Motherboard Upgrade

[Carl the Llama]

ok seeing as no one has responded to my previous thread I decided to make a new one, I want to upgrade my motherboard and possibly my computer so I want to know if anyone can recomend an upgrade for me I need it to fit my old shell, my old motherboard is a GA-81915PM and I want to be able to upgrade my CPU, allthough I want my current cpu to be of some use till I can afford a new one.

[Shoeberto]

What type of CPU do you have?

Most likely if you want to get a motherboard that'll be compatible for future upgrades you won't be able to get one that works with your current CPU unless it's really recent. Unfortunately slot compatibility changes all the time.

There's a chance you might be able to get one, but your best bet is really to just save up until you can buy the whole thing all together, since basically everything except your drives and possibly video card won't work with a new motherboard.

[Carl the Llama]

Im currently useing 2x SATA hdd, an AGP RADEON X600 gfx card, and Im pretty sure my power supply can be reused iv got some media card readers but I never use them so im not bothered if the new MB doesnt have a slot for them, I dont know if my 2 DVD's can be reused... have they found somthing more useful then a slave cable for them? Oh and lastly im useing an Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHz.

Do you think I might enjoy better success if I go down to the tech store near by for a MB that fits my shell?

[Shoeberto]

Well, really, there wouldn't be much point in just getting a new mobo to support your CPU. The performance enhancement would be pretty miniscule, unless for example your current mobo lacks PCI-Express and a new one would have it, but even then you might hit an upper limit to performance as your CPU starts to bottleneck your performance (I experienced this on an old computer).

Your PSU should be fine to be reused as long as it has the extra PCI-E pins on it. Most mobos still come with IDE so your DVD drives should go over okay. But I'd really advise holding off on a new motherboard unless you can take the plunge to replace it, your CPU, RAM and possibly video card (AGP is mostly phased out these days). Fitting your case shouldn't be an issue as long as you just find a standard ATX form factor board.

[Carl the Llama]

In that case could you recomend a good site where I can order computer parts so I can build my own from scratch?

Additionally could you tell me if SATA is still in use? Will I need to install a new OS or will the one on my existing HD still be ok in a new computer? (I so do not want to go to Vista just yet)

[Namelessfengir]

newegg.com
tigerdirect.com

i grab stuff from these

if you need info in motherboards
tomshardware has lots of guides (http://www.tomshardware.com/us/#redir)

sata is still used but now theres sata 2 which i think is like usb2

[Shoeberto]

SATA is still good, yep.

You won't necessarily need to get Vista, but you will need to do a fresh OS install. A motherboard change is a pretty significant change, so the old install would be almost completely broken and unstable on new hardware.

[Carl the Llama]

ok so im really greatfull for all the help you guys have given me and have one final question, if I were to buy a new computer as a whole instead of building it myself, how would I go about removeing all the drivers and protected information on my current sata drive?

[Momiji]

Depends on what you're going to do with it. Someone told me that if you're disposing of a hard drive, it's best to drill holes or something in it to make it unusable or something like that...

[Carl the Llama]

Erm... I wanna keep my HDD lol, I mean useing it as a data dive, so I want to delete all the OS info on the HDD.

[Namelessfengir]

i dont know about making a drive unusable because id just make the old harddrive a slave to the new computer.
like this external chassis rosewill at newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182121)

if you set on killing the old drives then id format the hell out of the drive with a program like boot and nuke ( you iso it to a cd and format the harddrive on startup)

[o_O]

He said he doesn't want to destroy the drive. :p

I think your best bet is to copy whatever data you want to keep off of your current drive onto DVDs or another drive, then format it and restore the data. You can do that a number of ways - I think it's best to Google for formatting options and then decide from there.

[Namelessfengir]

i started writing that post at 1:50 i got six other tabs going and i had to search for the program i was talking about.

[escobert]

pricewatch.com is the best imo. it takes the best prices form all over the internet. it's where I got all the parts for my PC.

[Shoeberto]

pricewatch.com is the best imo. it takes the best prices form all over the internet. it's where I got all the parts for my PC.
pricewatch is good for a low price, but since you go through a lot of different companies (some basically unknown) you can potentially run into the problem of poor quality customer service. I had parts that didn't come for well over a month it seemed like.

If you're patient though and don't mind going through various stores to get the best price it's a good suggestion, though.