Mobo replacement: need suggestions

A

AlexisBV

n00b
Joined
Jul 7, 2007
Messages
30
Hello all,

I built my current rig a year ago, and been suffering lack of stability ever since. With Vista's nifty memory tester (I know it's not the best around, but it's good enough for detecting more serious problems like what I was getting), I saw that the weird boots or no boots, as well as blue screens were being caused by "bad" memory. After returning my OCZ kit, I got crucial ballistix tracers. No problems, until a couple of months later. RMA'd them, got a new set of tracers that were stable for a bit longer. Then they started failing also (more BSODs, weird freezes, pc occasionally not booting). Unable to beleive that I'd get 3 sets of bad ram in a row, I investigated further and found that this mobo (Gigabyte P35C-DS3R rev. 1.1) does a piss poor job of telling you the actual RAM voltage. Turns out the 2.2V it showed me both in BIOS and in EasyTune were actually... 2.4V! No wonder my RAM wasn't lasting. (FYI nominal volts for tracers is 2.2V.)

Now I'm having a hard time booting with all 4 sticks of RAM, I have to randomly swap them around and remove 1, or 2, or 3... kinda frustrating, especially when today's bad ram stick is tomorrow's only good one. (I did reformat more than once, even on a clean install things would go south).

Some other gripes:

- RAM slots are way too close to each other: there's less than 1mm between the heat sinks of each stick. Even (truly) undervolted, they're too hot to touch, even with a RAM cooler.

- CMOS clear jumper is under the graphics card. Worst. access. ever.

- Poor manual. It was 2007 when I bought it, and it's boot diagnostics is still done with cryptic beep sequences, many of which are not in the manual (although I somehow managed to get very familiar with some during some endless RAM swapping sessions).

So I'm just fed up with it and I want to get another board. Not looking to replace RAM at this point unless tests show they've become FUBAR.

My previous board was an ASUS and I regret not having stayed with them this time...

What's a good performance board out there today? Reliable, don't really need any fancy stuff but must handle tracers running at least at 1066, normal timings. Hopefully with decent component locations. My 8800GTS is quite large... and so is the CPU fan (Tuniq Tower 120). The Q6600 is running at stock speed, might overclock if platform feels solid...

No RAID or SLI required.
 
Seems like a nice board.. though some comments on newegg say it's a microATX board, that might be a problem with the huge 8800GTS! Also, my case ventilation is good but I'm not sure about this board's layout for a not-so-cold soundproofed case. Will investigate. Thanks!
 
How long do you plan on keeping this next motherboard, ie. is it something you just want to get temporarily because you might upgrade to Nehalem soon, or do you not plan on upgrading platforms soon and want something that will give you a nice long run?
 
Not planning on any major upgrades asides from GPU maybe a year or two down the road... if this current mobo was any good, the original plan was to make the jump to DDR3 when it became affordable, but looks like it won't be worth it anytime soon, so I dropped that requirement.
 
Well then any of the P45 mobo's because they are the latest (and last) chipset for the C2D's and have shown excellent potential in overclocking. If you give more detail on budget and features you're looking for I could better recommend a specific model.
 
Hi Camaro28,

Just to clarify, this is what I need:
-Supports Q6600
-Supports DDR2 running at 1066Mhz (5-5-5-15 is fine).
-SATA2
-Good layout (meaning easy access to components - no CMOS jumpers beneath GPUs, able to swap RAM without taking everything apart, hopefully "lots" of space between RAM sticks, and most importantly, good heat dissipation)
-Solid BIOS with decent overclocking ability (RAM voltages, timings, frequencies)
-CPU fan speed control
-Front audio jacks / USB
-Solid brand; I'm disappointed with Gigabyte, going back to Asus looks like a good idea.

What would be nice but not absolutely necessary:
- Firewire
- Fan speed control for things other than CPU

What I probably won't make use of:
- RAID
- Ultra-tweakable BIOS

As for budget, I'd be willing to go up to $150, maybe a bit more if I'm really convinced.

I'm going to check out what P45s are around... Thanks!
 
AlexisBV said:
Hi Camaro28,

Just to clarify, this is what I need:
-Supports Q6600
-Supports DDR2 running at 1066Mhz (5-5-5-15 is fine).
-SATA2
-Good layout (meaning easy access to components - no CMOS jumpers beneath GPUs, able to swap RAM without taking everything apart, hopefully "lots" of space between RAM sticks, and most importantly, good heat dissipation)
-Solid BIOS with decent overclocking ability (RAM voltages, timings, frequencies)
-CPU fan speed control
-Front audio jacks / USB
-Solid brand; I'm disappointed with Gigabyte, going back to Asus looks like a good idea.

What would be nice but not absolutely necessary:
- Firewire
- Fan speed control for things other than CPU

What I probably won't make use of:
- RAID
- Ultra-tweakable BIOS

As for budget, I'd be willing to go up to $150, maybe a bit more if I'm really convinced.

I'm going to check out what P45s are around... Thanks!
Click to expand...

Hey after checking a bunch of different boards, these two are the ones I narrowed it down to. Both are pretty well under $150 and should have all the features you need. I checked the motherboard layout of the Gigabyte by downloading the pdf manual and everything is clear of the graphics card. Also the other choice is my motherboard :D, and i'm not biased, its just that it really matches everything you want. I also would point out that the Asus has a bigger gap between the memory modules then the Gigabyte, seems like it just might be a Gigabyte thing since you mentioned your mobo having small gaps. Overall I think the Asus would also be a better overclocker, although I don't know about the Gigabyte's capability in overclocking.
 
So do I, also forgot to mention that the P5Q Pro definitely has better NB cooling setup then the Gigabyte.
 
Well, looks like we got a winner! Just looking at the product page in the ASUS website gave me a warm feeling inside... ordered already at directcanada.com, was a tad more than I planned for ($158 with taxes and shipping), but hell, after all I've been through with Gigabyte, if it lets me run all my stuff at nominal I'm happy already.

Thanks a million for your help! I'll post the results once I get it and install it...
 
Hi Camaro,

Yes, I finally went with the P5Q Pro. Got it from DirectCanada, with shipping and taxes came up to $158 (canadian). Not a bad deal I think.

Was a bit of a hassle to install yesterday, although that was mostly my fault. My rig is in a NZXT Hush case, which has plenty of space, but with the Tuniq Tower, installation has to follow a very specific order (which after a year I forgot). To make matters worse, the Tower has a metallic support that goes under the mobo, that was stuck to the old mobo (the base had an adhesive foam on it). Long story short, I managed to transplant it to the Asus, although I might have damaged the old mobo in the process... need to check on that. No sticky stuff this time around.

After about 5 iterations of placing and removing the Asus (because I had to put the PSU in a particular place, or put the CPU cooler first, or mess around with cables, I managed to get everything in place. Whew! Even though I've built many rigs in the past, I felt like a total goof replacing this mobo. In the end, it POSTs, with all my 4 sticks of RAM! Something I could no longer do with the gigabyte..

Although the RAM is currently underclocked, I'm going to gradually raise it to nominal to see if they're still all keepers..

Thanks for your help, I have a feeling this really is a solid board... ran some preliminary tests (games, Vista memory test) and looks like it's holding up fine, where the old one would already have failed!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top