"Paul Woodsford" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>My No2 PC has a MB that is antequated and needs replacing. It is running
>XPHome SP2. It seems many of the newer MB's have SATA capability.
>This PC has 2 EIDE HDs and a CD/DVD player and CD Burner connected to EIDE1
>and 2 and an AGP graphics card.
>Besides getting a new MB, CPU and DDR ram, old MB only uses SDram, will I
>still be able to use my 2 HDs and 2 CD drives?
>Any advice regarding a Mid level MB/CPU combination that I could use the
>above components with would be much appreciated. I live in the UK.
Many of the newer motherboards have only a single channel IDE
controller (2 drives maximum) plus multiple SATA controllers so you
would need a third party IDE controller card in order to install all 4
of your drives. These cards are not too expensive.
Also many of these same boards also have PCI Express slots rather than
AGP so you may need a new video card as well.
There are motherboard that will support your existing devices, but you
have to search a bit and read the detailed specs to find them. For
example, PC Chips, which many would consider a low-end rather than
mid-range supplier, has a model P23G which has a socket 775 for Intel
CPUs, accepts both DDR and DDR2 modules (2 slots for each), has 2 IDE
channels (4 drives) plus 2 SATA, and an AGP 8x slot.
Good luck
Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair
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