I had a Dell XPS and the Dual Core died on the 24th. I was gifted a pile of money for upgrades, so I want to get a new motherboard to support a core i7 for video editing/gaming.

What do I need to know and do in order to find a motherboard that will fit in my current case, accept my current hardware, install the i7 myself (or have someone else do it if it's difficult) and how I can find this information without being able to access the machine. I've got a netbook but I have no idea how I'd access the dead PC with it.

I have roughly 5-600 to work with, an 8800 GTX and 4 gigs of ram (no idea what type).

Thanks in advance!

Your 4gb ram would mostly likely be incompatible, it going to guess its DDR2 but even it was some highend XPS that used DDR3 the voltage is probably wrong for an i5/i7 motherboard.

You mentioned videocard and ram, are you sure the powersupply is good?

Your Dell XPS, what model is it. Some of the earlier XPS's used BTX cases. If it is, your pretty much out of luck it will be extremely difficult to find a motherboard to fit it. The model should also help use determine what size motherboard will fit - MicroATX vs Fullsize. Regardless, you might want to just include a new case in your budget.

My i7 is pretty much the cheapest i7 1366 socket system you can put together - i7 920 + AsRock x58 Extreme will run ~460 + shipping + taxes on newegg right now. You can save some money if you can pickup a CPU at microcenter. You might be better of with a 1156 socket i7 especially if your case will only hold a MicroATX motherboard.

Alright, I'll tell you what the model is once I get behind it to see. Meanwhile, how can I test the Power Supply and determine the ram's identity? I know 2 of the 4 gigs are DDR3.

What kind of a brand new i7 build (salvaging only the 8800 GTX and HDD) could I manage on $800-1000? I mean, cheaper would be better, I'm basically doubling my budget just for ram and a power supply, only under the assumption that it'd be difficult to transfer even if it does work.

I thought you made a thread named "My Professor died :(" since that would have been worthy of a but apparently it was only your processor... I guess it can be :(-thy as well but still.

Just wanted to point this out.

Short answer, I can't think of a way to properly test the powersupply without specialized equipment or spare computer. What happens when you turn the dead PC on right now, anything - like Fans turn on?

Assuming you can reuse DVD/HDD/8800GTX, heres an idea:



+Tax +Shipping you probably right around $700 already.

You might want to increase the ram to 8gb, but I doubt you could save your previous ram. There are probably voltage differences. Thats without OS. Maybe you know someone that can get you a student discounted version of Win7.

My only real concern is installing a motherboard can be a frustrating experience the first time. I got to practice on cheap hardware. Hopefully you do know someone with experience that can help.

When I turn the PC on, it starts up but there's criss crossing hash lines everywhere, and it stalls at the startup screen. Like I said, a diagnostics tool let me know the CPU was going a week or so ago. I know the graphics card is fine because I shut it off and had the same problems. It sounds like the fans are all running.

That looks like a really affordable setup, thanks. Am I going to need fans or a heat sink for the CPU, and will I have to use the goop and all that good stuff?

As far as motherboard installation goes, were you talking about into the old XPS case, or that case there? I mean, I've taken apart and built computers in a class, but those were all holed properly and intended for those particular motherboards. If it's that close a fit with that case, I imagine it won't be too difficult.

Oh, and I just bought Windows 7 a few months back, so I'm set there.

what do you mean you "shut off" the GPU?

The Graphics Card, not the GPU. Before it totally capoot, I disabled the graphics card and retested and the GPU was the only thing causing problems. Just now, I popped the graphics card out and it still turns on but has the graphical issues. I also know it's not the HD because I have an older one as a slave that I switched in and that got to the XP screen same as the other got to the Vista screen, exact same issues. I'm certain it's the processor.

The Retail CPU's come with Fan/Heatsink/and some pre-applied thermal paste.
Some people clean it off and apply their own goop for better results, but the pre-applied stuff should get the job done. If it's labelled OEM then it's just a naked CPU.

So you used a GPU both times? Do you have more than one PCI-E slot? It can be an issue with the PCI-E slot, or even the motherboard chipset.

Wait when you say GPU do you mean the onboard GPU (as opposed to a PCI-E one that you're removing)? Usually graphics card and GPU are synonymous

Yeah I would bet its the motherboard rather than the actual CPU. It's pretty tough to kill modern CPU's they have good thermal protection. You would pretty much have to overvolt or physically damage the cpu to kill it.

You're not the only one confused. What exactly do you mean by "I disabled the graphics card and retested". Did you take the graphics card out of the PCI-E slot and restart the system and problem remained, or do you have some on-board BIOS switch that allows you to turn off the PCI-E slot?

I'm going with the motherboard as well, you'd have to be doing some serious overclocking/volting to mess up the CPU, there is a lot protection built in around the CPU to stop the firing of it.

Also if 2gig out of the 4gig is DDR3, then all of it is, you can't (to my knowledge) mix different RAM types unless you have a rather special motherboard.

Just sounding that an i5 750 is great for the price.

You really love your 750 don't you

next thing we know tibby is posting a "my processor died" thread because he jizzed on it

Yes exactly: The first time I just disabled the graphics card via the bios, and the second time I took it out of the PCI express slot.

Sorry, I was misreading CM's post as if he were asking about the CPU.

If I were to buy these new parts, could I swap my current processor onto the new board to see if its officially dead?

No it is a different socket, The pin counts are different. Hate to encourage people to spend money in a possibly wasteful way, but if it is only your motherboard that died replacing it might cost as little as $60.

Can you be more specific about this:



What kind of warning or error msg?

Far be it from me to recommend something that I find works to other people...

what

I love it, yes I do.
That's why I keep recommending it.

I first read it as "My Professor died"...

But this, this is just tragic.

I genuinely don't remember the tools name because it just happened to be on my system (I think from Tekzilla), but it was for testing internet connections primarily. One of the panels had diagnostic tests for the power supply, cpu, the nic and a few other things. I hit "test" it returned 0/1 passes with the processor while everything else returned fine.

Is there a more final way to test this besides buying an extra mobo and installing the entire thing? I still haven't found out if the box is in warranty, so I already plan to call Dell up tomorrow morning.

Could try some stability tools, probably mostly for overclockers but would work this situation.

For video editing? Man that is a totally different kind of intensively parallelized vector operations than the sorts that run on a regular gaming computer. You absolutely need a Xeon, a SCSI hard drive and a Quadro, no question.

No Jon`C for video editing he needs a Mac lololololz.

don't know tech, opened thread to say this

Alright, the computer is not under warranty, and I've decided to go with the upgrades.

Did you get those parts and discounts from newegg, EAH? I can't seem to get the same deals. Also, would it be worth waiting until CES to buy these parts? I'm kind of sitting without a PC until then.

Also, the power supply you suggested is out of stock until the 12th. Do you have an alternative suggestion?

CES won't change prices whatsoever.

For the PSU, this is the closest one in price I can find:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005 (5 year warranty)

If you're going to be getting high-end, power-hungry parts, though, you should opt to spend a little more on the PSU ... the PSU is the one thing you should avoid skimping on if at all possible (not that the PSU Triscuit posted is skimping ... I'm just saying don't get some cheapo 500W PSU with like 60% load efficiency)

Corsair's HX line is their high-end line (and the newer ones all come w/ 7 year warranties), and I would have suggested the 520HX but for whatever reason it's deactivated on Newegg (maybe it's been phased out / replaced?) I was then going to recommend the 620HX (next step up) but for some reason it's more expensive than the 650HX which makes no sense.

Uhhh... multimeter?

IMO that falls under 'specialized equipment'. I don't own one. I dont want to guess at the percentage of population that owns a mulitmeter, but I would wager it's not the majority.

Alright, I bought it all and now I await its arrival so I can break it trying to put it all together. Thanks for the advice and guidance!

*sigh*

I've got all of the parts here and put together. At first it was on a boot loop, but I quickly switched the ram to the other dimm slots and it started up properly. The bios screens and (when I can get it to load) desktop have red, blue, or green lines up and down the screen. The Bus seems to want to install when it manages the desktop, but the processor, HDD, DVD drive, and RAM are all detected and working.

My question is whether I should try to find bus drivers on another PC or if I should go ahead and buy a new graphics card. I don't have any extra GFX cards to test, so it's probably worth at least seeing if getting the bus drivers installed will solve my problems. If so, what's a reasonable range for price and which one would be a good choice for the given hardware? I'd rather spend more now than have to upgrade sooner.

sounds like you weren't very careful.

No, actually it seems like both my old processor and or JUST the graphics card were going, as I was having this exact same issue while trouble shooting the old box.

It's the video card, I thought we already established that a while ago.

If it were the CPU, you'd be having a heck of a lot more issues than just graphical corruption.

Kirby: "Hey doc, what's wrong with me?"
Massassi: "I don't know. What's happening to you?"
Kirby: "I have cold sweats and I keep coughing up phlegm. I think it might be the brain cancer."
Massassi: "It's probably pneumonia."
Kirby: "I see.... Do I need brain surgery, then?"
Massassi: "No, you need antibiotics."
Kirby: "Oh. How will antibiotics affect my brain surgery?"

I honestly have no idea what you actually ended up buying, kirby, but if I had to guess I'd say you did the following two things:

1.) You're still using your old PSU, which is almost definitely what caused your old processor to produce "errors" in whatever testing program you used and is probably not adequately powering your video card.

2.) You installed your RAM without being grounded.

Considering all of the ram reads and it's a brand new power supply, the graphics card is probably the only thing wrong in the new machine. I'm asking for new graphics card suggestions, not your condescension. Spare me your scathing wisdom this time and stop posting, Jon`C. You're the only person that can make an upgrade thread hostile.