Trying to find a Good Replacement Motherboard for under 100 bucks?

NEW Update; So I ended up Upgrading to another Motherboard, so I admit It is much better cutting what little loss I took, they had a sale where if I bought an AMD FX 4100 Black Edition 3.6GHz Quad Core Processor for $100 I could get a ASUS M5A78L-M LX PLUS MotherBoard for $10 Bucks, so I was like sweet, I Upgraded to a Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500 Watt PSU, and 8 GB of Kingston HyperX blu DDR3-1333 ram, although I wish I would have put in a little extra for some better ram I guess this is working out good for me though, its still faster then what I had. I should'a just listened to the people who said to upgrade to something better in the first place! Thanks!



So I Booted My Windows 7 x64 OEM that I already had installed on My Hard drive on my new ASUS Mother Board, and I Installed all of the Drivers, and Let Catalist Install the right Graffix Support Drivers, then Rebooted and I went to System to check My Windows Activation and it said i had 3 days to Activate, so I clicked Activate and my Windows Reactivated its self, so I had no issues with replacing my Motherboard, Windows 7 should reactivate for you when you change your Motherboard, I even had 3 dudes at Microcenter confirm this!


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OLD POST
So I have been needing to replace my motherboard it is a Gateway RS780 (AM2) Motherboard with 4 slots for DDR2 SDRAM, I must have 4 slots for my memory.

Does anybody have any suggestions on a replacement? should I replace it with a factory default MB? will other MBs even fit in my Gateway crappy Hot Case? I actually found a -> factory default acer MB<-, which is gateway/acer/emachines for $39.99 HMN??

Also I am using a OEM version of Windows 7 x64, do I need to patch the bios of a new motherboard if it is not a Gateway MB so my windows doesn't say Not Genuine after I get done replacing the MB and boot windows? How do I do this so I do not have any issues? I have replaced Motherboards in the past but I always had a retail version of xp to start fresh with.

I should just sell this thing on Craigslist when I fix it and Build myself a real Machine with a nice case. somthing I can render a 8GB 2hr video in like 10 minutes. would be nice. but what can I sell it for? like 300 bucks if I put a new motherboard in it? or is that too much?

Warlockz said:

Also I am using a OEM version of Windows 7 x64, do I need to patch the bios of a new motherboard if it is not a Gateway MB so my windows doesn't say Not Genuine after I get done replacing the MB and boot windows? How do I do this so I do not have any issues? I have replaced Motherboards in the past but I always had a retail version of xp to start fresh with.

No one on here is going to tell you how to cheat Microsoft. If you replace the MB, your OEM Win 7 license is no good.

bigmck said:

No one on here is going to tell you how to cheat Microsoft. If you replace the MB, your OEM Win 7 license is no good.

Cheat Microsoft LMAO, #1 I didnt ask you how to patch my Bios, I already know how to patch it if needed #2 I payed 500 bucks for my machine with the windows included, I should be able to replace a stupid motherboard without being accused of cheating microsoft...

I think Ill just go with the Acer Motherboard so I dont have to go through the hasstle, its only 40 bucks and its basically a replica of my current MB, why cut losses? Gateway Acer and Emachines OEM are the same so I wouldnt have to patch my Bios.

ignatzatsonic said:

Without knowing more details, I'd guess $300 might be high, even with a new motherboard.

If your current motherboard must be replaced, you may be better off cutting your losses now and getting whatever you can for the existing parts. Or just salvage whatever parts you might use yourself and build a new machine--which would require a new Windows 7 license.

System Manufacturer/Model Number Gateway DX4300 Desktop Series
OS 7 Home Premium x64 SP1
CPU AMD Phenom™ X4, 9750 / 2.4 GHz / 4 x 512 KB L2 Cache 2MB L3
Motherboard Gateway RS780 (AM2)
Memory 8 GB of DDR2 800 MHz SDRAM
Graphics Card ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB DDR2 HDMI
Sound Card Embedded high-definition audio with 7.1-channel

I guess Its a good setup for now, I could probably get some more years out of it once I replace the MB, it's not the slowest compared to the Machines the majority of the people I know use. and Its very great to use for Multi-Tasking. I can have 2 browsers, windows media player 12, Photoshop, + more running at the same time and not experience any lag or slow downs wile I'm networking or whatever on my machine...

My current Motherboard is shutting down the sound and video, so then my Monitor goes to sleep, and I cant Hard Boot my Machine when I hold the Button down, It does not do this all the time just once in awhile it just happens sometimes like 3 times in a row then it wont do it for days then poof it does it again, but i have narrowed the problem down to my Motherboard after reading about similar issues for hours on end and talking to a pro at a computer shop.....I can always get another Case Fan and a 500W Power Supply instead of the 350w factory default, and a Better CPU HeatSink and maybe a HardDrive Cooler.

I totally agree with you and i will never Buy a Rebuilt tower again, this thing was refurbished, and I payed like $500 with the taxes they took like 50 bucks in tax lol so it was $450 without tax.

Updated Post with New info, see the Top!