My next upgrade

[AndrewJ]

Hi all

Some of you know that I've been planning a major upgrade for a while now.

So far I have found the case I am going to be buying


( note to all : I must use Scan computers since they are closest to myself and the friend who will be helping me build this computer, and my maximum total budget is £300 )

LINK

I like the insane fan size for cooling and the overall look of the case, I have a good PSU from the current case and plan on moving it over.

Harddrive

I did plan for multiple harddrives however I have decided agaisnt it to getting an external HD, so

LINK


Now to my problem, my motherboard has a dead Nforce chipset fan and is currently suffering intermittent laggy spouts I've sorted them for now by using some case fans directed at the fan and the chip, so I am in a choice wether to spend whats left of my cash on a New CPU and Cooler or on buying a new motherboard and a new cooler for my processor.

This motherboard is what I have got my eyes on

LINK

[Graham M]

You could probably get a bigger HDD for not too many more pennies

[Smilie]

whats ur current PC specs??

[Gareth]

Wow, that case is certainly..... er, unique

[AndrewJ]

I so love the case it's about as insane as me

My current specs are

Asus A8ne-fm socket 939 nforce4 pci-e *nforce fan is dead only noticed yesterday*

AMD 64 3000 Newcastle, socket 939

1gb (2x512mb)

80gb Maxtor SATA

Msi Nvidia 7900gt

550watt Psu

Thats not a major upgrade its a replacement motherboard or and upgraded cpu. You say you want an external drive? mistake you should have multiple internal drives if you need one to pull regularly buy a caddy

Whats the point of making a sideways step its a waste of money just buy the case and replace your chipset fan.
To complete a major upgrade imo you need to be looking at a total rebuild the only thing I would use is the gfx and existing hard/optical drives.Id save enough for a dual core cpu.If it is just cooling thats wrong with your mobo you can keep this and your ram and bung a X2 cuz these are cheap cheap now.
However I would recommend making do for now and buying a C2D when you can afford a new mobo and ram this then would be a major upgrade lol

[NitroNutter]

While a case may look appealing there are things you should really watch out for, thickness of the metal used in the chasis is a main one, modular design like lian-li's has much better functionality than a plain rattle in the mobo and so on.

Also your current psu seems somewhat overkill for your system, your better off spending a bit more on a lower wattage better brand psu than saving a few notes and getting a huge wattage cheapy. Just something to think about in the future. (I run 5 hdds, 3 optics a 3.2 preschot with 4 ram modules a hyper 6 and a 9800 pro AIW, several usb dev,s non powered and am often throwing around this unit other pci cards) and it doesnt ever break a sweat over 320 watts continual even when loaded, add 20% (70 watts) or so for power on spiking and I still have room for never off use, this has a CM real power 450.

External drives are not really designed for continual use so if you intend this external drive for that perhaps you should reconsider. I would say WD and seagates are about the most reliable drives around, seagates seem to be the dearest and you could probably get a WD RE that has 5 years for about the same money as the seagate equivalent but go with what you feel happy with, hdd's are the worst item to ever make any recomendations on as when these fail no matter how rare it involves data loss and missery.

[AndrewJ]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

Thats not a major upgrade its a replacement motherboard or and upgraded cpu. You say you want an external drive? mistake you should have multiple internal drives if you need one to pull regularly buy a caddy

Whats the point of making a sideways step its a waste of money just buy the case and replace your chipset fan.
To complete a major upgrade imo you need to be looking at a total rebuild the only thing I would use is the gfx and existing hard/optical drives.Id save enough for a dual core cpu.If it is just cooling thats wrong with your mobo you can keep this and your ram and bung a X2 cuz these are cheap cheap now.
However I would recommend making do for now and buying a C2D when you can afford a new mobo and ram this then would be a major upgrade lol

I see your point Zingle but at this moment in time the computers laggy behavior is making the gf think about letting me upgrade since it keeps crashing out.

Will check into getting the fan fixed this week then work on getting the case cpu and HD upgraded.

[Deathmaker]

Contact Asus & they'll send you a replacement fan/sink. Failing that (pardon the pun ), the Zalman ZM-NB47J works well for about £4, you might need to direct flow from a case fan to give it a hand though. Cheaper than a new mobo.

[AndrewJ]

Well everyone.

A turn for the worse.

Yesterday the fan stopped working all together, nothing was coming from it...so I went to a local store and bought some stick on fan for a fiver, come home removed the motherboard took off the old one which was pinned onto the mobo with two clips, and installed this new fan, all is well.

Five minutes later it just drops of the Chipset even though the contact was clean and sound, today took the fan back and luckily was able to get a Dell Dimension 4100 for only £50, so I can do my duties online and not go insane with day time television.

Deathmaker I would love if you could provide me a link for that from Asus as I would indeed love a fan from them if they will send me a replacment.