Need help picking legacy motherboards

[Hop]

This is long-winded, that's how I write, but I have a lot of legacy issues, and if you can offer advice, it will be a huge help to me. Thank you!

Please forgive me, this is a shameless plea for help, but all my time and energy has gone into my machine, and my son's machine, new upgrades, so I totally forgot about the other hardware moving around, and time is running short...

Brief explanation of my situation...
I'm building two new C2D machines, for myself, and my son. Our current P4 hardware gets handed down since we are a big-time computer family. Everyone is in serious need of upgrades, so it seemed fitting as my Christmas gift to the siblings, and myself of course. LOL

I've spent MONTHS researching the C2D platform, and received so much incredibly useful help from the good people here. I'm making the jump to PCIe, and C2D from the P4, so I wanted to understand the technology before leaping into it via my wallet. I've finally been able to create a shopping list for the two C2D machines I mentioned above, but I neglected in looking at the lower hardware, and now I'm shocked at how bad it is.

For one, my daughter is using an old Athlon XP 1800+ of mine on an ECS motherboard (please don't laugh too hard at me), and my wife swears by her seriously overpriced and under-achieving gateway POC (Piece of Crap) machine that still uses RAMBUS. Their needs don't warrant using the hardware surrendered by myself or my son, so I'm passing my Athlon XP 2600+ (Linux LAMP server rig) down to my daughter, her's goes to my Wife, and what my wife has goes to a new simple machine for our 11 year old.

I'm a firm believer in not wasting ANYTHING, especially when it comes to legacy hardware, so I'm left with a huge laundry list of things to do with all these lesser machines.

This is where you can come in. There is NO WAY I am going to use that ECS motherboard my daughter is using with the Athlon 1800+ for my wife's machine. It loses it's bios settings regularly, and the keyboard is powered when the system is off, no matter the BIOS settings. I had a motherboard fail on my trusty Athlon XP 2600+ and replaced it with a nVidia one with an nforce (something) chipset, and it's performed amazingly as my Linux LAMP server for quite awhile.

So what I'm asking is, if I post the processors, can you guys recommend some reliable but inexpensive motherboards for them? I want to replace the gateway motherboard with something more RAM friendly. It has 256mb of RAMBUS ram, and I don't feel ANY windows install should be without at LEAST 512mb. A gig is better since I have all these sticks of DDR2 laying around. Some 512, some 1g.

I ran CPUZ on all the target machines. On my wife's on the gateway POC, it's...
Name Intel Pentium 4
Codename Willamette
Specification Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1400MHz
Package Socket 423 mPGA (platform ID = 0h)

I don't recognize the Socket 423 mPGA, so I'm worried there.

The other one is the Athlon XP 1800+, and I can't do a CPUZ on hers because it has nasty viruses. I need to reinstall the OS AGAIN in order to run it. I'll edit this post when that happens.

I'm all for upgrading these processors on these platforms if it is cheap enough. Meaning, if someone says they saw another althon 2600+ and motherboard for cheaper than a new motherboard I want, etc. Just don't have the cash to put P4's on all the sibling machines. The C2D for my son and I are the big event this year, and I'm all about matching the hardware with the needs. Outside of my son and I, the other members of my family really don't have that hard of a demand on the hardware.

Thanks for your time and Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Hop

 

[vailr]

My 2 cents:
First, get rid of the Rambus board + memory.
Second, use one of the free anti-virus software, such as AVG or Avira.
DDR2 memory is dirt-cheap right now. So if you buy any new memory, try and standardize on DDR2,
as the "universal memory type". At least 1 Gb for WinXP, but preferably 2 Gb.
Check Newegg's Open Box motherboards and/or CPU's for cheap Intel socket 775 combos.
There exist VIA chipset socket 775 motherboards that can accept either AGP or PCIe video cards, and also either DDR or DDR2 memory sticks. Very useful for recycling older components. That way, you could still upgrade to the C2Duo CPU now, but stay with an AGP video card, then maybe upgrade to a PCIe video card sometime later.
If you're near a Fry's store, check their weekly combo deals on CPU + motherboard.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

It's not that easy to locate a quality new/used MB for an older CPU. You'll end up paying at least $20 to $30 plus shipping. If the MB is functional, then zero fill the HDD and clean install windows. Those PCs are fast enough for websurfing and office duty.

I'd check the CMOS battery on the board with BIOS problem.

 

[UndrMediKated]

I bought a PCchips hybrid board (P23) socket 775 with an Intel dual core 920 at Newegg to upgrade my daughters AMD Barton. It uses DDR1 or DDR2 (not mixed) and has AGP 8x and IDE+SATA. New it was around 40.00. CPU was around 100.00. I've had better luck with cheap PCchips boards than with ASUS. It's not the latest and greatest but it allows you to come up to speed with little cash. I'm going to get a Gigabyte board after Christmas and look for a new Intel Penyron core processor. Get a good video card and lots of DDR2 RAM and you computer will run about anything. My youngest daughter uses an AMD Barton mobile CPU on a Biostar board and it still runs good after 2 years.

 

[UndrMediKated]

I sometimes surf the web with an old AMD 500 Compaq laptop 128mb RAM and Win 98se. You don't need much for most tasks.
Some people have too much money and or buy into the hype. If I need a 700.00 video card I better be working for Spielberg.
If you want to play killer video games get an Xbox. I can run Adobe on a AMD 2500 single core. I have a big HHD and 2 gig of RAM.
Spend the money where it counts unless you have alot to spend.

 

[Hop]

Originally posted by: UndrMediKated
Some people have too much money and or buy into the hype. If I need a 700.00 video card I better be working for Spielberg.

Originally posted by: UndrMediKated
I bought a PCchips hybrid board (P23) socket 775 with an Intel dual core 920 at Newegg to upgrade my daughters AMD Barton. It uses DDR1 or DDR2 (not mixed) and has AGP 8x and IDE+SATA. New it was around 40.00. CPU was around 100.00. I've had better luck with cheap PCchips boards than with ASUS.

I'm glad you said that. I was wondering about the PCchips boards. After looking for another K7N2-L board to replace the ECS, and not finding it anywhere, I started looking at combo deals at NewEgg and there are a few, as low as $50 and up. I've been Intel for awhile so I don't know anything about the Athlon 64's, the X2's, any of those cores. I won't be overclocking them but it appears that for $150-$200 I can upgrade two machines to be more than adequate for their needs. I have lots of DD2 sticks around so memory isn't an issue.

The combo motherboards I see mostly are the Foxconn, Biostar, and ASUS, all marginally rated. I'll just have to research those and find the easiest to work with.

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
I'd check the CMOS battery on the board with BIOS problem.

I forget what research I did on that ECS but I couldn't find a solution, and it was still happening even after I replaced the battery. It's a good motherboard to put on my bench to tinker with someday, updating the bios, that sort of thing. The bios is dated 2001... :shocked:

Originally posted by: vailr
If you're near a Fry's store, check their weekly combo deals on CPU + motherboard.

Yeah, that's a good idea, and I'm about 15 miles away from one, but that might be a good solution if shipping at NewEgg for my combo is too high. No tax for me at NewEgg, so it's a tax/shipping/gas money type of thing.

Thanks for the additional info. Maybe some more posts with thoughts on the Athlon 64's and the 64 X2's and supporting motherboards around the $50-$80 range (combo) will come along. I'll read a lot about it over the next few days.

Again, catching up on the newer technology has been made a lot easier by just reading and posting here at anandtech. Just can't do this large quantity of upgrades without coming here for sure.

Happy Thanksgiving!