This system will actually be for my mother who has an eBay store which means loading pictures, etc. She also does web surfing plus Windows Office applications but as the tile says there certainly won't be any gaming or overclocking involved.

I have been looking into AM2 boards simply because you can decent AM2 dual core chips at reasonable cost. I must admit I am less than impressed with the AM2 offerings but I am sure someone here can enlighten me otherwise.

I am not adverse to Intel either, but I haven't kept with either the boards or chips until just recently thus I certainly could use direction.

So there is no need for the cutting edge, just something good and solid for the years to come.

Thanks and if you want to give your cpus suggestions as well I would cerataqinly appreciate it.

Oh, yes, I am trying to keep this system between $500 - $700 which is not including the OS; she already has monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

Intel, FoxConn, Gigabyte, Abit, and some ASUS

If you are not looking for a gaming board, there is no reason not to included AMD, which are as reliable as any, and much lower in price.

Look at the board reviews at www.tomshardware.com and www.anandtech.com

Shop for combo deals of motherboard and processor from www.newegg.com, www.zipzoomfly.com, www.tigerdirect.com, www.directron.com and other such sites. You can save a great deal, if you know your boards from reading reviews... but if you have never built one before, a plain stock board of a good name such as the above are more important. Some of the Combos are returns that are other people's mistakes.

Don't forget that a decent power supply and CPU fan/heatsink, as well as first tier memory are just as important... and a Seagate or Western Digital hard drive.

Be sure the board and the hard drive are both SATA or both PATA.

Hey, raybay, I appreciate your reply. I have built systems and even though I am keeping up with the techology I am not where I'd like to be, especially with the Intel offerings. (I use both NewEgg and ZipZoomFly for my purchases and I do read the reviews)

I am not opposed to AMD boards (I have a 939 system). This past summer I built a system using the MSI K9N AM2 mobo and the only issue with this board is that one must boot up, unplug both keyboard and mouse, plug them back in, and reboot to get them to work. Others have had this problem but from what I have just read a BIOS update should take care of the USB issues. Still it was an easy board to install and it is stable otherwise.

The reason I am looking for a stable board is because my mom wouldn't have a clue to do if she experienced the above to get the mouse and keyboard to work and I am a good two hours away.

So anyone's experienced suggestions are most welcome.

GIGABYTE GA-73VM-S2 LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7050/nForce 610i Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail - $58.99 + $6.33 shipping
Intel Celeron 420 Conroe-L 1.6GHz 512KB L2 Cache LGA 775 35W Single-Core Processor - Retail - $43.99 + free shipping
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2-800 CL 4-4-4-12 EPP & SLI Ready Dual Channel Kit Retail TWIN2X2048-6400C4 - $29.99 after $55 rebate + free shipping
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - $69.99 + free shipping
LITE-ON Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner - Retail - $33.99 + free shipping
Antec NSK6580 Black/ Silver 0.8mm cold-rolled steel construction ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 430W Power Supply - Retail - $79.99 + free shipping

Grand Total = $323.27 including shipping and rebates.
That computer should do everything your mom wants as fast as possible. Also, every part is top-notch and will work together seamlessly. Do remember that you'd have to buy a SATA cable for the HDD and also update the motherboard BIOS to the latest version to avoid any issues.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Hey, nice job there Rage! I was going to do this tonight but I'll definitely be looking at what you listed. Thanks!

Anytime mate. Do let us know what you finally ended up getting.

I have never worked with a Micro board before. What are the pluses and minuses, positives/negatives of working with this size board?

What is sacrificed, if anything, in a Micro sized board?

These are all excellent AMD motherboards that can be purchased at reasonable prices with an AMD 64 processor. A good choice because the prices are right. Socket AM2, AMD 64. Great now at mid-price an lower. Good in the future.

Abit AB9 Pro
Asus M2A-VM HDMI (AMD690G chipset)
Biostar TForce 590 SLI Deluxe (Nvidia nForce 590 SLI chipset)
DFI Infinity N9 Ultra II M2
Epox MF570 SLI (Nvidia nForce 570 SLI chipset)
Foxconn C51XEM2AA (Nvidia nForce 590 SLI chipset) aka WinFast
Foxconn/Winfast K8M890M2MA-RS2H (VIA K8M890 chipset) aka WinFast
Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 (Nvidia nForce 570 SLI chipset)
Gigabyte GA-M59SLI-S5 (Nvidia nForce 590 SLI chipset)
MSI K9A Platinum (ATI Crossfire Xpress 3200 chipset)
MSI K9NU Neo-V (ULi/Nvidia M1697 chipset)

Micro boards are ok, but might as well get a full sized board, for better cooling and ruggedness.

Micro ATX boards generally lack expansivity, offering only upto 3 PCI slots and a limited number of SATA ports. A full ATX board will have more of those. I doubt cooling will be an issue in either case but raybay has probably worked with a lot of them, so he might know otherwise.
@raybay, would the added SLI\Crossfire capabilites of those boards really be needed?

No, SLI is not needed... I only listed them because there are such deals on some of them these days on some websites, mainly as returns. I have an SLI board, but have reduced it to basics as I am not much of a gamer.