Motherboard replacement

[#1]

Hi,
Could some please suggest a replacement motherboard for my sizzled ASUS A8N-E?  I dont realy want to buy a used one from Ebay and I am finding it difficult to find the same or the upgraded A8N-SLI.
Many thanks
Dave

[#2]

I'm currently using an A8N-SLI Deluxe, bought it from scan.co.uk when they were pretty much fresh on the market.
You could check Google Products for them, but they seem pretty expensive, even though they are a fair bit older than other boards on the market.

[#3]

Sizzling your motherboard is God's (erm...) let me try again...
Sizzling your motherboard is my way of telling you to upgrade.
Are you hoping to reuse ram and processor or are you gonna treat yourself to newer spankier faster stuff?

[#4]

I hope to reuse RAM, Video card, and all the other bits and pieces as the PC is less than 2 years old.  However looking at what you can get now for your money a new system is very tempting.  Especially as I am not fantastically confident about swapping it over. 
However, PJ the motherboard you suggest appears to be ideal -price is definately right - many thanks for that.
Hmm, some confusion - Asus website says the motherboard can accept upto 4GB in RAM, although NovaTech claim it can only take upto 2GB.  Additionally a couple of forums say the motherboard is not suitable for Vista (although I have XP at the moment).
Dave

[#5]

I wouldn't even consider Vista mate.
Neither do the big people like Dell - Thats why M$ have had to reintroduce OEM for XP.

[#6]

It is still early days for Vista... It is virtually an action replay of when XP was launched. Everyone hated XP until at least SP1 if not SP2. Despite teething problems I already prefer Vista. Inevitably further down the line folks will be knocking the next M$ incarnation saying how they want to stick with Vista!

[#7]

I hate Vista to be perfectly honest. It's far too clunky, bad driver support, I know of a few games that run at a snails pace on it (older games), and it's constant asking if you are sure you want to do any task that slightly hints on altering the machine is a bad, ugly attempt at recreating the same system used with *nix root.
Taking bets on Vista SP1 being just as poor, if not worse   I'm sticking with XP for now, and only using XP because of application compatibility (WINE won't cut it with a couple apps I use). Once I can though, I'll be pushing everything to Linux.
Back on topic, if you are looking to reuse the rest of your system then I'd go for the board PJ mentioned. I'd consider doing an upgrade though, but maybe wait a couple months to see how the CPU market competition unfolds.

[#8]

I can see why you feel like that Mike. In the interests of not taking the thread of topic again I will start a new one to discuss Vista.

[#9]

I think i will investigate repair costs first before making the decision.  If its silly prices then I will take the easiest route and order a ready made system - Dell are very reasonable for a decent system.
I know I can replace the motherboard myself but I dont have the time , nor inclination to do it. As an aside if I do buy new and want to transfer the data from my current hard drive to the new system i take it I will invalidate the warranty when I open the system up?
I sometimes wish buying a PC was like buying a TV - simple and straightforward.  Far to many variables!!
Dave

[#10]

You won't invalidate your warranty if you open your new computer. If you do buy a Dell, then they make really easy to open one up and have a look inside.
Jeff

[#11]

Open it up to transfer data? Are you wanting to put your old hard drive in the new machine?

[#12]

Yes, I would like to put my old hard drive in the new machine.  However if this caused warranty problems I would transfer it then remove the hard drive from the system.
Dave

[#13]

Dell sell returns and damadged system on ebay;
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Dell-Outlet
I picked up a bargain last year, for the sake of a starch that I would not have returned a PC for. But watch their customer service, delivery time it s not quick.
Chilly

[#14]

If you put your old hard drive in to the new PC you are trusting that XP will recognise all the new features of the new motherboard and deal with them. More probably you will trigger XP's hardware change control and be forced to re-activate windows.
If you buy a new PC you will also get a new OS licence. All you need to transfer from the old drive is  your data.. Pics, music , docs etc. This doesn't involve opening the PC! What is more, your old slow PC (well at least the HD) then becomes your backup. The only reason to put the HD from an old PC in to a new one is to act as a data store not to host the OS (unless you wipe it first).

[#15]

But you could add your old hard drive into a new PC as a non-system disk. This allow you access to all your data.
If the old drive should die - you could always put it back in the old PC for the warranty claim.
I've got an ancient PC with 3 IDE drives (plus one external SCSI).
Because historically it's always been cheaper to buy a new base unit when upgrading - so the oldest drive actually comes from a Pentium I PC (laugh). The SCSI drive is one of my own upgrades to get a decent disk access time and has Linux on it.
Currently, I've got those IDE drives spinning but doing nothing (One Win98, One NT4 + One data disk).