Motherboard died - suggestions please

[Dan the man]

Hi All,

My MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital board has just died so I'm left with a load of components I'd, ideally, like to reuse so any suggestions would be appreciated.

1. I need a motherboard with at least 3 PCI slots for my Nova-Ts, preferably 4 as I'd like to experiment with a satellite card as well.

2. Gigabit ethernet. I've recently moved into a new place, which I'll wire-up soon, and want to connect my clients up with an eye to HD in the future.

3. Onboard graphics would be good but not essential.

4. SATA HDD - I've both a 500GB and 1TB drives

5. Form factor doesn't matter as it'll be in an ATX size tower.

6. 2GB DDR2 Memory

ATI or Nvidia graphics are fine as I've managed to have success with both although I could only get the ATI 690g onboard graphics working properly in Vista.

I'm happy to build this as either just a server machine or server/main PC machine.

Any thoughts gratefully received.

Thanks,

Dan

[pcostanza]

I'm partial to ASUS though I'm not a avid overclocker but I find their boards priced very well and last.
Just got the new sale info today from Newegg. Maybe you can find something here you like.

[dalabera]

I'm partial to ASUS though I'm not a avid overclocker but I find their boards priced very well and last.
Just got the new sale info today from Newegg. Maybe you can find something here you like.

I bought recently an asus. I was dissapointed with 2 things: Didn't bring 1394 and my mobo comes with HDMI + SPDIF, so the sound configuration is very complex because the NVIDIA driver handles the HDMI and SPDIF is handle by realtek.
I see a lot of people here using gygabyte, however they were kind of expensive with the features I was looking for. I'm happy with my NVIDIA chipset.
Good Luck...

[LewE]

Hi All,

My MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital board has just died so I'm left with a load of components I'd, ideally, like to reuse so any suggestions would be appreciated.

1. I need a motherboard with at least 3 PCI slots for my Nova-Ts, preferably 4 as I'd like to experiment with a satellite card as well.

2. Gigabit ethernet. I've recently moved into a new place, which I'll wire-up soon, and want to connect my clients up with an eye to HD in the future.

3. Onboard graphics would be good but not essential.

4. SATA HDD - I've both a 500GB and 1TB drives

5. Form factor doesn't matter as it'll be in an ATX size tower.

6. 2GB DDR2 Memory

ATI or Nvidia graphics are fine as I've managed to have success with both although I could only get the ATI 690g onboard graphics working properly in Vista.

I'm happy to build this as either just a server machine or server/main PC machine.

Any thoughts gratefully received.

Thanks,

Dan

I Just built myself a PC based around an Intel motherboard. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813121348). It is pretty much to the same specs you are looking for except I have 4GB RAM for now (with plans to add another 4GB in a few months).

One of the things that ruled out most motherboards for me was I wanted at least 3 PCI slots because of the capture cards I have. I am running a Core2 Q8400 quad processor and 64-bit Windows 7 Release Candidate. I've already bought a cheap copy of WIndows XP Pro ($55 on eBay) and placed my pre-order for the Windows 7 upgrade. That brings the OS cost to around $105 which would cost around $200 to buy a full copy of Win7 later.

In my searching, I found that the AMD based motherboards come with on board video and the Intel based boards usually do not include the on-board video. I think this is because most users are pretty particular about the video card they want and would just as soon not have an on-board video.

The machine I built was pretty much to game machine level of performance in every aspect except the video card. I don't use it to play games so I didn't care about a high performance video card. I will use the machine to replace my current PC. In both instances, the PC is used for normal everyday use and to run GBPVR. I have three capture cards which can capture a total of four channels simultaneously. I view the programs through a MediaMVP and a Popcornhour A100 so there is no load on the PC during capture or viewing. The only times when there is CPU load due to GBPVR is the nightly processing of the new EPG download and running Comskip after each program has been recorded. With the Quad processor being able to run multiple tasks at a time, even these will not significantly impact normal PC user interaction.

I bought the motherboard from WVave. They had a bundle where I added CPU and memory and they assembled the parts and tested them for free before shipping. One caution. I didn't realize that the CPU already came with a cooling fan. I bought one in addition and now have a fan I have no use for. It was only $10 so, after a 15% restocking fee and shipping charges it doesn't make any sense for me to return it.

I've been very happy with it so far. I'd be glad to answer any questions you have about what I learned from my build.

[Dan the man]

Thanks Guy.

I've just purchased an Asus M3A78 PRO AMD 780G from Aria.co.uk

I know it's got the 780G graphics chip which several people have had problems with but I thought I'd give it a go. £73 delivered.

I'll be back with questions if I have any problems