Does this motherboard exist?

[Daniel Prince]

My 6.3 year old Epox 8RGA+ with an AMD Barton 2500+ is failing. It
now only works if the FSB is set to 100 instead of 166. It is still
rebooting itself about one a week. I need to replace it before it
fails completely.

Since I have to replace it anyway, I want to get something that is
significantly faster. I want three or four CPU cores because I
often want to run two or more CPU intensive programs at the same
time.

I want a motherboard with the following features:

1. All solid polymer capacitors.

2. Three or more PCI slots. (In addition to the PCI-E slots.)

3. Four ram slots.

4. At least one IDE port. (I know I can use two drives on one IDE
port.)

5. At least five SATA ports.

6. At least six USB 2.0 ports.

7. Onboard video, sound, and network.

I have found some GIGABYTE and ASUS motherboards with everything
except the three PCI ports. I found one ASUS with three PCI ports
but it did not have all solid polymer capacitors or onboard video.

Is there a motherboard with what I want? Thank you in advance for
all replies.

 

[Paul]

My 6.3 year old Epox 8RGA+ with an AMD Barton 2500+ is failing. It
now only works if the FSB is set to 100 instead of 166. It is still
rebooting itself about one a week. I need to replace it before it
fails completely.

Since I have to replace it anyway, I want to get something that is
significantly faster. I want three or four CPU cores because I
often want to run two or more CPU intensive programs at the same
time.

I want a motherboard with the following features:

1. All solid polymer capacitors.

2. Three or more PCI slots. (In addition to the PCI-E slots.)

3. Four ram slots.

4. At least one IDE port. (I know I can use two drives on one IDE
port.)

5. At least five SATA ports.

6. At least six USB 2.0 ports.

7. Onboard video, sound, and network.

I have found some GIGABYTE and ASUS motherboards with everything
except the three PCI ports. I found one ASUS with three PCI ports
but it did not have all solid polymer capacitors or onboard video.

Is there a motherboard with what I want? Thank you in advance for
all replies.

Use the advanced search on Newegg, in the motherboard section, and
set the PCI slot count to 3. There are 37 boards. Unfortunately,
there isn't a search field for solid polymer caps.

You have to check the motherboard visually, to see if it has the
good caps. This is one example, and using the info on the Asus
site, it happens to use all solid polymer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131362

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/13-131-362-S01?$S640W$

http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=EbXqq06yxpJwlABf

"Uses 100% All High-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors"

HTH,
Paul

 

[Bob]

My 6.3 year old Epox 8RGA+ with an AMD Barton 2500+ is failing.  It
now only works if the FSB is set to 100 instead of 166.  It is still
rebooting itself about one a week.  I need to replace it before it
fails completely.

Since I have to replace it anyway, I want to get something that is
significantly faster.  I want three or four CPU cores because I
often want to run two or more CPU intensive programs at the same
time.

I want a motherboard with the following features:

1. All solid polymer capacitors.

2. Three or more PCI slots. (In addition to the PCI-E slots.)

3. Four ram slots.

4. At least one IDE port.  (I know I can use two drives on one IDE
port.)

5. At least five SATA ports.

6. At least six USB 2.0 ports.

7. Onboard video, sound, and network.

I have found some GIGABYTE and ASUS motherboards with everything
except the three PCI ports.  I found one ASUS with three PCI ports
but it did not have all solid polymer capacitors or onboard video.

Is there a motherboard with what I want?  Thank you in advance for
all replies.

You need to look harder for an ASUS board.

--Bob Day

 

[Daniel Prince]

Use the advanced search on Newegg, in the motherboard section, and
set the PCI slot count to 3. There are 37 boards. Unfortunately,
there isn't a search field for solid polymer caps.

You have to check the motherboard visually, to see if it has the
good caps. This is one example, and using the info on the Asus
site, it happens to use all solid polymer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131362

http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/13-131-362-S01?$S640W$

http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=EbXqq06yxpJwlABf

"Uses 100% All High-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors"

HTH,
Paul

Thank you. Thank you. I do not know how I missed that.

Do you happen to know if I can use my old 6.3 year-old Antec True430
TruePower 430 Watt Power Supply, or does the Asus need different
connectors or voltages?

 

[Paul]

Thank you. Thank you. I do not know how I missed that.

Do you happen to know if I can use my old 6.3 year-old Antec True430
TruePower 430 Watt Power Supply, or does the Asus need different
connectors or voltages?

http://www.antec.com/specs/true430_spe.html#

The Antec True 430 has the older Aux six pin connector. That gives
me a rough idea of the vintage. My guess would be it has a
20 pin main connector and a 2x2 ATX12V connector. (The Antec spec
mentions the ATX12V, but doesn't say what the main connector is.)

The Asus board has a 24 pin connector and a 2x2 ATX12V. The 20 pin
connector of your power supply, will fit into 20 pins at one end of the
24 pin motherboard connector.

Whether there would be enough power, would depend on what you're loading
the box with.

The extra four pins on the 24 pin connector, carry extra current if it
is needed. Of the four pins, the most important one is probably the
one with the yellow wire. If you had a 24 pin power connector on the
Antec supply, there would be two yellow wires. Each wire can carry 6 amps,
so two wires gives room for 12 amps.

Some motherboards have two PCI Express slots, for SLI or Crossfire video
card operation. The most power hungry card, in terms of the amps it
draws from a video card slot, is about 4.3 amps. Two cards would be
8.6 amps. In that situation, a 24 pin connector, with its 12 amps
capacity, would be essential.

The 20 pin connector only has one yellow wire. Thus, its main connector
can handle at least 6 amps. It would not be able to handle the
worst case I know of, which is two 4.3 amp video cards, but it could
handle one of those cards. And on some of the more recent cards
(cards that have come after the 4.3 amp one), the slot power
has actually dropped. So for some of the high end video cards
now, you could actually run the motherboard with the 20 pin.
The reason that happened, is the auxiliary power connector(s)
on the end of the video card, carry the rest of the current.

So that is the story on the 24 pin connector. It is a "nice to have"
for an SLI or Crossfire configuration. That Asus motherboard above
has one video card slot, so for most average usage, a 20 pin power
connector should be fine. (In theory, you could load power hungry
cards into the PCI Express x1 slots, but I'm still waiting for a
card like that.)

The main power connector, powers the video card slots, and also powers
the fan headers. So with a 4.3 amp video card installed, and 0.5 amps
for fans, that would bring the load up to 4.8 amps. But chances are,
whatever video card you use, could well be less than the 4.3 amps,
so there is no reason to worry.

The only concern I might have about a 6.3 year old supply, is whether
the capacitors in it are still in good shape. I have a dead Antec here,
with leaking caps, but not the exact same model as yours. Just like this
picture, I found the brown deposits on four capacitors. Normally, I
don't go around opening up power supplies, but I was getting
a muffled "arcing" sound from mine, at startup, and I was curious what
was doing that. As soon as I saw the brown stuff, I knew...
I stopped using the supply, before anything got damaged.
I'd had a couple crashes, so knew I had to replace it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/PSU_Caps.jpg

HTH,
Paul

 

[Daniel Prince]

Daniel Prince wrote:

Whether there would be enough power, would depend on what you're loading
the box with.

I will be using the onboard video and sound. I will use my old SIIG
IDE controller card.

I will probably use three hard drives. I have a Seagate PATA 750
gig and a Seagate PATA 300 gig. I plan to buy a Western Digital 2
terabyte drive for the new system. I might also use my old Western
Digital PATA 120 gig drive.

I currently have three optical drives but I think I will probably
only use one or two of them in the new system.

I have five 80 mm case fans. I might add one 92 mm fan.

The CPU I buy will be one that uses 95 watts. (AMD Phenom 9650
2.3GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Quad-Core Processor Model HD9650WCGHBOX)

The only concern I might have about a 6.3 year old supply, is whether
the capacitors in it are still in good shape. I have a dead Antec here,
with leaking caps, but not the exact same model as yours. Just like this
picture, I found the brown deposits on four capacitors. Normally, I
don't go around opening up power supplies, but I was getting
a muffled "arcing" sound from mine, at startup, and I was curious what
was doing that. As soon as I saw the brown stuff, I knew...
I stopped using the supply, before anything got damaged.
I'd had a couple crashes, so knew I had to replace it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/PSU_Caps.jpg

HTH,
Paul

How easy and safe is it to open a power supply? If I unplugged it,
how long would it take for the dangerous voltages to drain off of
the capacitors? (I live about seven miles from the ocean so the
relative humidity is fairly high most of the time. Right now my
Holmes brand digital thermometer say it is 38 percent.)

If it was your computer, would you just replace the power supply? If
so, what brand and wattage would you recommend?

 

[Paul]

I will be using the onboard video and sound. I will use my old SIIG
IDE controller card.

I will probably use three hard drives. I have a Seagate PATA 750
gig and a Seagate PATA 300 gig. I plan to buy a Western Digital 2
terabyte drive for the new system. I might also use my old Western
Digital PATA 120 gig drive.

I currently have three optical drives but I think I will probably
only use one or two of them in the new system.

I have five 80 mm case fans. I might add one 92 mm fan.

The CPU I buy will be one that uses 95 watts. (AMD Phenom 9650
2.3GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Quad-Core Processor Model HD9650WCGHBOX)


How easy and safe is it to open a power supply? If I unplugged it,
how long would it take for the dangerous voltages to drain off of
the capacitors? (I live about seven miles from the ocean so the
relative humidity is fairly high most of the time. Right now my
Holmes brand digital thermometer say it is 38 percent.)

If it was your computer, would you just replace the power supply? If
so, what brand and wattage would you recommend?

If the cover of the supply has four screws holding it on, you
carefully remove the screws so they don't fall in. Remove the cover
and look. There is no reason to stick you hand inside. If there
is no sign of bulging of the tops of the capacitors, and no brownish
goo has escaped, put the cover back on it, reinstall the screws and
enjoy. At least one of the screws should be covered with a warranty
stick, and at 6.5 years, I doubt there is any warranty left.

Your new build is not going to tax that 430W supply. If you
were placing a separate video card in it, I might take ten
minutes and work out the power. But without a video card,
you're at about 105.6 + 12 + 12 + 12 + 25 + 6 + 10 + 50 = 232.6
out of 430W. And that estimate is likely to be on the high side.
Typical system power at idle, could be around 100W perhaps.
Startup current of 18.3A, should stay within the single rail limit
of 12V @ 26A. After ten seconds, the load will be less than that.
If you were to run six hard drives, then things would be getting
a little closer, but would probably still work.

(Picture of a leaking True430W, for inspiration. You want to just
look long enough, to check for brown goo. Like mine, it looks
like output side caps are leaking. Article says they're "Fuhjyyu"
caps. I couldn't see the brand on mine, as there was too much
stuff next to it.)

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,14116577

In my case, because I was hearing the "arcing" sound coming from
those goo coated caps, I knew it would die soon if I didn't do
something. If you want to wait until you get some detectable
signs, such as fan speed variation, or crashing, that is
your choice. I don't think there is too much danger from working
with the power supply, unless you're a klutz and could manage to drop
a screwdriver in there, with you're still holding on to it

Paul