New Motherboard/CPU . What to buy? Suggestions? (kinda long)

[Steve_123]

This is my first post on this board.

Well, my motherboard has gone bad. Not totally though, the machine still boots up but acts very funny. Won't detect my modem, well it detects it but not correctly and gives it some odd port and IRQ. I have IRQs that are not there and the USB ports are gone.

It's a cheap Super7 board with the Via MVP3 chipset, a K6-2 300 cpu and 64 MB EDO RAM.

I have tried everything. Fresh installs of Win98, removed all hardware except for the minimal stuff, swapped video boards. Nothing made a difference. It had been freezing up a couple times a day for the past few weeks, but now it's really bad.

It has to be one of three things that is messed up, either the board, CPU or the RAM. I want to upgrade as well so I want to replace all three.

What I need to know is what to buy? Like what board and CPU as well as how much ram I should get. I'm kinda on a budget so, I need it to be cost effective. Also I have an AT style mid tower case, not an ATX which may cause a problem. I don't mind overclocking, that's fine with me. Possibly a Celeron? What do you all think?

I use my computer for mostly internet, games and a little word processing/spreadsheet stuff.

Here's my current setup:
AT Mid Tower case
Super 7 motherboard
K6-2 300 CPU
64MB EDO RAM
Intel 740 AGP video board with 8MB.
56K ISA modem
SB AWE64 ISA card.
8.4 gig UDMA hard drive
24X IDE cdrom
2x2x24 IDE cd writer.

Also what is a good place to order parts from?

Any suggestions would be appreciated
Thanks.

[Hellhound]

If you can afford it go for a athlon....the boards (133mhz bus)are around $100 and the cpu (600mhz) is around $200....but i dont think you can beat the performance for what your paying....and most of your existing hardware will fit right in...then you can upgrade to faster ram and a scsi drive.. oh ya ...should be able to use your case... i dont know for sure ...I only know one person with a athlon but talk about leaving an impression...gonna get me one soon

good luck man
oh ya...good call man...i didnt even notice that you was running edo ram...sorry..
[This message has been edited by Hellhound (edited 01-13-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Hellhound (edited 01-17-2000).]

[Legoboy]

I think you'l definitely need a new case if you go for the Athlon (the Chenbro Crystal series are excellent cases approved by AMD). You'll also need new memory, EDO isn't used in any Athlon board (it's PC100 SDRAM as a bare minimum, look for PC133 ram if you can).

You could opt for the Microstar PIII ZX+ ATX board. Has a Voodoo3 2000 and Soundblaster PCI built onto the board. Pop a PIII450 or 500 into there and you're all set. You're existing modem, HD, CD-ROM and CD-R will all be fine in this setup.

Either route you take you're gonna' need new memory, why not go the whole way and get a new case as well? As for where to buy from, what part of the world you in? I can give you excellent suppliers in the UK if that's any good to you.

Good Luck

Legoboy

[Steve_123]

Although I'd really like an Athlon, it's way out of my price range. I really need a budget solution. I have to get something pretty quick. This makeshift computer (made out of parts I had laying around)that I'm using right now is extremely slow. I'm thinking about a celeron because it's less expensive and I know I need to get new ram because this EDO stuff is 72 pin.

Thanks.