Motherboard blown - upgrade required - please help

Stantheman

Hi I blew my motherboard and processor so need to buy new ones. I had to buy a laptop which I am really happy with but I would like to reinstate my PC as a second machine so I want to do it as cheaply as possible.
Im not really interested in upgrading it too much as I was happy with the Athlon 2000XP that I had. I do however have a few problems which I hope you can help me with:
1/ The graphics card I have is AGP and is a Geforce Ti4600. When I bought it it cost a lot of money but I realise its old now. However it plays the games I like so I would like to keep it which limits me to an agp board. My question is what is the equivalent graphics card available now i.e which cheap card could I buy with the same amount of power as my old one thats fits in a new motherboard?
2/ The ram I have is PC2100 266 512mb (2 sticks). Will this fit in any motherboard I buy.
3/ I have 2 IDE hard drives so SATA motherboards are out of the question.
4/ I understand there are different power supplies on new motherboards and again I would like to use my existing.
My main question is can I buy a processor or motherboard which I can use my existing components in which wont cost the earth? I dont really want to spend more than £100 and would be happier with £60 or £70 if it just means my pc is working again and not really upgraded in anyway. I would however consider an all in one mobo,processor, ram, graphics card option at the right price.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Stantheman

Hold on I just realised a new mobo, processor, ram and graphics card is a new computer. Anyone know if they'll fit in my existing case:rotfl:

superscaper

asrock 4coredual (about £40) for the motherboard that way you can keep your old ram and graphics card and upgrade them whenever you want

vertical_fool

How do you know you've blown two components? Isn't it more likely to be just one?

You can still get the motherboards or you could the last time I was looking. The socket A processors I think you'd have to get of Ebay. I think all the AMD processors are AM2.

If you looking at getting mobo,processor, ram, graphics seperately then you may be better going for a fully built PC without the monitor. This may work out cheaper if you sell your existing components. It would certainly take the hassle out of it aswell and the potential hardware conflicts.

Vertical

vertical_fool

I was thinking you could just replace the blown component for a cheap backup PC. However if there both blown then I'd look at just buying a cheap motherboard and AMD processor utilising the rest of your components.

Those would be my lines of thought, with the next being to upgrade to an Intel coreduo full system although this would be a more expensive there are some excellant deals on here and similar moneysaving sites particularly from Dell.
Vertical

superscaper

I reckon it's cheaper to buy the motherboard I suggested and about £100 for decent core 2 duo processor. Motherboard can take the latest quad core intel chips so plenty of scope for upgrading. You may need to change power supply depending on what you've currently got but that's it.

superscaper

vertical_fool wrote: »

Those would be my lines of thought, with the next being to upgrade to an Intel coreduo full system although this would be a more expensive there are some excellant deals on here and similar moneysaving sites particularly from Dell.
Vertical

Why not do that now though, it would cost only about £140 + power supply?

Stantheman

oh wow so many replies so quickly. Thank you. I really dont want to spend too much as the laptop has wiped me out financially. I really think Id like to just get my existing system working cheaply by keeping as many components as possible.

I know what you mean about the mobo OR processor could be blown but they are the only components I wasnt able to replace for testing. The problem I have is that the socket a processors are hard to come by and quite expensive for what they are and if it then proves to be the mobo Im stuffed so I think id be better off buying both.

So back to my original questions does anyone know about graphics card comparison and ram, ide hard drive compatability i mentioned. Can anyone recommend a sub £100 replacement?

superscaper

iwantoneofthose wrote: »

So back to my original questions does anyone know about graphics card comparison and ram, ide hard drive compatability i mentioned. Can anyone recommend a sub £100 replacement?

The motherboard I mentioned is compatible with your graphics card and ram and hard drives. You can also upgrade it in the future with PCI express graphics card and DDR2 ram and SATA hard drives. If you have to get a new processor then you may as well get a motherboard that accepts core 2 duo. This way when you upgrade again in the future for graphics etc you don't have to buy ANOTHER motherboard.

MajorR

Any modern board with on-board graphics will be better than your Geforce Ti4600 card. To give you an example i had a Geforce 5200FX, upgraded and the Geforce 6100 that was on board out performs it.

Stantheman

MajorR wrote: »

Any modern board with on-board graphics will be better than your Geforce Ti4600 card. To give you an example i had a Geforce 5200FX, upgraded and the Geforce 6100 that was on board out performs it.

Are you serious that even onboard graphics is better than mine? I paid about £300 at the time! Damm I hate computers. One thing I have learnt is never to buy the latest because of the way it becomes outdated so quickly. So really graphics is nor an issue then. Thank you