Motherboard advice

[AmDD]

Im new to bitcoins and have decided to throw a small amount of money into it just to play around with. I have plans on building a new computer soon and plan on turning my old one into a mine rig. Currently I have a DFI Lanparty CFX3200 with an Athlon 4800+ X2, HD4850 and 2GB ram. The motherboard has 2 PCIe 16x slots and 2 1x slots.  I get about 90mhs now with the 4850 and ordered 3 5850's from ebay to add to it. I also ordered a 1050watt PSU with 8 PCIe connectors.

Now, I have had an issue with this system before in that it sometimes will not turn on and I never could figure out why... After pulling out hard drives, cdroms, etc to install the video cards I ran into this issue again and it wont boot... What would be a cheap motherboard to replace this one with? I wanted to have a 1ghs system for $600 or so...

Would it be better to find a socket 939 board to use the existing cpu/ram or buy something lower powered?

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[John (John K.)]

Whitelisted as your time requirements are fulfilled anyway. Ask away at the Hardware subforum for more exposure.

[AmDD]

Thank you, Can you move this or should I just copy/paste it?

[John (John K.)]

Done. Actually, you can move it yourself by using the Move option found below.

[crazyates]

Number 1 test on an old Motherboard: Check for bulging Caps.

Example:

[Lethos]

Im new to bitcoins and have decided to throw a small amount of money into it just to play around with. I have plans on building a new computer soon and plan on turning my old one into a mine rig. Currently I have a DFI Lanparty CFX3200 with an Athlon 4800+ X2, HD4850 and 2GB ram. The motherboard has 2 PCIe 16x slots and 2 1x slots.  I get about 90mhs now with the 4850 and ordered 3 5850's from ebay to add to it. I also ordered a 1050watt PSU with 8 PCIe connectors.

Now, I have had an issue with this system before in that it sometimes will not turn on and I never could figure out why... After pulling out hard drives, cdroms, etc to install the video cards I ran into this issue again and it wont boot... What would be a cheap motherboard to replace this one with? I wanted to have a 1ghs system for $600 or so...

Would it be better to find a socket 939 board to use the existing cpu/ram or buy something lower powered?

So you need a motherboard which uses a 939 socket, not a AM2 socket? I get confused by all the similar named processors, that use different sockets. If it's an 939, they came out 7 years ago, might be a little tricky to still get them, since it was quickly replaced by AM2 socket.

When looking around at a place I use that stores literally anything here in the England (and does much of europe), there is a real shortage of good stuff using the 939 socket. There is one or two, however the best one still only has the one PCI-E x16 and one PCI-E x1 slot, so not an ideal candidate.

Also what country do you live in and budget would you like to work with, so we can suggest reasonable websites to look at for you.

[crazyates]

Im new to bitcoins and have decided to throw a small amount of money into it just to play around with. I have plans on building a new computer soon and plan on turning my old one into a mine rig. Currently I have a DFI Lanparty CFX3200 with an Athlon 4800+ X2, HD4850 and 2GB ram. The motherboard has 2 PCIe 16x slots and 2 1x slots.  I get about 90mhs now with the 4850 and ordered 3 5850's from ebay to add to it. I also ordered a 1050watt PSU with 8 PCIe connectors.

Now, I have had an issue with this system before in that it sometimes will not turn on and I never could figure out why... After pulling out hard drives, cdroms, etc to install the video cards I ran into this issue again and it wont boot... What would be a cheap motherboard to replace this one with? I wanted to have a 1ghs system for $600 or so...

Would it be better to find a socket 939 board to use the existing cpu/ram or buy something lower powered?

So you need a motherboard which uses a 939 socket, not a AM2 socket? I get confused by all the similar named processors, that use different sockets. If it's an 939, they came out 7 years ago, might be a little tricky to still get them, since it was quickly replaced by AM2 socket.

When looking around at a place I use that stores literally anything here in the England (and does much of europe), there is a real shortage of good stuff using the 939 socket. There is one or two, however the best one still only has the one PCI-E x16 and one PCI-E x1 slot, so not an ideal candidate.

Also what country do you live in and budget would you like to work with, so we can suggest reasonable websites to look at for you.

It sounds like he's already got a motherboard/CPU, he just want's to upgrade the PSU, throw some cards in there, and start mining. But he's running into a previous issue where it won't boot.

[AmDD]

Im fairly sure the mobo is causing the problem. I have not check for bulging caps but I do know that I ran it overclocked its entire life and most of the time at 100% cpu usage. The chipset fan stopped spinning quite awhile back which allows the heatsink to get pretty hot to the touch.

In any case I want to be on the look out for a new one...

EDIT: Yes it is a 939 socket, Im pretty sure it used DDR ram too. Thanks kinda why I was asking. I may be able to find a newer mobo/cpu/ram for the same price an older 939 mobo.

In in the USA with a budget of cheap! As it sits now I have $510 invested and I would say I might be willing to spend another $100 but i really dont want to.

[Coinoisseur]

Your best bet is to sell the cpu, ram, and 4850 then get http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138355 and whatever Intel S1155 cpu you care for. The Celeron G5xx series is great for bitcoin but with that motherboard you could get a faster CPU in case you plan on using the machine for other pet projects.

I picked that motherboard because you can fit 3 cards in it without extenders and actually have some airflow, and 4-5 cards with extenders. Not sure if both x1 slots will work with fully populated PCI-E, own the board but haven't tried 5 GPUs, the manual doesn't mention anything about either x1 slot becoming disabled.

Oh, forgot DDR3 RAM but you can get by on a single stick if you want to hit your $600 budget exactly.

$130 Motherboard + $50 CPU + $20 RAM = $200 (possible $15 rebate)

You should be able to get around $80 selling your old but still functional parts. Heck, the motherboard works as long as you just use the 4850 right? So potentially ~$100.

[Lethos]

An upgrade to the motherboard, usually helps to just replace the exact same socket and general spec. This avoids any unnecessary cost upgrading other parts. However after a bit of research in the US market, it's not very cost effective to buy these older motherboards. Most are used, or still very expensive for the spec you'd need to replace it with. Newer motherboards are more cost effective.

So buy new and replace the motherboard, cpu and ram, does look like it could be cheaper. I'm not overly familar with the best places to buy in the US, so I'll leave that to someone else.