached that to the case with some double sided tape.
For the Samsung 830 I tried something different. I had bought a mounting bracket in the shop, and again attached the disk to this with screws. I emptied my old toolbox and found 1 screw that I was able to use for attaching case/bracket. To secure it in place I used some cable binders, and the end result is actually not bad

I uploaded a few pics of both methods:

Double sided tape on the OCZ Vertex 3:

Using cable binders with the Samsung 830:

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