[CentOS] OT: (a) Biostar or MSI mainboard? (b) all Celeron CPU's OK?

Sun Dec 28 03:09:03 UTC 2008
Lanny Marcus <lmmailinglists at gmail.com>

On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 9:53 PM, John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com> wrote:
> Lanny Marcus wrote:
>> (a) Mark (mhr) suggested I buy a bare bones box, when I reported the
>> problem with the mainboard in this Dell Dimension 2400 box. ... The one that
>> seems the most interesting is the Biostar P4M890-M7 TE (a Socket LGA
>> 775 board). ...
>>
>> The other mainboard is the MSI P6NGM-L (MS-7366 Ver. 1.0)....
>
> the PSU in your Dimension 2400 (a celeron system with the i845gv
> chipset) may not work with a PCI-Express motherboard as they've changed
> hte PSU spec to require significantly more +12V than in older ATX
> designs.   Also, Dell is fairly notorious for using PSUs that are just
> barely adequate for the system as originally configured.

John: Thank you, for your very quick reply! I know you are extremely
knowledgeable. Much appreciated. If I buy a new motherboard, it will
go into a new case, with a new CPU and 2 GB RAM (max is 4 GB).  The
PSU in this Dell Dimension 2400 is only 200 or 250 watts, and I
suspect that may be part of the problem. Barely adequate, as you
wrote. The new case I will buy has a 450 watt PSU as I recall.
Something else I hate about this Dell Dimension 2400 box, and at least
one other box we have, is there is no Reset switch on the Front Panel.
I will get a case that has a Reset switch on it.
>
> if you are going to try to upgrade/replace parts in that system, I'd
> consider getting a g33 based motherboard (intel dg33tl or equivalent)
> with a low end core2 chip such as the e2200, along with 2x1GB ddr2 533
> or whatever.     this would give you a system many times faster than the
> celeron 2.4ghz of the original, faster but similar onboard video, etc.
> you may end up needing a new PSU for this, but this combination would
> work with a very modest pci-express compatible PSU

I will ask about a g33 based motherboard, and a low end Core 2 chip,
when I go back to the store, with this Dell Dimension 2400, for the
mobo guy to see if he can fix it. He said he can also look at the PSU.
I will wait until after New Years Day, to take it in, so they will be
open and hopefully very sober....
>
> fwiw, my current main desktop system is a DG33TL mobo + e8500 cpu +
> 2x2GB ddr2 800mhz, and its a seriously fast and stable system

Thank you again and Happy New Year!  Lanny