Need to buy a new motherboard ASAP - help wanted

[Skiz]

Everything seems to be going to shit at once. To make a really long story short, I had an SSD and a SATA drive both die at the same time. That was already a little suspicious but, I bought a replacement SATA drive and now Windows won't boot up unless only two (or fewer) drives are plugged in. No matter how many times you test it or with any configuration of drives, Windows always freezes during the loading screen if more than two drives are hooked up. I've reinstalled Windows as well and that didn't help. It would seem that the motherboard is the culprit in all this, thus I'm in the market a new one.

I'm looking on Newegg and all the options on the left are getting really confusing when trying to narrow down what I need and what I don't need. North bridge, South bridge, FSB, etc...

My processor is:

cpuz.png

My case is a Cooler Master 690.

Things that I need for sure are:

Minimum of 4 SATA connections. (probably won't need more)
At least one PCI slot for a cheap GPU.
Minimum 2 PCIE slots for GPUs in SLI.

My current processor seems plenty fast for my needs as I really don't play games anymore. I'd like to keep that and reuse it unless someone can give a good reason to upgrade. (edit: let me rephrase that... I just don't want to spend a fortune on anything right now)

Would anyone point me in the right direction? Give recommendations?

[Artemis]

Well doing some research on the newegg site (I'm nowhere near the U.S. so not a site I normally browse) you can discount the G31 & G41 Express based boards, they are not designed for dual SLi, one of your primary requirements.
Bang for your buck the Gigabyte GA P45T ES3G motherboard :http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128496 seems to be a very good deal at $79.25 + shipping. The fun thing for you of course is that being a G45 based board it uses DDR3 RAM so you would need to buy new RAM, but then DDR3 RAM is very cheap.
It supports upto 16GB or RAM in dual channel + 6 SATA2 ports and so easily exceeds your requirements.
Also being Gigabyte, the motherboard has a high build quality, they make rock solid boards.

This board seems to meet and actually exceeds your requirements for a reasonable price, the only drawback being the need to purchase updated RAM.
Since your processor has a 1066FSB the upgraded RAM will improve performance anyway (slightly) so this is a plus along with the fact that you can increase the RAM very cheaply using the new DDR3 modules.

This RAM : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231311 would go very nicely with that board. 8GB of dual channel RAM with heat spreaders for $46.99, and G.Skill is a good brand.

[zot]

Bang for your buck the Gigabyte GA P45T ES3G motherboard :http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128496 seems to be a very good deal at $79.25 + shipping.
...
Also being Gigabyte, the motherboard has a high build quality, they make rock solid boards.

^^
It's been a few years since I've spec'd out MBs and built any PCs, so I'm rather out-of-date to make any specific recommendations. But one thing I'd strongly suggest is getting a board with built-in USB 3.0. The GIGABYTE GA-P45T-ES3G has USB 2.0, and no real way to upgrade to V3 without throttling speed (as using a PCI card adapter will bottleneck USB 3 speeds) if the one PCI express v1 slot is used for something else such as E-SATA, etc.

The price difference between USB 2 and 3 is minimal --probably a lot less than the cost of buying adapter cards (assuming your MB has extra PCI-E slots) and I predict that USB3.0 will become virtually a requirement within the next few years. I'm addicted now, when it comes to copying/backing up hard drives to external, as USB v.3 makes the difference between having it done in 1 or 2 hours ... or having to wait until tomorrow.

regarding "rock-solid" brands: I was very disappointed with the last Asus board I bought due to numerous problems with booting (especially from IDE drives) as well as limited boot-order options, so I learned that even good brand-names can put out duds.

this time I'll keep it all in a PM. So, check your inbox, I'll get started on it right away.

Because you have "DISABLED PRIVS" you cannot send or receive PMs.
... wonders what that was all about

[Skiz]

USB 3.0 would be nice.

Am I really that outdated that there are only three motherboards that both, fit my CPU and have USB 3.0?

[mjmacky]

Because you have "DISABLED PRIVS" you cannot send or receive PMs.
... wonders what that was all about

Those without their wits about them tend to find ways to disagree with personalities they don't like by using slithery methods

[Artemis]

Just to really ruin your day, it is the G41 express & P43 boards that support USB 3.0 & as I said earlier the G41 northbridge does not support SLi. The P43 boards I have researched do not have SLi either.

An option to keep with the original specs you outlined is to use a PCIe 1x addon card which has USB 3.0.

In answer to your question, without trying to be harsh, the Q6600 CPU & your 8800 GTS graphics cards are older technology now.
The options as I see it are:
Option 1 buy one of the new G41 or P43 based boards which support USB 3 and also purchase an updated graphics card. A new NV550GT will outperform the two 8800GTS cards but then of course this adds an extra expense, and your original requirement was for a 'cheap' update.

Option 2 the original motherboard I quoted plus the RAM (you would have to update your RAM no matter which option you took) and an addon PCIe 1x USB 3 card will give you the best of both worlds.

It really depends on your budget, if you wish to stick to the original spec then my first suggestion offers a good balance with not a great cost involved, if you wish to go the upgrade route then you need to figure out a budget first.

[mjmacky]

Can you at least rule out that you've tried a different power supply?

When I had an issue where my computer wouldn't start up with 2 drives, but 1 drive was OK, I ended up finding out the PSU wasn't delivering sufficient voltage. You can find this out by checking 5V and 12V readings on the molex connectors with a multimeter (while it's running). Investing in a multimeter is one of the cheapest options, can be found at Radio Shack, an Auto Parts Store all for about $20. If you find low/unstable voltage, then the PSU is most likely the culprit, and then I'd recommend a new $80 quality PSU.

[brthlmew05]

I bought a replacement DATA drive and now Windows won't boot up unless only two drives are plugged in.

[Artemis]

Can you at least rule out that you've tried a different power supply?

When I had an issue where my computer wouldn't start up with 2 drives, but 1 drive was OK, I ended up finding out the PSU wasn't delivering sufficient voltage. You can find this out by checking 5V and 12V readings on the molex connectors with a multimeter (while it's running). Investing in a multimeter is one of the cheapest options, can be found at Radio Shack, an Auto Parts Store all for about $20. If you find low/unstable voltage, then the PSU is most likely the culprit, and then I'd recommend a new $80 quality PSU.

The disabled kid has a point, you've had SSD and graphics card failures and now your drives are unstable, a strong possibility for these problems is the PSU, and it is easy to confirm with a multimeter.

[zot]

mjmacky is absolutely correct. I failed to read it properly before, but that perfectly describes the 'classic' power supply problem when all of a PCs components work fine when used separately, but the PC won't boot when all are plugged in at the same time.

I don't know about the need to spend $80 on a PSU (unless of course you have a highly overclocked PC) as there are some pretty decent ones available for half that price. I know a lot of builders will disagree, but I've never had any problems using fairly cheap, relatively low-wattage PSUs. But then I'm not a speed demon either.