Nephew of Doom = motherboard replacement advice needed

Can't quite believe I'm back here having to ask this but:

I recently built a couple of systems for my nephews, and was given a lot of advice on the components from readers of this forum. Sadly, after only a couple of weeks or so, one of them decided that a BIOS flash was essential, and when the notoriously flaky M-Flash system caused the thing to stop booting (no signal etc), his horror at getting caught led to an unholy union of screwdriver and soldered BIOS chip.

Words fail me - I don't think what's left is getting RMA'd any time soon. Other than giving him a talking to, and putting 42 padlocks on the towers, I now need a little advice:

The mobo in question was a MSI 740GTM-P25 740G Socket AM2+ with the following components:

• AMD Athlon II X2 250 Socket AM3 3.0GHz 2MB L2 Cache
• OCZ 2GB KIt (2x1GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Reaper Memory HPC Edition Dual Channel Kit CL5
• PowerColor HD 4770 PCS 512MB GDDR5

The mobo cost around £40 at the time, but is now no longer available from Ebuyer. So, the question is: is there something better (with the same kind of features) that I can now replace the old one with at this price or am I better off checking around for the exact same board again. I especially ask as this board was about the one component that I had before I asked here, so would be interested in what you chaps thought of it.

Also, are there any inexpensive thermal pastes/paste cleaners that you'd particularly recommend?

Thanks again,

Jessica =)

sorry to here that ,glue mittens on the nephew might stop him
as far as paste removal goes buy some isopropyl alcohol from a chemist ,its cheap and the bottle will last forever

Ask said nephew what he can afford, then buy accordingly :)

To clarify: it's their mum who is paying, and her budget was already very tight- the board has to be around the same price as the old one (around £40).

This is the cheapest motherboard I would look at getting:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169475

It comes to £41 including the cheapest postage option.

Once the OP gets 20+ posts on Hexus they are themselves eligible for free postage for orders over £20 excluding VAT from Scan.

Hence this motherboards will also be within the £40 price range with the free postage:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Sapph...-RAID-uATX-VGA

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lapis

Can't quite believe I'm back here having to ask this but:

I recently built a couple of systems for my nephews, and was given a lot of advice on the components from readers of this forum. Sadly, after only a couple of weeks or so, one of them decided that a BIOS flash was essential, and when the notoriously flaky M-Flash system caused the thing to stop booting (no signal etc), his horror at getting caught led to an unholy union of screwdriver and soldered BIOS chip.


Jessica =)

---

Jess... I can't help, but I CAN thank you for a very funny thread.

I KNOW it's not SUPPOSED to be funny, but as the resident BIOS killer here-abouts.. I'm proud to not be alone :)

Glad to hear you got a laugh out of the thread Zak - I've been alternating between hair tearing frustration and guilty laughter (when my sister isn't around, obviously) at the carnage that the combination of desperation, a guilty adolescent and an clearly enormous screwdriver can create. Indeed, the whole area around the BIOS chip now looks a little like downtown Baghdad.

Thanks for the replies, and, of course, I'm always delighted to find the moose has landed once again on my thread - great advice as ever. Excellent antlers, also. Possibly going too far with the whole moose theme here, but it's been a long day.

Cheers all,

Jessica =)

buy this board http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161000

its very cheap and good, i got this board with an athlon II 240 and i even managed to overclock it to 3.7ghz on stock voltage with stock amd cooler

its a great mobo (well so far so good)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by howareu

buy this board http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161000

---

Do NOT buy that board!! The chipset is bordering on ancient in computing terms, and it only uses HT1.0 from the CPU -> system, rather than HT3.0. It's well worth paying the very small amount extra to get a proper AM2+ / AM3 motherboard.

As usual, it's impossible to fault CAT's advice (am I the only one getting sick of saying that? ;) ) - those are the two motherboards I'd be recommending at your budget as well! There's not a huge amount to choose between them, but fwiw nvidia chipsets are generally slightly better performing when it comes to storage / USB evaluation, so perhaps the ASRock from ebuyer is the one to go for. Either one will do the job handsomely, though :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zak33

... as the resident BIOS killer here-abouts.. I'm proud to not be alone :)

---

I think we've all killed at least one BIOS in our time. Mine was on a PC-Chips (or possibly Syntax) Socket A motherboard - fortunately back in the day when a basic Socket A motherboard was only about £15 - £20 ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by scaryjim

Do NOT buy that board!! The chipset is bordering on ancient in computing terms, and it only uses HT1.0 from the CPU -> system, rather than HT3.0. It's well worth paying the very small amount extra to get a proper AM2+ / AM3 motherboard.

---

the difference in performance ht speed makes is practically none, wen i oc my ht link there is not difference in performance in anything i do and i dont think even the top amd cpu can fully utilize the ht3 link never mind an athlon II 250

and i dont know wots so bad about tht chipset cause i also used tht chipset for an intel cpu and it worked great

but the difference in price between the other 2 boards is not tht great so i guess it could be better to get something a little better, but i personally love to save every penny i can

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by scaryjim

am I the only one getting sick of saying that? ;)

---

No your not alone, it's also annoying when you find a better bargin (eg the curtial ddr3 on ebuyer) only to then have Cat post it in his lists in the next 3 threads :vacant:

Back to the topic at hand,
I'd say anything cheap, if it's not as good then it's his fault for attacking it with a screwdriver.
You could go slightly over budget by £1.50 and get this one http://www.ebuyer.com/product/166040
But you may as well go for the cheaper 8200 option, as you'll really not lose much.

I actually feel rather bad for the little tinker, he just seems to not recognise the point at which he's just going to make things worse!

I'll probably foot the bill for this one, so I genuinely wish to get a board that is at least as good as the MSI 740GTM-P25 that he had before. With that in mind, which of the above suggestions ranks as the best choice here? Again, I'm so out of the loop with these things that I don't yet feel too confident making that decision myself.

Cheers,

Jessi =)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lapis

I'll probably foot the bill for this one, so I genuinely wish to get a board that is at least as good as the MSI 740GTM-P25 that he had before. With that in mind, which of the above suggestions ranks as the best choice here? Again, I'm so out of the loop with these things that I don't yet feel too confident making that decision myself.

---

in all honesty getting a better or a worse mobo wont make any difference because MSI 740GTM-P25 was nothing extraordinary or expensive in the first place

but this mobo is near enough identical to ur previous mobo the only difference is tht it is asus:

https://www.pricelover.com/product/A...o/M2A74-AM_SE/

The fact hes using DDR3 means am2 boards are pointless.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lapis

... OCZ 2GB KIt (2x1GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Reaper Memory HPC Edition Dual Channel Kit CL5

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Blaineoliver

The fact hes using DDR3 means am2 boards are pointless.

---

Epic Reading fail? Seriously, dude... ;)

I think howareu's suggestion is no worse than the 740G in real terms and is obviously the cheap option. Beware pricelover: the upfront prices look remarkable, but they're ex vat and ex shipping, which quickly adds up! That ASUS isn't a bad option, though. Both CAT's suggestions, on the other other, are better motherboards than 740G and I'd pick whichever of those two you prefer the look of :D