[wadeski (old)]

Hi guys,

My PC has been giving me sh*t recently, whereby it will crash after boot up and give me "insert system disk" nonsense.

It has basically boiled down to either a HDD or a mobo problem - everything else checks out.

i will be trying an old HDD this weekend to see if the current (4 month old!) one is the problem, but if it turns out to be the mobo i need some advice.

Currently i have an Asus A7V8x and an Athlon 2800+ (Barton). If i were to upgrade, i would not want to spend very much money at all - im happy with the performance i get from my current setup, and with a 6800GT it seems reasonably future proof (i.e. doom 3 runs very well, so Quake 4 should run pretty well too).

I dont run dual-channel ram or use RAID (i just have two unmatched 512mb DDR dimms), so im not looking for a feature-heavy mobo. The only question is should i get one of the new Athlon 64 chips and motherboards - are they worth the money? Or should i just pick up another cheap A7V8x series board?

My main desire is silent cooling - im probably going to use a Zalman copper Flower cooler or an Arctic Cooling product on the chip, and my case doesnt get very good airflow thanks to the ultra-low rpm fans. So a chip that runs cool is essential.

any tips?

[Hybridesque (old)]

Well, if it's mobo, I'd just spend bare minimum to keep it going, and then mint away dosh for the day you can splash out. If it's the HDD, then hold tight still with what you have mobo/cpu/ram wise. A 68GT is a fine card by all accounts and should keep things ticking for a while I hope. I'd check voltages if you can get into the BIOS PC Health section, because PSU might be at fault.

I'm running a Barton 2800+ like you. I had bought the chip from Lithium of [aard] back in November for 50GBP and paired it up with an Abit NF7 v2.0 (basic nForce2 Ultra 400 board with dual channel support). and PQI TurboMemory 1Gb Dual Channel DDR400 2-3-3-6 kit all in for 240 GBP (chip cost included).

This setup should be still good for 18-24 months I feel, after I drop in a better gfx card to replace the INFAMOUS GF2MX400 that I own. After that I'll probably save up for a badass mobo/cpu/ram/sli gfx changover. If silence is a concern, I'd hold tight with what you have already. I'm running a 1800rpm 80mm fan frankensteined with 80mm->60mm fan adapter onto a Akasa AK795CU heatsink.