Bare-bones PC Wanted

[Keith B]

OK all you PC geeks, my home desktop PC died. Appears to be motherboard related as it starts to boot with the DVD drive and hard drive spin-up, but get no display on screen and then hangs. PS voltages (12v & 5v) are there, so don't think that is the issue. Also put a backup hard drive in and still no boot, so that is not the issue.

I am relatively sure my peripherals are all good, so looking to either find a good Case/PS/Motherboard/RAM setup that someone in the Plano/Allen/Richardson area has lying around that is no longer needed, or a good deal on where to get one already put together to plug my drives and TV tuner card into. Has been so long since I built something up that I am not sure of what fits with what on MB's now.

Current system is an Intel P4 3.8Ghz with 2GB RAM, and only used for Internet, some light applications (Word, Excel, etc), my security camera video recording, and a printer gateway, so the replacement doesn't need to be a really high end processor, but would like to move to something with a little more horsepower and MIPS behind it if I am replacing it.

[RPB]

"plug my drives and TV tuner card into"


You know, if you use Windows, and change motherboards (a good Case/PS/Motherboard/RAM setup), your windows on your drives already has drivers for the chips on your old motherboard, not necessarily for your new one...
So, 1) you will need to fix the drivers/Windows re-find hardware, and probably 2) re-Activate Windows.

I'm not near you or would welcome you to take anything in my sheds, (Parts enough to build 20 to 50 computers, but those are all for AMD processors, not anything Intel-ish.)

I'm unclear, will it boot from a CD boot disk?

(Is there ant black n white text when first trying to boot, then it goes black and computer stops? SVGA drivers ok? Video card ok? Can you get to BIOS setup at all? (Before SVGA drivers try to load)

"no display on screen and then hangs"

I've actually seen that occur when video cards or RAM need to be removed, and re-inserted, and lately on one that had 2 RAM sticks, and one of the 3 went bad, it works fine with 2 sticks now, until I replace the third.
tried re-seating your video card and RAM?

And ... I have to ask ..... did the cat unplug your monitor? (It happens)

[Keith B]

Never even get anything on the screen, and can't even get to BIOS, so pretty sure the MOBO is at fault. I may take all peripherals out of it (video card is built in) and see if I can get to the BIOS or if it never even gets me there.

[RPB]

If you are pretty sure it's the motherboard, why not just replace the motherboard with the same make+model motherboard with onboard video?
Then all your drivers, IDE chip, SATA chip, Network chip, Audio chip, VGA chip, etc etc etc., will be correct still, and doubt you would need to remove/re-install drivers and re-activate Windows.

I've bought used/new motherboards on E-bay before a time or two when I needed a particular one that was made/discontinued.

[Keith B]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Well, have narrowed it down to the motherboard totally. Just going to buy a new motherboard/CPU/RAM and put in my old case. Old motherboard was an ASUS, so if I stick with that and the onboard video chip is the same, it should be a pretty easy replacement.

[Liberty]

I am probably to late to be of help. But I've become a fan of Intel Atom Micro ATX boards. You can build up a complete decent ssytem for under 300 bucks
Watch your memory make sure your board support what you will need. 1 2 or 4 gig and make sure its dual core
I've found that they make good XP Win & or Ubuntu systems. I've buit about 7 of these things so far and none cost over $300

Best of Luck in your choices.