Motherboard dead.... Go New or used?

Legrand68

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Mar 1, 2017
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I have (had) a GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD3R (LGA 1366) motherboard that finally bit the dust over the weekend. It's acted up before, not wanting to reboot from time to time, but after a neighborhood power failure, it's not coming back to life. The thing came out in 2009 so it doesn't really owe me anything, and while the box boasted of 50,000 hour capacitors, I seem to have got an estimated 87,ooo hours out of it.

I don't play any super bleeding edge games anymore, with my "newest, most graphic intensive" one being OW, which ran fine with the system I had. I still hang out playing TF2 most of the time and don't think I'll ever need much more of a computer than the one I had. The i7 920 was just fine for my purposes.

The problem is that you can't buy a "new" LGA 1366 motherboard anymore, at least not that I can find. I can buy a used one (no idea how many hours on it) for ~$125±10 or I can go the new route and spend several hundred dollars on a new CPU and motherboard. I don't even know if I would need new ram or not...

What would be the best options for something comparable to what I had? I picked out an i7 9700 and a
GIGABYTE Z390 UD but I don't know if this is overkill or not. It's about $500 for the two, but if I didn't have to spend that much, it'd be great...
 
motherbaord is probably the most hardest thing to fully teste. I would avoid used unless you save big time on it
 
i agree. any part has a finite lifespan. a used one in good shape is just closer to its end of life. there's a lot of potential for headaches not far down the road. i've been in the same boat as you when i fried the mainboard for my old opteron 165 system. it was s939 and AMD stopped making them in favour of AM2 for DDR2 support. in short, i was screwed. yes it meant dumping my ram as well as my cpu but i'm glad i did it just for reliability.

if money is super tight, maybe going used is what you want to do. i'm just saying know the risks. you may spend some money on a used board only to have it die in a year or less with no warranty and be right back where you are now. you'd end up spending more. or you might get lucky and get a board that goes for years. with modern ceramic capacitors, it's not unheard of for a mainboard to go over 10 years. i've usually gone with gigabyte as well since i have found them to be very reliable in the long run. BIOS bugs yes plenty, but they do fix them. they just take their time doing so. pick your poison i guess.

also keep in mind that DDR3 ram like you have is starting to dry up. it won't be long before getting more will be nearly impossible - this happened to me with the s939 system mentioned as DDR2 quickly replaced DDR1. it would be a shame to spend money on the board only to throw it out because you need more ram and can't get it.

sounds like you plan your systems like i do. use them until they're junk, no major upgrades. generally i build a system with a good midrange cpu and graphics card. get a bit more ram than i need. down the road, i always plan to double the ram at some point and replace the graphics card to extend its life. overclock as necessary to get all i can out of it. i generally don't upgrade the cpu or replace the mainboard. once i get a game or something i want to run that it outright can't even start, that's when i scrap the system and start over. i've had my skylake system since shortly after they released....so almost 4 years now? still going strong.

if you decide to do a full upgrade, sell your old cpu and memory. recover some of your costs that way. i sold my opteron and the ddr1 ram right here on these forums.
 
Bummer, hate to hear that "old reliable" has gone south on ya :(

If I were in your shoes, I'd start pricing out an Ryzen system, maybe a 2600 and go from there. As THRESHIN mentioned, sell what you can to help cover the costs a little bit. Now that RAM prices are back down to sane levels, I'd imagine it's a good time to buy that too (just be sure to buy off the QVL list for your RAM if possible)

My other thought is while buying new is always nice, you do have a lot of hardware to pick from on this site's FS/FT. That's where I bought my CPU/Mobo combo in my sig from and we've had a solid year+ of gaming together with no hiccups. Tiny sample size... but still.

Got a rough budget you'd like to spend btw?
 
Thanks for the detailed and extensive replies guys. I upgraded my main HDD to a ssd a year or so ago and my video card to a 960 along with a new monitor a couple years back. It's been a solid system with upgrades as needed. My lian li 10 bay computer case has been the stalwart backbone forever.

Anyway, I guess what I was really asking was how much will a comparable motherboard CPU and ram run me? I can irresponsibly spend several hundred dollars, but I'd rather not. I really don't need a bleeding edge system any more.
 
you sure its dead? have you tested/replaced the cmos battery? if it is truly dead, RIP, she served you well!
 
I had thought about the battery but ruled it out off hand. I just changed it for giggles and it is still dead.

If I leave the ps switched off for a while to let the capacitors drain and then switch the ps back on and hit the power switch I get the briefest green blink from the led on the surface of the motherboard and that's it. The USB ports sometimes seem to send full power and other times they seem to pulse around once a second. I bought a new ps back a couple years ago when this first happened hoping that was the problem so I've tried the new ps now as well.
 
Comparable? May as well go better. Like Alpha said, price up maybe a 2600-based system. Great value. 3000~mhz ddr4 RAM 16GB, Ryzen 2600, or maybe a 1700 if the deal is better, and a B450 board. Should be less than 500 and work out better value than your priced out 9700k system, which doesn't seem to include RAM in that equation. (the only Intel 9 series I'd personally recommend if you're not a baller is the 9400f, 6 cores, decent boost, low power, easy to drive, cheap platform (b360), and 2666 ram is all it really takes on that platform bringing costs down further).

If you're near a Microcenter, definitely look out for their super board + 1600/1700 ryzen systems as they can be had as a steal (<200 together) often. Throw in some RAM and you're at what ~300-350!

(https://www.microcenter.com/product...-am4-boxed-processor-with-wraith-spire-cooler for example)
 
It's been eons since I had an AMD, not that I have anything against them. I think the last one was a 1900 Athlon?

I'm not near a microcenter but I'll check out their AMD packages as a reference.
 
I had thought about the battery but ruled it out off hand. I just changed it for giggles and it is still dead.

If I leave the ps switched off for a while to let the capacitors drain and then switch the ps back on and hit the power switch I get the briefest green blink from the led on the surface of the motherboard and that's it. The USB ports sometimes seem to send full power and other times they seem to pulse around once a second. I bought a new ps back a couple years ago when this first happened hoping that was the problem so I've tried the new ps now as well.
k. you've tried it with just the bare minimum and outside the case?
 
It's been eons since I had an AMD, not that I have anything against them. I think the last one was a 1900 Athlon?

I'm not near a microcenter but I'll check out their AMD packages as a reference.

Ryzen presents fantastic value, hence the recommendation. The 2600 for example will run circles around your 920, and really isn't that expensive comparably. Intel has the lead on IPC and clock speed, but still tends to come with a price premium especially for K Sku entries. The non-x variants of Ryzen are unlocked lower TDP versions of their X variants, cost less, and will still OC to similar to their X variants if you already have a solid cooler (some will do mild OC's on the stock cooler they come with too!).

I guess as you weren't too fussed about latest/greatest and were after more value than spending several hundred, Ryzen is highly recommended, or alternatively as mentioned if you do prefer Intel the 9400f (if IGP not required) is a great 6-core low-cost alternative.
 
k. you've tried it with just the bare minimum and outside the case?

I was just down mucking around with it. Turn the power supply on and off a bunch of times hit the power switch a bunch of times. Got it to turn on once after I had removed the video card but upon re insertion it wouldn't boot up. I pulled the video card out again it wouldn't boot up. This thing is clearly got some major issue. My guess would be that since it randomly will boot up upon moving things around, it's probably a connection issue somewhere.

Also, when it first died a few days ago I was eventually able to bring it up for about an hour but in the middle of a game it just completely shut off instantaneously.

I think I'm looking at the AMD 2700 Ryzen. I just have to figure out what motherboard and ram to get with it.
 
Comparable? May as well go better. Like Alpha said, price up maybe a 2600-based system. Great value. 3000~mhz ddr4 RAM 16GB, Ryzen 2600, or maybe a 1700 if the deal is better, and a B450 board. Should be less than 500 and work out better value than your priced out 9700k system, which doesn't seem to include RAM in that equation. (the only Intel 9 series I'd personally recommend if you're not a baller is the 9400f, 6 cores, decent boost, low power, easy to drive, cheap platform (b360), and 2666 ram is all it really takes on that platform bringing costs down further).

If you're near a Microcenter, definitely look out for their super board + 1600/1700 ryzen systems as they can be had as a steal (<200 together) often. Throw in some RAM and you're at what ~300-350!

(https://www.microcenter.com/product...-am4-boxed-processor-with-wraith-spire-cooler for example)

Yes, this exactly. If you're not looking to spend a whole lot, might as well get better performance out of the AMD side for a decent amount less then the Intel i-series "equivalent".

Check out slickdeals btw, Armenius seems to always find great bang for buck discounts for people in your boat. I personally do not own any Ryzen system (would like to someday.... too many other hobbies at the moment) but from all my reading, unless you're all out competitive 1080 gaming, the difference in minimums and average FPS is really pretty negligible.

Sounds like your old 960 is still serving you well, upgrade the heart and call it it a day until you need to upgrade GFX.

EDIT: If you're eyeballing Intel, the 9600k is a great performer for the money. Lacking HT, it still has 6C and can OC up there with the best of em, which a majority of games these days still prefer (clock speed vs core count respectively)
 
Good luck with your issue as I fire mine back up after a 2+ year layoff I do wonder how Evga can honor my lifetime warranty as A 1 part = March 2010 bought new
 
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