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Maybe dumb question. I an looking to swap out the motherboard in my T6524 because being a socket 939 type CPU and memory upgrades are becoming more difficult and expensive. I would like to use all the existing hardware including the case if possible. I realize I more than likely would have to add a PCI/IDE card to support the current set up of 1 hard drive and 2 optical drive all IDE. Can I just use any micro atx form motherboard?
Thanks,
Carl
Sorry.... I mean to say I would like to use existing case and drives. I realize I would be changing the CPU and Memory. Thats why I want to swap the motherboard so I can upgrade those items easier.
Carl
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First of all if you do that your power supply will most likely be too weak to support a newer system. Second, your copy of Windows is tied to the motherboard so most likely you would need to buy a new copy of Windows.
Emachines, Dell, Gateway are not designed for major upgrades.
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OtheHill:
Thanks for the reply. Yea I was wondering about the PSU the one in there is a Bestec 300W and I've read all the horror stories about Emachines "quality" PSUs. As for Windows goes not a problem, I already have a copy I can install. What I'm most concerned about is the motherboard physically fitting in the case allowing me to continue to use my existing hard drive, cd drive and dvd burner. I am not a hardcore gamer at all but am a multi-tasker and would probably benifit from being able to use an X2 processor.
Carl
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Your eMachines uses an MSI MS-7184 motherboard:
http://www.e4allupgraders.info/dir1...
http://217.110.237.67/Manuals/7184-...
The exact same board is used by HP/Compaq:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...
It appears to be a standard mATX board so you *should* be able to install an "off the shelf" board. Here's the best case scenario for your shopping list:
- microATX board w/integrated graphics & two IDE channels
- CPU
- RAMHere's the worse case scenario:
- microATX board
- CPU
- RAM
- PCI-e x16 video card
- IDE controller card
- PSU
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jam:
Thanks for that info. This should be a fairly inexpensive upgrade for me then. I already have a PCI-e x16 video card if need be. Although I'm not in love with the one I have it will do for now. Like you said I could add the IDE controller card they are only around 25.00 or so. It's doubtful I'll find an micro-ATX board with 2 IDE controllers.
Thanks Again,
Carl
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"This should be a fairly inexpensive upgrade for me then"
It depends on your definition of inexpensive. Here's a reasonable estimate: $60 board + $100 CPU + $40 RAM + $25 controller card = $225. If a PSU is required, add $50 more.
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Rather than spend $25 for a controller card why not get a SATA optical drive for about the same cash and then you would have enough connections with only one IDE controller. You may elect to upgrade the harddrive anyway.
I have found it is usually cost effective to just keep older systems as they are. In the case of OEM computers you have the added value in the inclusion of the OEM OS. I would just keep the computer completely as is and build a new system. Not that much more and you will have NEW optical drives. Burners have a finite life. If you have burned many disks the unit may well be long in the tooth.
Assumming the EMachines case is a cheapy you can get a cheapy case for about $30 and burners for the same, you can have two computers for say $60/75 more.
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". I am not a hardcore gamer at all but am a multi-tasker and would probably benifit from being able to use an X2 processor."
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...
"memory upgrades are becoming more difficult and expensive"
Doesn't look that difficult or expensive to me. How much ram do you currently have.
larry
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larry
Currently I have 3gb of ram. The complete sentence you quoted was CPU and memory upgrades are becoming more difficult and expensive. I'll stand by that especially with regards to the CPU. I see the ram can still be had at a reasonable price via newegg or other mail order place, try finding it onsale at a local best buy or something (not that I'm saying that is the place to shop for parts) Specials on DDR2 are common but very rare for DDR. Upgrading to a dual core processor would be very costly and most likely require going the Ebay route which I'm not comfortable doing for something along these lines.
Swapping out the MB opens up future upgrade possibilities. Or I am seriously considering OtheHill's suggestion of just building a new computer all toghether.
Carl
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yea I agree, if you currently have 3gb of ram, you have gone about as far as you can go with that setup.
larry
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Ok folks. I took the plunge and installed an ASUS M2N-MX SE motherboard and also an AMD Athlon 64X@ 5200 processor. I also had to add an ITE Ultra ATA/133 RAID/IDE controller card and that is giving me a problem. Is it not possible to use that for the CD drive? I'm wondering because neither optical drive is being seen in My Computer (DVD Burner or CD Drive) BUT a floppy drive is showing up when I have never had one on this machine.
Thanks,
Carl
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You need to verify the Controller card is ATAPI compliant. What is the model of the controller card. Sounds like you didn't make the best choice for that card.
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OtheHill:
Thanks for the reply! According to the pamphlet it is ATAPI compliant. During boot up the system does an IDE scan and does not detect anything. There is a RAID Bios that the card takes me into but whenever I chose IDE it tells me that is a bad configuration. I tried with both the optical drive jumpers set on CS and also with one on master and one on slave.... No Dice either way. Other than this hiccup the rest of the upgrade was a piece of cake. Vista Ultimate found all the new hardware and downloaded drivers without incident.
Thanks,
Carl
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You may need to identify the controller card in the BIOS boot order as a SCSI device. Don't ask why that is because it doesn't make much sense to me either but it seems to be necessary.
Does the controller card show in Device Manager?
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The card shows up in Device manager as a standard dual channel PCI IDE controller. I'm thinking I need to pull the card because now I'm having trouble getting into my motherboard bios on boot up. I keep hitting the delete button but it wants to run thought the RAID Bios and then go right to windows. I'm also trying to figure how the system thinks there is a floppy disk drive on here now too.
Carl
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Let me correct myself. I went into the case and pulled the card and moved it to a different PCI slot. NOW the system is recognizing it as ITE IT8212 ATA RAID Controller under storage controllers. Still the same issue with nothing being recognized during the IDE scan on bootup. Could this be due to my changing the jumpers on the optical drives from CS to Master on one and Slave on the other?
Thanks,
Carl
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I found this on the Syba manufacturers page for a card with that same chip on it.
http://www.syba.com/Product/Info/Id/32
Supported devices
* Hard Drives
* Note: Do not support ATAPI devices on this raid card, such as: ATAPI CDROM, DVD ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, LS-120, MO, Tape and ZIP devicesTry connecting your CD drive to the MBoard controller.
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OtheHill,
Very interesting. Thanks for that link. I wonder what ATAPI compliant means then. I'll give that a shot and hope the hard drive is recognized fine via the controller card. Should I put the jumper for the HD on CS, Slave, or Master? If this doesn't work I'll probably just get a SATA hard drive and run the optical drives of the motherboard and do away with the controller card totally.
Thanks again to you and everyone for all your help and advice.Carl
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ATAPI is the standard for optical drives. If you documentation states the card is compliant then mayabe it is. Usually all devices based on the same chipset are very similiar in features.
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right OtheHill but even on the link you sent me. It says it is ATAPI Compliant:
Specification General
PCI Specification Revision 2.2 compliant
ATA/ATAPI-6, UDMA6 ATA/133 compliant
Maximum data transfer rate: 133MB/sec
Automatic performance tuning for each device attached
Fully backwards compatible with Ultra ATA/100, Ultra ATA/66, Ultra ATA/33, EIDE/Fast ATA-2, IDE and ATAPI devices
2-channel IDE interface supporting 4 IDE devices, co-exist with on-board IDE interface
but then a little further down says it doesn't support it so you can see my confusion right?
Also I am still curious as to what jumper postion you would recommend for the HD if I'm going to try that on the controller card.
Thanks,
Carl
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If you are going to boot from the harddrive then it should be jumpered as Master.
I see your confusion. Evidently the folks that wrote that are confused. Look at the link below.
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OtheHill,
Just wanted to let you know that I'm up and running. I did put the Hard Drive on the controller card and used the Motherboard IDE for the optical drives. Thanks again for all your help!
Carl
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Couple of things... The MS-7184 mother board supports the AMD X2 series of CPU for the specs I have read. Why not go the easy way and just upgrade the CPU and memory.
Second on the XP License, you can use the same key if you are reinstalling on the same machine. You can even remove and re-install on another machine if you want too. You will need to re-activate but nothing more..
Microsoft allows for hardware changes and machine transfers in the license...
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