# [SOLVED] Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?



## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

HI , I have an operitunity to up grade my mobo , i curently have the asusM2n32-sli delux , i bought about 3-1/2 years ago when dual core / SLI was first hitting hard , Its a great mobo for sure but the slots are kinda set up bad for dual sli , my sound cards in a pciE slot between the 2 pci's ? i dont need the on bord wireless stuff and the way im upgrading now ,new antec 1200 case with the 1000w antec psu, "i know i know but i already bought them " im going to be swapping everything anyway so i was wondering if there was a mobo out there thats upgradeable to maybe do quad that would also fit my amd an2x64 chip? is that possible ? i see boards that say they fit AN2 and AN3 but i dont reely know what that means ? ...right now i have AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 125W Dual-Core Processor , 4- 2gig DDR2 sitcks of ram "800" and the NVID evgaGTX 285 vid card , then thers the 500 gig sata HD and dvd drives ectt .. but the main thing is building around the psu/vid card 2x64 chip and ram .. 

The wife could use and says she wants a new PC (old compaq off the rack p.o.s.)so i figured i could use my leftovers to build hers ! thus the green light to possibly upgrade mine even farther !! haha (i kinda talked her into it).. i can put the new mobo in the new case and swap everything over leaving her the old case with the mobo already in it pluss i have a 2x64 4600 chip and my old vid card to put in it !

so that being said i want the meanest baddest Mobo that would fit my hardware best (and the reasonable ones to per wifey, i have to say i looked !) 

Im not that smart when it comes to these things so i relly on ppl who are in the know about the latest and greatest ! 



i would like to stick with nivd chip set , i like the asus too but im open to what would work best with what i already have !!

all sugestions welcom !


Thanks in advance for any help here ... ray:


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

Could you move the X2 and motherboard over to the wife's new PC and upgrade yourself to a AM3 set up?


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

Hi wrench ! yes thats whats up , i have the new case and psu comming tomarrow ,i already have 2 cpu's ,my new ath 2x64 6000 and my old 2x64 4600, pluss the old ram ,old psu to move over .. so i was thinking i could give her my old box and take my chip,ram and vid card over to the new.. so if you were thinking that i was open to get a new cpu as well ,i can't lol ( well i might be able to if i sold one) but if ther is a faster /better mobo that would gain any performance for me i would get a new mobo and build her up from my old .. 


so my Q is can i get a better faster mobo for gameing thas reely any better than what i have ?? the M2N32-sli deluxe ?? its a 940 socket or will an am2 chip fit on the am3 board untill i can upgrade the chip ? 

thx !


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

Yes but the AM2, AM2+ and AM3 are all 940 pin sockets, The Phenom II is socket AM3 and supports DDR3 Ram, but since you already have the new cpu we'll have to stick with AM2+ boards.

If you're not looking to SLI this board is my current favorite> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128387

For an SLI set up the boards are getting harder to fine with the nvidia chipset> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131343


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

Sweet ,thats what im looking for .. so if i get this right with bolth of these i can use my chip but later upgrade to a am3 /quad if i choose ? ( on the quad thing, is it worth it to go quad if you dont have the DDR3 ? and did i understand right that these boards will do quad?) with these 2 boards i dont get DDR3 , if i go with the DDR3 board my AM2 chip wont work. right ? geezzzz DDR3 ram is $$$$ lol right but its frikin faster than $#@%#@ ! right ... man .. wheel is turning ..... lol

ok heres some DDR3ram and a chip , that im right around $350.00 the wife was looking at a pc for around $350 to $400 .


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103674

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227365

what mobo woul be best for these pieces ? 

ill do the math and run it by her . then she gets my old 2x64 6000 ectt.. for around $500. a way better set up than what she was looking at off the shelf !! lol


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

The Phenom II will run fastest on DDR3 but your right the X2 will not run DDR3 so your limited to DDR2.

The ram you linked is for the tri-channel Intel i7 X58 setup not a dual channel AMD board.

For the X2 athlon you need to use DDR2 800.

Both of those boards will support the P II 955. 

If you want to go with the P II 955 I would go with a AM3 DDR3 Board.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128378

And this Ram> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231189


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

ahhh ok , that looks good , now how much DDR3 ram can be used with the board ? same as the other, 8 gigs with vista ultra 64? ...

lets say i bite the bullit and go for it , the pll with the DDR3 board 

Is the cpu i picked a good chiose for what im trying to do ? is there a faster one withen $50 bucks price wize or one thats better perhaps ? 

I have a buget that i can fuge a little pluss i have some stuff to sell !! lol 

Thanks so much wrench for your help .. ray: i dont want to take your time away from other ppl that have probs there trying to solve so i reely am thankfull for your time ..;-)


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

The 955 is the fastest P II out yet. The board will max at 16Gig but I would try 4 I doubt you'll actually use it all 4Gig.


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

Ok ive made up my mind ! :laugh:

ive desided on these >
the antc 1200 case with the antec 1000W psu
the evga nvid GTX285 


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103674 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128378 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231189 


I got the mobo,cpu and ram for under $450.00 so i hit my buget >>> ive pushed the button and they are on there way !! :grin:


Thanks again for all your help !! , ill be talking with you again im sure in the near future once i start to put things togeather !!


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

sry the links are broke but its the DDr3 mobo and ram you showed me pluss the Pll quad from above ..

yea :wave:


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

Sounds good.


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

ok i have the psu and case ,the rest is suposed to arive in the next day or so , i was reading a bit about the mobo > MB GIGABYTE GA-MA790XT-UD4P AM3 and found where its built around ATI crossfirex ?? I will be using the nvid evga GTX285 2gigs ddr3 vid card , is this not going to matter ? lol i know my current asus board is nvid based chip set ,ive not been to fond of ATI for some years now and this kind of bothers me .. lol i dont know anything about how these things work ,the mobos and there chip sets , but it looks like this is NOT a dual sli board ? can i run 2 nvid cards in sli with this board ? . I dont think i will or that i will ever need to with this set up ..:4-dontkno i just want to be sure that im optymizing things here and that my vid card will be happy on this mobo ??

thanks ..


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

A single Nvidia card will run fine on that board but no it will not run SLI.
The Nvidia chipsets are dodgy.


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

Ok thanks ! thats all i wanted to here ! haha i wasent planning on sli .. being dogy you mean the motherboard chipsets .. the ati chip sets are faster ?? more reliable ??> .. :grin:


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

More reliable and less picky about ram.


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

alright then ... all the parts are here !!! :grin: im building !! bbl 

thanks again :wink:


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

Its alive ! day 1.5 im here posting .. so far so good just bare bones so far im doing windows updates after this post ,however windows vista is telling me that its a 1.6 ghz instead of a 3.2 ghz .. ?? any ideas ? 
i thought i remember skimming over a similer thread involving a bios update or somthing ??

pls advise ?? 

thx kro :wave:


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

That's probably AMD cool and quiet, you can turn it off in the Bios, cool and quiet will ramp the speed up when needed and back down again when the system doesn't need it, On desktops I usually turn it off.

Good to see you have it up and running good job


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

ok , so if i go into bios and dissable the feature then do i need to clear cmos to see the proper cpu info ? also should i dissable smart fan in bios ? im reading that when dissabled it simply has the cpu fan run on full , i guess if im not worried about power consumption and noise this is cool ? or will it shorten the life of the fan ?? lol 

thanks ..


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

No if you clear the CMOS it will default back to enabled, leave smart fan set to enabled.


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

i read this about the board , is this my chip as well ? 

snip> 
Cons: The bopard recognizes my AMD PhenomII 955BE, but it does not run it. You have to flash the bios to version 4f.
No way around it, I got horrible performance and was wondering If I had a bad chip. I got the problem solved, after a little research, I discovered that the chip cameout after the board was made...so they had to make a new bios for it. Well this new bios IS AWESOME!! My machine screams crysis full settings 1080p resolution, 4xAA(no need to go higher at those resolutions) never dropped below 30fps. I avaraged 53fps on the demo/benchmark tester. But I would say 40-45fps is the realistic avarage I noticed when I played and had fraps running. Still smooth, anything over 30 and Im happy. I have a GTX275 and 4gigs OCZ intel Extreme eddition. And aPhenomII955BE running stock 3.2g( I hear they go to 3.6 on this board w/out having to bump up the voltage) nive to be able to get an extra 400mhz free with little to no buildup on your CPU or heat. 
Other Thoughts: Buy this board. Buy it buy it.
Deffinatly know you will have to flash the bios. Its a must, but trustme. @bios is great.<snip 

.. i have the 955 like this guy ,this is the newegg review from the mobo link .. i havent tryd to do much yet "stuck at work" so im installing some games tonight ,this has me wondering if i should do the @BIOS i did have the feeling that is should be faster ,compairing it to my duall core amd 6000 , ive had some slight hangs and pausing at times while navagating around the desktop .. nothing majoy but noticable . and the fact that is only showing the chip at 1.6ghz .. 

thx..


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

BE = Black Edition the one with the unlocked multipliers.

Look at the boot splash screen and copy down the Bios version reported.


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

ok , ya i figured that out the "BE" thus the edit lol ,that IS the chip i have but you beat me to it !! ill check the bios ver on my next bot ,im curently not at that pc ..


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

ok i got it , ver F3 . it wasent easy as it went by so fast haha, i tryed to use "tab" to enter post screen but it kept taking me somewhere else ! it gave me the AHCI bios ver witch is v0001.0078 .. 

the f3 is what posts after the mobo name at post screen..


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

Yea it needs the F4G I should have known that.> http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/CPUSupport_Model.aspx?ProductID=3010#anchor_os

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Motherboard/BIOS_Model.aspx?ProductID=3010#anchor_os


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

ok ,whats the best wayto install this ?? ive never flashed a motherboard , should i use the @BIOS ? .. I dont want to mess things up ! when i try to install the pgrm from the driver disk the whole program freezes ,it only wants to do the xpress install and says its already done ?? when i try other tabs it just hangs like application software ot contact .. thay dont seem to be ative ..?? i must be doing somthing wrong ....i put chipset disk in and it hangs at xpress install , it did let me run xpress install ..but thats it ..lol


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

No use the Q-Flash Dos method the windows method can lead to failed flashes.


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

will i need a floppy caz i dont have floppy on this comp ..lol i have a usb flash and a usb external drive i could use >?? 

im on the pc now , its says i can use a flosh drive or hd sa long as its fat 32 ,,is my vista 64 fat 32 >?? lol i never thought it wasent but being 64 .i dont know ..sry ..lol


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

ok all done !! its ripping now !! windows is seeing the 3.2ghz now ;-) now i im intrested in ove clk'n to the 3.6 as stated in the newegg post with out having to change voltage ?? lol
i guess i reely dont need to but it sounded easy so why not >?? 


once again thanks for your help !! the f4g bios update makes a huge defrince !!


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

That is good to hear, start a thread in the overclocking section, but I would wait a little bit to make sure all is stable and the temps are good, give it a week and a play a few games so you have a reference point.


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

HI again , i probly should start a new thread for this but all the sys info is here so i will simply ask the question and then make the new thread or not ! 

First the build is working perfectly ! its fast, all vid settings are maxed out bolth on the nvid ctrl pannel and the in game settings ! verry happy .. 

here's my delima , when i built the pc i used the ram you sugested G.Skill F3-1066CL8-4GBHK DDR3 133 PC3-1066, (i have the 2 sticks installed =4gigs)
Then with my greed for power I went ahead and ordered another pair, exact match , now a week or so later when i installed them (4 sticks now=8 gigs) the PC booted ,loaded to desktop then crashed , it also gave me the error that my dreamseen desktop incountered an error ,(i know its cheesy but i like it ) anyway i freeked out a little caz my baby appeared to be sick , i rebooted a few times with the same results .. ok i figured i got some bad ram? so i removed the 2 new sticks to take it back to where it was and to my dismay it still crashed a few seconds after "slowly" loading to desktop ,this with the original ram (2 sticks) ok now im reely starting to freek out ... I rebooted a few times with no luck ;-/ i thought i had fryed my new mobo or somthing ,, i rebooted, went into safe moad and it seemed ok but no way would it load in regular moad .. the only way i was able to get it to work was to use the windows restore point , then i started reading (like I should have before i installed the new ram) but in older rig's when adding ram i simply put in the sticks , it saw it and all was good ,(i thought anyway) ...Ok so now im back up and running with the original 2 sticks as before , All this before i read the thread in PSU and RAM "installing more ram" my bad ..lol so my question is if i would have cleared the CMOS first as explaned in the other thread do you think it would have worked or do i maybe have a bad stick ??

Im a little gun shy right now to try anything being that the pc is runniung great and i probly dont need anymore ram but i now have these 2 sticks sitting here and im wondering if i had cleared CMOS if my greed for speed would have been realised ?? Ive been over at the gigabyte web site and also read thru the manual to see if i need to change any jumpers or somthing , im just not that experenced in all this .. 

sry for the long post .. and i will move over to a new thread if needed .. :4-dontkno

thx in advance 
kro ...


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

8 gig really will not do anything for you I doubt your using all of the 4Gig, but usually when you fill all the ram slots using Hi-performance ram you need to bump the voltage up in the bios to the rated voltage of the ram sometimes a tad over.


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

do you think that would caus the issue i had ? to lo of voltage? would that cause it to remain in that crash state even after the ram was removed ? that confuses me ,lol but im easly confused .. i see lots of tools on the mobo driver disk would one of those be usefull in adjusting the voltage ?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

You adjust the voltage in the Bios but first we need to know what it is set to now. Along with the exact part number sticks to find the rated voltage.
The other thing worth mentioning is that AMD CPU's can only run 1066 when using 1 stick per channel once to go to 2 sticks per channel (4 total) it drops to 800 speed sounds to me like your sticks didn't like running at 800 and needed the timings changed.


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

ok ..hers what i can find on the sticks , >

F3-1066CL8D-4GBHK
DDR3-1333 PC3-10666 2gbx2
SPDCL8-8-8-21 1.5~ 1.6v


Now a new development ..as usual i have discovered that the crash/blank screen (its reely not crashing just going blank) has started happining with just the 2 sticks in , i dont think now that it was a ram issue  i now think its a vid card issue :sigh: i have been testing max settings with the card ,i turned most everything to max in the nvid controll like aa at x16 ectt most everything maxed .. looks fantistic ! then i went to the evga precision pgrm (latest ver from EVGA 1.4 i think) i can controll fan speed and overclocking ,this is where i think my prob lies .. if i adjust the sliders to turn up the mem clock ,core clock, shader clock then i get the crash/blank screen !! if i leave it at defalt its all good , i remember setting a profile the started at windows with them all maxed , it ran fine for that night of gameing , it was the next day after work when i put the ram in and fired it up and had the prob .. uppon restoring with restore point it remoived the over clocked settings and worked .. Now also if i try to click and drag the program (EVGA) around on the desk top (when its up) it created vid courptition ,with screen flicker and 1/2 screen going white with flicker as i move it around on desktop .. this just started happining today after i tryed to increce the settings again ..!! im thinking im going to reinstall the program .. ?? so it might not have even been the mem causing the issue .. lol (*%^% %!#@ 
its worked fine for the last few days , the glitching flickering vid courption while clicking and drigging the program has me worried .. any ideas ?? 

sigh .....


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

Set the card back to default settings and Delete the OC profile to ensure it doesn't reload, usually the memory clock causes the issue, On the Ram my bad I forgot it was DDR3, check in the Bios on the advanced tab see if the voltage is at least 1.6v, and no more then 1.65v.


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

ok the vid card stuff is already done, i re downloaded the evgs precision program and set all to defalt then spent the last 1 1/2 hrs with EVGA tec in a a chat runniung a 1hr artafact test with no errors .. he scolded me for maxing the sliders !! the prob has all but gone now with the flickering unless i move it real fast ,, ill check the BIOS for the volts ..


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

OC a little at a time never all the way to start


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

Looks like its 1.6v ,if i go manual the first jump is 1.65 so im assuming that 1.6 is defalt, Im going to try again, i think the vid card OC'd was causing the blank screens . now i read that i should short out the cmos 1min when/while adding the ram with power off correct ?


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

You shouldn't have to, bump it to 1.65 and install the other 2 sticks.


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

well its done .. its working as i thought it should , windows has it correct showing all 8gigs .. .. looks like the only real problum here is/was the human interaction !!!! lol 
i left it at defalt ,do you think i should still bump it ? its easy enough to do i guess , what signes would let me know it needs more v's ? ill keep a look out ..


thanks .....


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

If it's running good leave it, not booting or memory errors are usually a sign if there is a problem with the default setting. Old adage applies "If it ain't broke don't fix it".


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## krobonix (May 8, 2009)

*Re: Best MOBO for gameing/my hdw.?*

3 days in and i think im good to go ! Im doing a little painting in the game room now to freshin things up and to please wifey ! so everythings under plastic for now lol , but the comp is running top notch and i have learned alot about building ,vid cards, PSU's ,BIOS ectt .. I want to thank you again for all your help and sticking with me thru all my screw~ups !! Your sugestions have built me a rockin game box the hauls *** and destroys any program i throw at it so with that i want to say Thanks again and i will put a "solved" header on this thread .. any other probs i will start new thread like the one for picking out some speekers for the on board sound .. lol i see no replys in 3 days on that one so maybe im not alown on that subject !! 

THANKS !! :wave:


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Good to hear, I'm happy you like the setup


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