[Racehunter]

Hi,

Having had some stability issues with my PC, and eliminating most of the components as the cause, it seems very likely that my motherboard is faulty (14 month old) and I am looking to purchase a replacement before RMA'ing the existing one. I would appreciate anyones suggestions as to an alternate Mobo for my system which is as follows:

OS Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit
CPU AMD Phenom II X6 1055T
Motherboard Asus M4A87TD/USB3
Memory Kingston 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Memory Kit CL9 1.65V
Graphics Card PowerColor HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card
Monitor(s) Displays LG
Keyboard Microsoft Wireless 3000 V2.0
Mouse Microsoft Wireless 5000
PSU Antec TruePower New 750W Modular PSU
Case Antec 300
Hard Drives OCZ Vertex 3 SATA 3 SSD (OS and software) + Seagate ST3500418ASATA 500Gb (user profiles etc)


I use the USB 3 ports and while I don't currently use the PC for gaming, it was spec'd to allow me to use one of the motor racing games as a track learning tool.


Any suggestions would be appreciated. I am not a 'label junkie' so not tied to a specific manufacturer, just wanting reliability and multi tasking performance. I had considered going down the Intel route but can't really justify the additional cost of a CPU when the one I have is more than adequate.


Thanks in advance


Steve

[gary306]

maybe something like this.
MSI 990XA-GD55 AMD Motherboard - Scan.co.uk
supports your current cpu and ram,and will allow for potential upgrade into bulldozer should you need to. USB 3 and a decent board all round being a 990

or if budget is a problem
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...e-20-(x16)-atx

[Racehunter]

Gary,

The MSI is actually one I looked at a couple of days ago, when trying to compile my own list. Price is certainly OK as well. I had also considered this:

Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3 AMD 990X AM3+ Motherboard

I quite liked the idea of a UEFI BIOS interface which I believe you can download from the Gigabyte website.

Steve

[Racehunter]

Would it be worth the extra to get this mobo?

MSI 990FXA-GD65 Socket AM3+

Steve

[ChileanLlama]

Are you absolutely certain it's your motherboard? What are the stability issues and what have you checked/diagnosed so far (e.g. checking RAM sticks individually, temperatures etc).

[Racehunter]

Hi ChileanLlama,

The issues have been subject to much diagnosis as well as component changing. Analysis of the dump files showed many different potential causes of BSOD etc. Quite often it will even stall in BIOS and refuse to restart. I thought we had it sorted with a change of graphics card following a ver long thread on another forum indicating a compatability issue between Nvidia and the M4A87TD Mobo. It ran well after the change for a couple of weeks but has now 'gone bad'. I have run Prime 65 and other stress tests, swapped out memory sticks, changed PSU, run without the SSD etc etc.

Wits end now lol

[ChileanLlama]

Hi Racehunter, it sounds like you've done a lot to get to this point

One thing you've probably done, but not mentioned is have you looked for an updated BIOS for your motherboard? There may be later versions that fix these problems even if it's not stated in the release notes.

Sorry can't be much help on selecting a new motherboard as I've not used that platform, but one final question out of interest what racing games/sims are you running?

[Racehunter]

The BIOS is the latestversion, as are all of the drivers, but thanks for the suggestion. I actually do not have any race sim software yet but have been looking at what some of our US cousins are up to. They are into modding the cars to look like there own and running a national league. Most of those guys are racing the real thing as well. If I remember correctly they can be found on apex forums under FF200 racing (or something like that!)

[ChileanLlama]

Thanks Racehunter, good luck with the fix, and I'll take a look at those forums as I do like a good drive

[Racehunter]

Try this link:

Racing Simulators and Gaming - ApexSpeed