Hi Guys, I hope this is in the right section. I have an ATI Radium 4670 pci Graphics card, and a intel Pentium 3.00 ghz duel processor. Could anyone suggest a decent, reasonbly cheap motherboard for these, with the exception of Asrock. Thank you in advance.

Cheers .

Lucky

You need to specify the exact Intel model number so we know what socket motherboard you need.

Download and install PC Wizard. After you install it run the program [it will take up to about 30 seconds depending on the speed & complexity of your system]. After it has loaded on the left hand panel click on the processor icon [top row to the far right]. That will load a bunch of info on your processor in the main box of the screen. Scroll down until you see something about the socket and it will be followed by a number. We need to know that number to assist your further.

If you're in the market for upgrading your computer if it fits your budget you might want to consider also going with a newer processor. One problem that you can run into is that the socket has been discontinued. That would mean that the manufacturers have stopped making motherboards and processors of that socket type. If that is the case you would be hard pressed to find one new & might have to go with buying one from ebay or some other online auction. The plus side to that situation would be that if you find a one new from an online store like newegg it will probably be dirt cheap because they will be trying to get rid of them.

In addition I need to mention that windows will freak out about being connected to another motherboard so to avoid any future complications you'll probably have to reinstall windows.

PC Wizard is a nice program, and I trust the developers, but it is way more than needed here. Plus it tries to install (some would say "foist") updaters on us during the install process and cause confusion for unsuspecting and less experienced users. Since all we are looking for is the CPU information, I recommend the very popular CPUz from the same people.

I forgot about that.

Hi Guys, thank you for the quick reply. My mistake, I left out a few important bits of info. The socket is a 775 socket. The system is, Windows xp or Vista. 2 Gig of DDR2 667 am. Primary Hard drive is Sata and I use two Ide as well. PSU is 580 Watts. I have been using a Asrock 4CoreDuel-Sata2 R2.0 Motherboard. But in the last week I started having problems with it. Flashing large icons accross the screen when I am in a game and then just yesterday, it only booted up to the Bios. After that the Keyboard and mouse would not work. I am in the process of returning it, but guess what, I cannot for the life of me, find a small piece of plastic which covered the processor slot on the motherboard. I was told, I cannot return the motherboard without it. I must admit trying to put a heatsink and fan on this motherboard is a sxxx. Four holes in the MB to put it through, but its a bugger. Ah well, never mind. Anyway, sorry to have gone on a bit. If you need more info please let me know.
All the best.

Lucky

I was told, I cannot return the motherboard without it.

By who? Those are typically discarded - I have never heard that it needed to be saved. It sounds as if someone is trying to weasel out of it.

If you enter 775 intel pentium dual core motherboard in Google, you will find many motherboards.

Note that "artifacts" on the monitor while playing a game usually indicates problems with your graphics solution - not the motherboard. And what do you mean it only boots to the BIOS?

I go into the bios, maybe to try to reinstall the system. It allows me to change the bootup to cd. But then the keyboard and mouse wont work, and it still will not boot from the cd. At the moment, I cannot see any light on the motherboard, but there again, I dont know if there actually is a green light on this particular model. I mean I would prefer to keep this board if I got it to work. I agree with you regarding the plastic cover.

Cheers.

Lucky

A motherboard LED only indicates the presence of +5Vsb standby voltage, indicating the PSU is plugged in, and if a master power switch is on the back of the PSU, it is set to on. Only some motherboards have LEDs.

You still didn't answer my question about the BIOS. You said,

it only booted up to the Bios.

. What does that mean? Does that mean when you reboot, it goes straight into the BIOS Setup Menu? Or does that mean that is all you can do?

Have you reset the BIOS?

It seems you have several odd problems - and that often means a bad power supply, or bad power circuits on the motherboard.

before I went into the bios, it was only getting a black and white screen with winzp ro and win xp home. it would not boot up from either of them. So I went into the bios to boot from cd in order to reinstall the system. when I did that it then would no move again.I wil have a go at resetting the bios, as soon as I remember,lol. my memory is not great for my age. There is One thing which I thought I might mention, I used a previous heatsink, but bought a new one, because I was having a bit of trouble with one of the heatsink legs clipping to the motherboard. So now, the new heatsink has the same problem with I believe the sam hole in the motherboard. I was wondering if , perhaps that might be the problem. I will get my psu maual out and look up what it says regarding the various cables.
Cheers again.

Lucky