Bandwidth Place 2

well, I have been without my desktop now for about 3 weeks. hoggin the wife's laptop LOL.
Started when I cleaned my CPU heat sink. Upon putting it back in the screw driver slipped and jabbed the motherboard. Should have seen the look on my face :O. I got it on but upon power-up, nothing happened. "crap" I say and proceed to get another motherboard (which socket A's are hard to find at a reasonable price). I get an epox from a local computer store (only one in the try city area that has one). no boot. Upon troubleshooting I find my power supply is bad. Lost ether 5v or 5vsb, I forget. I have a PS tester. I purchase another power supply but the board still didn't boot. Gave and F2 code on the on-board LED but there is no literature on that code. Even the guy at the store, when I brought it back, couldn't find anything so he refunded me. I end up getting an Identical used board from ebay. That didn't boot. Fans run, I hear the drives spin, lights come on, but no boot. Not even a post beep or signal to monitor. I retest the PS, swap video cards, remove sound card, mix and match 4 sticks of ram, remove HDD, remove floppy, remove CD, nothing worked. I bought a used processor, again, just like the one I had, and still nothing. The guy I got it from on eBay might swap me a NEW MSI board for the DOA one. I just sent him an email about it, that is after I explained the situation to him and told him "in the process of waiting for a new chip I will go past the return date, I will leave feedback once tested". He in turn told me he got 1500 new MSI boards in and to let him know when tested. I guess we shall see. Hopefully the board will work with what I have. I am totally bummin.
sorry for the long story but I had to vent.

oh man lol, I jabbed my dad's now-replacd (for another reason) PC's motherboard doing the exact same thing years ago, theres a scratch but thankfully it stll works. Purely going by the fact that both of our systems where that incident occured were Socket A, I'm going to conclude that the Socket A mounting design is shit and would explain why the current design for the 754(?)/939/940/AM2/AM2+ has a lever in charge of the later tightening of the mount (not all force needs to be applied to he initial hook-on).

Anyway, seriously if that board doesn't work, consider getting a nice cheap modern PC. I'm sure it would be worth the saved time and expense.

Actually I am thinking about doing a bit of an upgrade. Probably AM2. I would need to buy the MB, CPU\heat sink, Memory and video card. I think I can get a decent set for about $350 to $400. Any suggestions?
I wouldn't be able to actually buy anything for a few weeks so I can come up with the money.

still gaming right?

You can probably get a good MB, energy efficient dual core, and 2GB RAM for about 200, leaving about the same amount for a video card

For the motherboard the only board I really know about is the one I got for my dad's replacement PC and I chose it specifically for its integrated video's native support for multiple monitors (he doesn't game):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128056

For CPU I think the Brisbane core CPUs are nice, come in "45W" and "65W" varieties:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... e=Brisbane
One sad note about these CPUs is that they come with an uber pansy heatsink, worse than the original A64 heatsink, 2mm gap between fins, no heatpipes, etc.

Get 2GB of RAM for like $40+

APPROXIMATELY 200 bucks are left for the video card, in that case the Radeon HD 3850 are nice.

I will defiantly keep that stuff in mind, thanks. One quick question, with a 64bit processor, do I have to get a 64 bit OS or will it be compatible with 32 bit?

lol

Not sure if I am getting a refund/exchange yet. I haven't heard from the guy and I am not counting on anything. As for shorting, its the same board that I had before. Weather he does or not I am still looking to upgrade. I have held out long enough and these parts are hard to find. Still, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." comes to mind. I'll be better off upgrading.
This is what I had in mind for parts...
(keeping in mind I am not buying anything for a few weeks)
Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813138077
(I really don't need on board video)
CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103774
Heat sink
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835224006
ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820141185
(maybe 2 sets )
video
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130293

Hows that? About $267 with 2 sets of ram, not including shipping.

The mobo has a pretty low proportion of 5 egg ratings

Same CPU I chose for dad yay lol

That cooler is a joke, seriously, what/why/how did you choose that?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... yper%2btx2
this ones much better and cheaper, I'm using it in my dad's PC, it works great. I can turn the fan off at idle and it stays at about 35C (again, same CPU). It has a shitload of bad reviews because it's socket 775 mount doesn't actually fit, but you don't need to worry about that, going AMD and all. Its pretty quiet too (not counting when the fan is off of course XD)

While I'm not one to really care about RAM going on a divider, please note that when your CPU goes full speed, it runs the RAM at 350MHz. DDR2-667 is 333MHz. That being said, shoot for DDR2-800 at the least, if you want to anyway.

8500GT??? I don't think it was even rated as a gaming video card. Its all features, no performance.
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_ ... &chart=345
First of all, I chose the SLI/Crossfire chart because 8500GT doesn't even show up in the single card charts, secondly, the two blue bars are comparing the 8500GT SLI vs the SLI of what I recall being the video card you used. Hardly a step forward. 200% emphasis on HARDLY.

The 8500GT is not your card if you're a gamer
You sure you want to spend under a hundred for a video card?

Must have hit a wrong button with the cooler. I like the one you picked. How is this for memory...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820211064

OK, how is this for video....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130062

and, yes, under $100 is always good. The wife and I aren't loaded. I don't need top of the line. I just need my card to play my games with no problems. The card doesn't need to beat everyone else's.
as for the mobo, if the only problem is the amount of feedback, Ill stick with it. Looks like a good board.

Looks much better now, I bet your fps will go up 3 times or more lol, 2x just by the video card, one more because your CPU will pwn that Athlon XP.

sweet. Can I use windows 32bit with the 64 processor?

I need to get more plastic motherboard mounting riser pins and I can't find any. Can anyone help?

Most certainly you can run 32bit stuff on those CPUs, ALL 64bit CPUs are also 32bit EXCEPT for Intel Itanium which you do not need to concern yourself with as you will never see it.

eh, dunno about plastic, what about the metal riser screws? lol

cool. I was looking at the motherboard site and all I found were drivers for 64 bit OS's.

Thats funny, because when I searched just now:

http://www.biostar-usa.com/mbdownloads. ... l=NF520-A2
There ain't nuttin'.

EDIT:
nvm I followed their link to the Taiwan site, which lists both 32bit and 64bit drivers, some of them are the same download. its fine At least I hope so...
http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en-us/mb/ ... p?S_ID=159
on-board VGA? where?