Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Underwaterbob]

My motherboard is toast. At least seven blown capacitors right next to the CPU and a number of bloated ones. It sometimes boots up briefly only to near immediately BSOD usually with memory errors. Unfortunately, it's a Frankenstein: 8600gt, two hard drives: one sata, one ide, AMD Athlon X2 and three sticks of DDR2 memory: one 1gb, two 512s.

Simply finding the same motherboard is a near impossibility since it's old and apparently quite prone to capacitor meltdown. (See "capacitor plague" on Wikipedia, you learn something new every day.)

Is there a newer motherboard that's easily available and supports my cpu, memory and all the other hardware? If not, what's a decent motherboard - cpu - memory combo that will support the other hardware? Do modern motherboards still support IDE, sata and PCI express? Doing Internet searches for such things always gets me results from seven years ago, unsurprisingly near the age of my computer...

I'm trying to do this on the cheap.

[Kimchifart]

If you go to yongsan they have tons of second hand motherboards outside for next to nothing, you can just bring along your processor in a box and ask them. It's gonna be 939 probably but can't remember as it was years ago I had one of those.

[Underwaterbob]

Hrm. I'm nowhere near Seoul. Does Yongsan close for red days? (ie this Wednesday, 현충일)

[jackdaniels]

If it's DDR2 Ram then it's going to be Socket AM2.

I would suggest upgrading your system although at this point it looks like almost nothing from your current system would be compatible except for the CD/DVD drive...and perhaps the hdds although the speed would just slow your new system down.

Any motherboard you find of this vintage will carry a used warranty of 7-14 days. I know you wrote you wanted do this on the cheap but think of the trip you take to Yongsan and then a month later the motherboard dies again.

Just get a new system

Red days can be a hit and miss at Yongsan.

[Underwaterbob]

The hard drives are the most important part. The video card second since it was expensive when I bought it and still does a decent job for what I need it to do. PCI express is still the standard, isn't it?

[ttompatz]

[Underwaterbob]

Schwing! That's what I wanted to hear. Thanks folks!

[Underwaterbob]

Hurgh, more questions:

The local computer chop shop is going to upgrade me to an i3 for a decent price. I want to install windows 7. Anyone running windows 7 have compatibility problems with Korean Internet? Is the unfortunately mandatory activex stuff a problem?

[phatrick]

You will have no problems. Win 7 is one of m$ better OS's.

[Underwaterbob]

[phatrick]

Not sure what the problem was but I have ordered things for the past 6 years without any problems... sure you have to install bunch of crap and you still do if you want to order online. But that has nothing to do with what version of windows you choose, that is how they created the websites.

[Underwaterbob]

I know it is the websites' fault, not windows. The place putting my machine together offered to install XP for me for free... I just needed to know that the activeX controls required for so many Korean websites would still work with Windows 7. Your post seems to confirm that.

[denverdeath]

u'll likely have no problems, especially if u, (shudder), use IE. ur going to have to install a bunch of crap regardless of which OS ur using. if some of ur peripherals(printers, etc) r a bit older, u may b better off installing the 32-bit version of windows 7.

[Underwaterbob]

I use IE only when I have to: for all the outdated Korean websites.

Thanks.