Help!!!! Need advice on what Motherboard to get

[john317]

Hey all,
I got a new rig a couple of months back (check my system under name) and everything was going great up until a month ago, games started to crash and i would get the blue screen of death, computer would freeze when surfing or browsing files on pc and then it would not boot up So i decided to send the mobo back and got a Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3L as a replacement, at first i thought everything was back to normal, no more blue screens or freezes, then after a few days it happened again. I was told that Gigabyte boards have memory compatability issues with some major brands and Crucial was one of them. So i sent my second board back within a week and got a refund, so i thought i would try another board. This time i went for the MSI P7N SLI Platinum, third board in the space of two weeks, due to good reviews on many websites and on Tomshardware, the later i have found in the past to have trust worthy reviews. To my annoyance after the build the pc would not boot! i checked everything from the ram, brand new, cpu, only 3 months old and pins perfect, and graphics card, again only 3 months old, none of these components were to blame the mobo was faulty(after checking on the msi forum).

So after all that i thought i better ask for some advice before purchasing another board.

Mobo Requirements:

1. Supports 45nm Processors
2. Supports Crucial Memory PC2-8500
3. Has PCI Express
4. Reliable and Durable
5. Costs no more than £100
6. Does not need all the fancy features like 3 PCI Express slots, Fireware etc

Any suggestions would be much appreciated i dont think i could handle another duff board

[staffsMike]

Asus P5K-E, Asus P5Q-PRO or -E, Abit IP-35 PRO (or PRO XE)

All good boards. Personally I'd take the Abit IP-35 PRO but any of them will do what you want them to.

[john317]

thanks for the fast response Mike, i will look into all your suggestions. Dont want to have to send another mobo back lol

[Airlemental]

May I Please Piggyback?

I was looking at two motherboards (looking at similar sort of board as john317) and i found these:

http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=24232
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=529752

Just wondering how they compare to those above because unfortunatly i don't have quite as big a budget but i was hoping to get a bit of overclocking done (it would be a Q6600). would either of these be ok?

[staffsMike]

You're much better of with the Blood Iron (intel chipest) than the 650i (nvidia) as it can be quite a flakey and unstable board especially when overclocking.

I would prefer this though
http://scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=787775

[john317]

I checked out the specs on Abit IP-35 PRO and the supported RAM speed is PC2-4300, PC2-6400, PC2-5300. I am currently using Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500, would the board still support the ram? and also would the max ram speed be limited to 6400?

[staffsMike]

No the RAM isn't limited to PC-6400. You won't generally find support for anything over PC-6400 as that is the fastest offical speed of DDR2. Most boards will support more but they will default to PC-6400 with slack timings and 1.8v anyway.

[john317]

so to get PC-8500 then i would need to overclock my memory?

[staffsMike]

so to get PC-8500 then i would need to overclock my memory?

In a sense yes. But you won't technically be overclocking until you pass the RAM's stock speeds.

[Powderhound]

Asus P5Q-E also fits those criteria.

[staffsMike]

Asus P5Q-PRO or -E

Yeah it will

[Powderhound]

Oooops. Sorry.

[john317]

Just got the Abit IP-35 PRO, had a few problems at the start but everything seems fine now, will test it by playing Grid for several hours at the highest settings and will see if any problems occur. Also does anyone know of a site/forum that specifies the best settings in bios for IP-35 PRO?