Back from the dead... Help!

[small256]

Hey all, I used to post on here a long time ago whilst I was building.

Once again, I need all your god-like help!

So, here's what's been going on:

I bought my pc a while ago now, at the time it was expensive, fast, almost top-of-the-range stuff. I'm not even sure if I should be posting in the High Performanc section anymore :S Anyway, about... hmm, 8 months after having it, one morning, it didn't start. Or rather, it -did- start, but only for a couple of seconds until it died. Then it tried to start again! But it died... This went on and on and despite the poor things valiant efforts, it just couldn't keep it together. "Awww". So, after a good amount of fiddling and frustration, I took it to someone with more know-how. They thought it was probably the motherboard.

After about the third time of being ignored by the company I bought the mobo from, I gave up. The PC sat there and gathered dust. All £800 of it, or whatever it cost at the time.

Until today! When I have decided to resurrect it and get some of those decent games running again.

So, I need a little advice on which motherboard I can use now.

I had (I think) the following:

BFG 8800 gts oc
Corsair HX520w PSU
Possibly e6600 c2d
2gb G Skill Pc6400
2x250gb Seagate barracudas in RAID something-or-other that was supposed to make it faster but ended up being a bad idea because I couldn't take anything off of them again...
Aaaaand finally:
GA 965p DS3 = broken (Or so it seems anyway)

So, what motherboard can I get that would suit all of that and is preferably cheaper than the £65 worth of GA 965p DS3 replacement?


EDIT: Amusingly, I just realised that the spec was in my sig... It really has been a while since I posted here.

 

[The Zune Guy]

That is not a bad system to be sitting doing nothing, shame on you for letting it go this long. (I would get the old Pentium D rig I have serviced if it broke, and that is slow! )
Anyway, Gigabyte boards are cheap and good. You do overclock yes? With that chip you should be able to hit something fairly high, so there's no point buying a crappy motherboard. I have experience with both the P35-DS3R and P45-DS3R (The DS3's might not be bad but never tried them, and I might use Raid some day ) . Either will suit you well, although the p45 version is the newer version.

P45- Scan Computers UK: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R, iP45 Express, S775, PCI-E 2.0x16, DDR2 1066/1200/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX
P35- Scan Computers UK: Gigabyte GA P35C-DS3R, iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-Ex16, DDR2/3 1066/1333/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX

The DS3- Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 P45 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer
They're of scan but maybe can be got cheaper on ebuyer, dabs..look them up

PS: If you want to treat yourself, look at this, best p35 board you can get I think ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP iP35 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer

 

[small256]

Thanks for your reply!

Budget-wise, out of all of those it's looking most likely to be the P35. I know I could spend more but... spending is so hard!!

So yes, that's great, I'll look into that one!

EDIT: Shopping around, as I do, I found that scan was the cheapest as you suggested but I also found this: **B Grade** Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard

What exactly -is- B grade? It's not a term I've heard before.

 

[meat_helmet]

Thanks for your reply!

Budget-wise, out of all of those it's looking most likely to be the P35. I know I could spend more but... spending is so hard!!

So yes, that's great, I'll look into that one!

EDIT: Shopping around, as I do, I found that scan was the cheapest as you suggested but I also found this: **B Grade** Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard

What exactly -is- B grade? It's not a term I've heard before.

I would advise against getting a combo DDR2 and DDR3 board, because they can have problems as they are designed to use more that one ram spec.

Anyway, the normal P35-DS3R is a great board, and very cheap now. I have been using one for about 18 months now with no issues, and we used to recommend it for every build untill the P45 boards came out. Or if you want to go even cheaper the DS3L is good, it is the same board without RAID support.

 

[The Zune Guy]

I would advise against getting a combo DDR2 and DDR3 board, because they can have problems as they are designed to use more that one ram spec.

Good point, I did search scan but that was the only version I could find .

Anyway, the normal P35-DS3R is a great board, and very cheap now. I have been using one for about 18 months now with no issues, and we used to recommend it for every build untill the P45 boards came out. Or if you want to go even cheaper the DS3L is good, it is the same board without RAID support.

Yep, I agree perfectly. DS3L will do fine

 

[small256]

Well, cheap is good, definitely... however, the current HDDs that I have for it, I put in RAID... something. I can't remember the numbers now, it was a while ago. Striping, whichever one that was. RAID 0?

So, as I'd set the HDDs up on this now-borken motherboard, will I have problems if I transfer them to another? And would they even -work- on a non-RAID board?

I did try to get data off of them at one point but they wouldn't start up on any machine
£20 off of the cost -does- appeal, I'll admit. But, if I have to get a RAID board to suit the drives then it's not big deal.

And I'll take your advice on that one and stay away from the DDR3/DDR2 board.

 

[Redmo0n]

If your changing motherboards you will need to re install windows.

If the Hard drives are raided you can remove the RAID and continue to use them i believe, but if the board doesn't suppost RAID then you obviously can't re-RAID them.

 

[small256]

If the Hard drives are raided you can remove the RAID and continue to use them i believe, but if the board doesn't suppost RAID then you obviously can't re-RAID them.

Well, I never really got anything noticeable out of having a RAID setup, so I probably won't miss it. If anything I'd mirror this time if I did decided to, but it's doubtful.

The thing that worries me is if I will get the same problem with the harddrives as I did when I tried to take bits and bobs of of them when the PC first died. They basically just didn't want to know. Admittedly, I don't think it was a RAID eneabled PC that I used in an attempt to save some data but, if that's the case, won't the same problem happen if I get a non-RAID board now?

Also, is De-RAIDing (as it were) a case of simply putting them in a non-RAID board (which I'm doubting) or would I have to format them completely? Yes, you caught me, I really don't undertand RAID that well.

 

[hickfarm]

If you get a new motherboard I would suggest just to plug the hard drives in normally and just install windows. You don't have to unraid just format them. Don't raid or do mirroring or anything. I would install windows on one hard drive and then use the other hard drive to save all your songs, videos, and pictures so if you have this happen again or if windows goes corrupt you will still have all your media and you will just have to reinstall windows.

Hopfully you don't have anything on those harddrives that you want.

 

[small256]

Well, nothing that I've not lived without for over a year, so I won't miss it too much.

Format it is then.

Thanks everyone for your help and advice.