Windows 7: Please give advice on replacement motherboard

Could someone help me find a good replacement motherboard for the rest of my components?



This is a looong story...sorry in advance.

Here is what's going on. I had a motherboard die: MSI K9 SLI Platinum. Yeah it's a MUCH older board. A capacitor decided to start bulging, and I had everything setup how I liked it, so I found an exact replacement. Long story short, the board I found was used and was cheap. I put it all together with a new 550Watt PS and ran it for a few days. Everything seemed fine, then for no reason, the computer just shuts down....no warning...nothing. Power light on the front of the case is flashing and the only way I can restart the machine is by switching off the PSU and unplugging it, waiting till it discharges and then plug it back in.....and then it switched back on. I thought it was some overheating problem after doing some research. So I bought one of those pretty good Thermaltake SpinQ fans. I thought I had figured out the problem and maybe the mainboard was shutting down because of heat. A week ago, it decided to shut down in the middle of work....no warning. It wasn't hot at all. CPU was barely at 40c and the system was a few degrees warmer. So I cross this out. I check the BIOS on the MOBO and it's the last one they put out for this board. I found a bunch of threads on a forum talking about MSI boards and this shutting down for no reason problem. I didn't find a solution. Computer was acting fine....until today. Today it decided to act up like a red-headed step child. It shut down 4-5 times before I boot it in safe mode and backed up all my stuff. While in safe mode, it was fine. It didn't shut down or act up. I rebooted into windows and 17 seconds after (Event Viewer) it shut down again. Thinking I had some kind of weird stuff going on. I rebooted back into safe mode and started looking for some kind of sign. However when the power shuts down abruptly, there's nothing you can see here. I found some errors on Windows Indexing files being corrupt. At this point, after all was backed up, I wrote zeroes to the drive and reinstalled a clean Windows 7. 10 seconds into a fresh install in Normal mode and it shuts down again! I went BACK into safe mode...and it was stable.

To me this makes no sense at all. I would like to guess it was the power supply because it's not a name brand high power unit. But if it was the power supply...wouldn't it kill over in safe mode just the same? So at this point...I'm guessing it's the motherboard.

What I would like for you guys to do, is offer me some advice for a replacement motherboard. I don't have a ton of money to throw into this thing because eventually it will get left behind here when I move back to the states.

My system:

OS Windows 7 Ultimate CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5600+ Motherboard MSI K9 Platinum SLI_JUNK!Memory G-Skill PC2-6400 4GB Graphics Card(s) MSI GeForce 8800GTS OC X2 SLI Sound Card M-Audio Delta 1010 PCI Monitor(s) Displays 2X Acer 22" LDC Screen Resolution 1680X1050 Hard Drives 2X Hitachi SATA 500GB
Thanks in advance.

In safe mode the drivers for your video card are not active....I would try a power supply....

I would agree about the PSU being suspect. If you would like this is what I believe to be the link to your MB. Check the specifications to be sure your ram and other hardware is compatible with the MB.

Thanks for the reply guys. I'm thinking I am going to go for an ASrock motherboard that supports AM2-AM3 so I can upgrade later.

Also, what do you guys think about Antec power supplies? Any brands I should stay away from that are complete junk? Here in Russia, they don't have much of a selection on stuff unless it's online. And I made a mistake of buying one junk power supply already (Kimpro) <<--- It looked OK, had modular cables, fan speed control. But after a month the fans starting making noise and I do believe this is the main problem now.

Going to replace MB and PSU to just be done with it.

Thanks for the replies and cheers from the Tundra

In my opinion Antec is a good PSU. Personally, I prefer Corsair. But Seasonic and some Cooler Master PSU's are good. Do your research, Make sure you are getting sufficient power, Also check the different models, some models are better than others. Go to sites that sell computer equipment and read the user feedback. That will help you know if the specific PSU you are looking at is reliable and is right for you,

Hello, I checked out Newegg and Antec is looking good. I hate to buy another Motherboard if its just the powersupply that is bad. Maybe I should just get a new PSU first. The thing that doesn't make sense to me is that the computer will run fine in safe mode, but not normal as it shuts down without warning. Today I booted it to grab some stuff off my backup drive, and it stayed running (was off all night) for about 5-10 mins before it shut off.

Maybe someone could explain why the computer will stay running in safe mode, and not normal if it is indeed the PSU. I'm very intrigued about this problem. Keep in mind that the only thing on the drive is a fresh copy of Windows 7 Ultimate....so it's not drivers because no drivers are installed yet. I know its hardware for sure.

Thanks everyone.

Just a guess from me. In safe mode several of the services are not operational and therefore it requires less power. that is just a guess and is assuming that it is the PSU. The K9 board is not that bad of a board, but they can go bad also. I know because my board is in RMA now. But, whether it is the board or not, I would suggest a good quality PSU. If you have run memtest86 and eliminated the ram, Prime 95 to test the CPU, Furmark to test the graphics. Then download the programs from your Hard drive mfgr. If all those tests pass it is reasonable to assume it is either the MB or PSU. There are tutorials on this site on running each of these tests. If you have done that, I would try a new PSU first because you will need one in either case. After the new PSU, if you still have the same problems you will know that it is probably the Motherboard.
These are just my opinions and what I went through before RMAing my MB.

Excellent. I really appreciate the response.

I've got one more question before I make my list and check prices: What is the very minimum PSU Wattage you should go buy for a configuration like mine? I am going to upgrade my old Geforce 8800GTS OC to a Geforce GTX 460. I just want to make sure I get enough power.

Some people on Newegg seem to be pretty happy with this and its 500w AND Earth Friendly

http://*******/gdAyiw

Do you guys think this would be plenty for my setup?

Thanks again!

Try this calculator.

Oh thanks. That's really cool...and handy. Well I came up with 503 Watts so I'm guessing this one will do. It's $140 here in Russia...everything here is double or triple

Thanks tons