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Thread: My Asus CUSL2 motherboard passing away

  1. #1
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    My Asus CUSL2 motherboard passing away

    Back around Nov of 2003 I build myself a Athlon XP 3000+ 2.1GHZ Barton system for windows XP . This Motherboard came with windows 98 drivers so about a year after I built it I installed win 98SE on a spare 20GB HHD and I remember it being wicked fast. I didn’t keep win98 because to make it work I had to down grade the Ram from 3GB to 512 MB. This was too much of a hassle and went back to using Win XP exclusively. Besides, I had a great PIII 1GHZ system built on an Asus CUSL2 motherboard that ran win 98SE nicely.
    The Athlon XP system died by 2008 but the PIII built on Asus CUSL2 survived until now. The CUSL2 MB died after a nice 23 year run, and yes I’ve tested the power supply and the CPU all of it is fine except the MB. I really want to still have a working win 98SE system so I figured I could try one of 3 things.

    1- Buy a used ASUS CUSL2 on Ebay. This strategy would allow me to plug every component back in and the hard drive will just boot to win 98 like nothing ever happened. Not only would this be easy but preserving my drive which is 120GB dual boot to Win 2000/98SE would be awesome. It also had a 60GB drive with win ME that worked perfectly. In fact ME ran best on that system. (Surprised?) All three OS’s (98SE, 2000, ME) were installed back in 2004 when updates were readily available. Easiest most cost effective path but 20 year old HDD’s are a ticking time bomb.

    2- Buy a used Asus TUSL2 on ebay. The TUSL2 uses the same chips set (815E) as the CUSL2 but uses the PIII tualatin. So I believe this will also save me the trouble of reformatting and reinstalling with the bonus of a faster CPU . But, will it work well with reinstalling? And, would I even notice a difference in performance between a Coppermine and Tualatin CPU? If the answer is yes to both questions then this would be a no brainer.

    3- Upgrade to Athlon XP Motherboard. If I go this route I already know that I will see an appreciable difference in performance. I also still have all the drivers for the graphic card, sound card and, Ethernet card. The down side is a complete reinstall and I may not be able to reinstall those old Windows OS's to the complete splendor they were. I can’t get all the updates anymore. I have many windows updates saved to disk and I know how to get several more but not all . I do realize that 20 year old hard drives are a ticking time bomb so it behooves me to buy a new drive anyway.
    So what would you folks do? Would you have any other suggestions?
    Last edited by i1zombie; 04-12-2023 at 05:36 PM.

  2. #2
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    You are inviting all kinds of malware trouble by going online with anything less than Windows 10. Just saying ...

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    He got caught by Capacitor Plague. MOBOs dying slowly or quicker. see my thread mid Juni 2018. long long thread-monologue. without being expert better not trying to follow and understand. after 3 weeks i knew what was the reason. and i could revive both MOBOs(one only temporarily). NB: I have read about Dell omitted to inform their clientele!!! would hav cost a lot of money and more reputation.
    Long long too long i stayed with older hardware and winxp. then switched to cheap Acer Ultrabook Spin 1-111 (1.25kg) with win 10s. it survived four high falls(85cm) only hinge damaged no more full 360° rotation.
    more lightweigh 1kg speedy 17 16/1 tb acer ultrabook swift 5 had one light 40cm fall also onto wooden basement. after short delay of 1 to 2 days. both screen and keyboard died. the latter i think due to shocksensor. i cannot prove. stay away from Acer. others had the same. cannot go into cmos now!!
    get a solid desktop- NB: soon later i saw semirugged Acers coming..... thats telling everything.

    NB2: i had many copies of both MOBOs. i soldered i replaced at the end: waste of time but good to know how computers are working. had the idea of replacing all capacitors.
    But now -beside the acer-problem- i have a quite quiet windows 10-time. I wonder why i didnt change earlier. windows 7 had also been for a short time on the speedier of my two old MOBOs. Asrock and Gigabyte their brands. over the time everything was slowing down and hardly worked properly. time to upgrade decided the industry!!
    Last edited by europanorama; 04-14-2023 at 07:30 AM.
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  4. #4
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    you will see endless troubles when trying to revive. i had seen people selling defective MOBOs. the ones i had.
    one must have decades-long almost nonstop experience to understand whats wrong and what must be done. i invested that time and nothing can make me nervous again. e.g. first i did when something was not working anymore was cleaning the contact. all of them need precise cleaning. lately i found out also the contacts hidden under the sata-drive-boards must be cleaned properly. dont know if that was the reason for no-data-access. see other thread and cure. chip-transplantation.
    capacitors will die after 5000 and not 10000 hrs.
    my actual laptop already has more than 5000 hrs despite only 4 yrs. old. their chips are of higher quality. lessons were learnt.
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  5. #5
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    did you have these in service all the time? or were they in pause also? I switched between mine and had them both open on a rack at two stories. yes not only advantages this way. but without that i would have got a nerve breakdown. constantly exchange and test stuff. without regularly cleaning contacts you will be lost. that was my main success-story for over 25 years. i started 1994 with those ugly IBM 286-machines. their own world.
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    Right now it's better to have hardware that runs at least Windows 10. For me, even Windows 7 is a slow tortoise. I am considering moving all my important data to cloud storage and not worry about the performance of my laptop. But there is also some risk in this.

  7. #7
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    all data backed up on multiple different drives. yes clouds too not only one.
    checkout the problems multiple drives have. newer hdds dying earlier. M2 sticks 9900 samsung, and 2.5 ssd.
    contact where possible must be cleaned from time to time. not made on old sata under board. data not accessible anymore. seems it can be recovered with testdisk. not the first time i was successful.
    yes with old Hardware internet is slowing down. we will see have 10 yrs old i7. much older stuff meant.
    there must be RJ45 connector if not use dockingstation or good usb-adapter.
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  8. #8
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    Apparently, the reasons must be weighty in order to do such work - it definitely requires a lot of time and knowledge, and even the search for obsolete electronic parts.

  9. #9
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    Yikes! You are still using XP?

    I would try a used CUSL2 from eBay or the like. Switching to TUSL2 would require a reinstall because Intel.

    I would also seek to recap the board before using. Matter of fact, I would get yours recapped at a local electronics shop first.
    MS MCP, MCSE

  10. #10
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    for 360 chf i5 16/512 1TB Win 11. i supported my old machine til the last moment when capacitor plague hit me twice. win 7 on one machine. winxp on the other. there were only troubles with FB, Youtube and Videos. despite alternative browsers palemoon/Newmoon.
    Do yourself a favor and dont waste your lifetime. learning how to repair a computer yes but not old tech which cannot run win 10. its stable when using newer pcs. and they are cheap.
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