Need some upgrade suggestions

U

unimatrixzer0

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 22, 2004
Messages
322
What I have now is 2GB DDR off some OCZ ram, an ATi x850xt AGP vid card, MSI K8N Neo2 mobo, and an AMD 64 3500+.

Long story short, I'm just having misc issues with my PC such as seeing artifacts in games like warcraft III, it crashing randomly. Both times I did upgrades last, such as upgrading the ram, PC wouldn't even power on unless I left it by a heat source, such as my house vent and let it get hot to the touch. Then again the same issue again when I upgraded the video card, same solution of warming up the tower before it would power on.

I'm thinking something might be wrong with the motherboard. I'll probably do a clean install before I buy anything just to see if that fixes stability issues first. Since I only seem to have the power on issues when I add or remove a piece of hardware from the mobo.

I'd go Core Duo 2, but if I did that, I'd want the best of the best component, but right now I don't feel like spending that much, so I'd like a semi-budge solution. I'll probably get an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 939, that much I'm sure of since I'd have to get DDR2 if I went AM2 or Core Duo 2.

I'm not an overclocker, as much as I read up on it, I still can't figure out how to, so the motherboard I need just needs to be stable since I will not be overclocking. If it has a passive heatsink on the chipset, even better.

Since all the mobo's newegg seems to be selling now are PCIe only, what would be a good decent Nvidia type graphics card to replace my ati x850xt? My brother tries to play Battlefield 2 sometimes, so even if its a little bit better thats ok, I just don't want it to be worse then what I already have.

Thanks.
 
nvidia card: 7600Gt ot 7800
asus mobo are stable, with some overclocking options on bios.
go to the bottom of this forum there is a HOT DEALS stuff maybe u can find cheap once posted in there, plus they also have coupons there.
 
Don't you need an AGP card :confused:

Those are PCI Express....I would grab an X2 3800+ and wait for PCI-E until you can afford Conroe.....the x850XT is about as good as it gets on AGP.
 
No, PCIe not AGP. Since I'm thinking of replacing the motherboard because of the problem I mentioned before. How when I would swap out hardware and then tried powering on, it wouldn't turn on unless it left it next to the house vent to get hot to the touch. Then and only then would it actually power on.

So if I got a new mobo, and those are all basically PCIe now, I'd need a PCIe video card as well.
 
You have to heat up your tower before it will boot?!!! That is the strangest thing I have ever heard. Anyways, if you don't want to do a full upgrade yet (ie DDR2 video card, etc) I would get a good core 2 duo chip and an Asrock dual VSTA so you can keep your x850xt and your ddr and upgrade RAM and video card later.
 
I thought Core 2 Duo required DDR2? All I have is DDR.

And yes about the heating up. Well, not at the moment, but when I replace a component off the motherboard I'll have to heat up the tower some how before it will power on the first time. After it will power on normally.
 
Oh OK, I wasn't sure if you were considering buying a new motherboard or not.

I wouldn't spend money on a new 939 PCI-E board, I would save money for a jump to DDR2 in a few months. Your best bet is probably grabbing an X2 3800+ or 4200+ for your existing motherboard (if it supports dual cores).
 
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