ASUS A8N-SLI Premium IRQ problems; Time for a new mobo? Suggestions?

[i_am_a_newbie]

I posted a thread in OS a while back about my CPU usage being stuck around the 50% mark.

I took it to a comp technician(friend so free diagnosis) and he said it was definitely the mobo, but alas he could not fix it.

Apparently it's having some problems with the IRQ's and is hogging up a lot of CPU power with interrupt requests.

Now, either I need to know how to fix this, or I could get a new mobo. If the latter, any sugguestions?

Specs are as follows;

ASPIRE 500-W PSU.
Sapphire ATI Radeon X850XT 256mb PCI-E
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
Seagate 300gb 16mb cache SATA HDD
AMD Athlon 3200+ 2.0GHz EDIT : it's socket 939 to clarify.

About a $250 CDN budget.

 

[zephead]

i reccomend a replacement nforce4 sli board from MSI, gigabyte, or asus. all three of these brands make quality products, with features equal to or similar to your current board. i believa that you can get an exact replacement for under the stated budget limit.

 

[i_am_a_newbie]

Any specific board? I'd prefer if it had some space between the PCI/CPU slots and any on-board fans, as my HSF for the CPU and my graphics card are quite large.

 

[zephead]

ahh, you can decide that based on features available. remember to buy from a good brand.

 

[nork]

I have noticed that you have an aspire ps. They are on the list of bad power supplies. You might want to consider trying a better power supply even before getting a new mobo.
Heres info for you:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=142753
http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=98650
http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=131195
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=792566

This is an extra of course:
troubleshoot power supply with multimeter:
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-10...g=feed&subj=tr#

This too:
atx format:
http://www.formfactors.org/

 

[i_am_a_newbie]

^Thanks for the info, I will do that first. I only bought this because it had a high rating and was cheap, guess I didn't get all the bang for the buck, heh.

 

[nork]

Well, there are 2 schools of thought on that as you know. One is for any ps and the other for getting a better\best ps, depending on needs and pocketbook. I am strongly for getting a good one but the fact is that you can get a good one at about the same price as a cheap one.
I and others have pointed out a half dozen or so decent power supplies lately that can be had at newegg.com for the price of a cheap ps. Just off the top, I recall there being several Fortron brand power supplies in the low $30 range, again proof you dont have to spend a ton of money.

 

[zephead]

i always end up using antec supplies for one reason or another...thier smartpower line is definitely worth looking at.

 

[nork]

Ya know, Zep, i agree with you. However, i seem to recall hearing about some issues with some of the antec lineup. So I googled.

http://www.pjrc.com/about/rambling/antec.html
http://club.aopen.com.tw/forum/viewmessage.asp?forumID=22&MessageID=46780

This is the whole google:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=problem+with+antec&btnG=Google+Search

There are 3 more at the bottom of page 1 that i didnt look at.

I was very surprised when i started reading some of these things about the antec smartpower. It certainly warrants looking into and i am not condemning antec, just pointing out i have read some negative reports about antec smartpower models.

 

[zephead]

i like giving customers supplies with plenty of headroom, and i have not found antec supplies to be problematic.

i'd take PC power & cooling's turbocool series over anything else, if it weren't for the cost. i have used thier 850W supply in several date, and hope to someday get my hands on thier 1 kW supply. of course only a seriously high-end and loaded machine would require said supply.

 

[nork]

Zephed, no offence meant, and i see that you feel the same way, no offence taken. This is about the antec ps's.
I actually have used and like the antecs. I have at least one of them. Its just that i have read some bad things. It seems to be the truepower, perhaps just the truepower 430's. See here, almost all the way down the page, more than 3/4 of the way down, you will see a post by "justbrewit".

http://205.177.13.145/forums/viewtopic.php?p=355865&sid=44edf40df813ba64a0020db128556ec3

Gee, i continued reading and got an earful.

Still, i like antecs, i think its just a blip, and its likely its only some of one model, the 430's, but surely i think we should be aware of this anyway.