Guidance for upgrade of Motherboard GA-945PL-S3 (Rev 1.0)

[Spirit]

Hi! again and if you are there Dark Mantis,
Can someone guide me to improving my motherboard to suit my conditions. First of all I am a pensioner here in Australia and also have just finished doing Chemo for a 4th primary cancer. We are doing allright by God's Grace. The only reason I mention that is because of financial status. Rock bottom. So that is part of my condition . Now to the motherboard. As mentioned is a GA-945PL-S3 Rev 1.0. As the very kindly Dark Mantis has explained I cannot improve the memory onboard, Soooo! Can someone give me an alternative board that: a) I can improve memory to at least 4gig: b) I can fit my gear onto as some of the boards I have looked at will not hold what I have.
My board has PCIE_3
                       PCIE_16 which holds my Graphics card which takes up two spaces.
                       PCIE_1 which the previous card covers.
                       PCIE_2
                       PCI1  holds capture card
                       PCI2  holds sound card
                       PCI3  holds IEEE 1394.

Gosh I hope I haven't gone overboard with this but not understanding all the technical jargon associated with the boards I need help. It would have been great if I had been able to just upgrade memory on my board.
God Bless those that take the time to offer help and God Bless those who don't.
Spirit....aka Rusty.
                       

[absic]

Hi there,

It would really help to offer the best advice, if you could post back details of the CPU, RAM, HDD's, DVD/CD writer and other items you are planning to recycle.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi there Rusty,
Sorry to hear about the big C but hopefully it is in remission now. I see absic has already asked you for some more details which would help. Several of the PCI cards yopu probably won't need anyway as a lot of the boards come with the sound, firewire(1394),  and graphics already incorporated. This will cut down on your need for slots and keep things more simple for you. We will post more once you have posted all the details.

[Spirit]

Hello Absic,
Thank you for your response. I didn't realise that the other pripherals were needed. Sorry!.
CPU is Intel(R) Pentium (R) D CPU 3.40Ghz (says that twice).
RAM 2x 1gig sticks of DDR11 800Mhz PC2 6400.
HDD 2x Seagate 500gb Sata.
        1x Seagate 160gb Sata.
DVD/CD  1x Samsung TSST Corp cddvdw sh-s223b
               1x Pioneer DVD-RW DVR 109
               2x Pioneer DVD -RW DVR 108 on USB
               1x Floppy Standard
Also running 1x NVidia GeForce GTS250 Video card.
I do hope this helps you to help me. I am grateful for any assist. As it is very early in the morning here I probably won't see your response until later tomorrow. Thanks,
Just noticed DM has just come onboard.Thanks guys! Would you believe I only just spent some housekeeping on this new graphics card and a power supply. My darling won't be too pleased if I don't use it.. I guess thems the breaks.
God Bless,
Spirit...Rusty

[Dark Mantis]

Well Rusty if we assume that you want to keep as much as possible from your present machine I take it that would be correct( just trying to save you a bit of hurt from 'er indoors).
It shouldn't be a problem to re-use all your drives, graphics card, case and PSU which also makes the build easier. What we need is a motherboard to take your CPU and memory. The only other option is to go down the AMD route(say it quietly and absic might not hear) which would be cheaper if you wanted to update the CPU as well.

[absic]

To be honest DM I think Rusty is probably just looking to replace his mobo with one that will allow for more memory and allow him to keep the rest of his components. That's what I would be doing if money were tight and 'er indoors was breathing down my neck.

Although the AMD route can sometimes be a cheaper option, here I don't think it would be appropriate if I have understood things properly, and in Rusty's post yesterday, he was looking at a way of just increasing his RAM, not wholesale reinvestment.

[Dark Mantis]

Although the AMD route can sometimes be a cheaper option, here I don't think it would be appropriate if I have understood things properly, and in Rusty's post yesterday, he was looking at a way of just increasing his RAM, not wholesale reinvestment.

Yes I think you are quite right absic but I just wanted Rusty to be aware of his options. After looking at a few suitable boards it seems a lot of money to just upgrade the RAM.

[absic]

Yes, I'm just coming to that same conclusion myself.

[Spirit]

Hi guys,Absic and DM,
Gosh you guys are awesome, thank you for your kindness ,courtesy and help. You are both quite right I really want to stay with my MO as you call it and I am able to get Gigabyte for a lot less than I can any other but that is not the point. Sorry to be away for awhile but I am afraid my health goes when I get a bit concerned or anxious. I have spent too many (much needed in other areas) dollars on what I thought was upgrading this little gem I have had since 2006. I did this for a specific reason and I now think I may be approaching the whole dilemma from the wrong angle.
As I have mentioned earlier I am a C patient and this last one was my fourth primary. I am still undergoing treatment for my original Prostate C.(7 years now) I mention this for no other reason than to make a point. I am an ex Royal Australian Air Force member and a keen aircraft enthusiast. Sooo I got myself into Flight Simulation. I find it very relaxing and a great therapeutic aid. I got Flight Sim 2004 and the new Flight SimX. I only use FS2004 because the frame rates on FSX are too high and I had video probs.FS2004 is not so demanding but what happened before I went mental and did this costly to us upgrade was I had blue screen and CTD. So this mental went out and got a 1 gig nvidia gts250 graphics card. a 750w power supply and a few new cables and connectors.I also was able to increase RAM to 2 gig. Man I was happy with end result. After about a week I downloaded a screensaver and it chewed up CPU and frame rates to 89-90. I uninstalled and that is when the proverbial sugar hit the fan. When I got back into FS2004 after about 5 minutes an alarm buzz of some description (Icannot identify ?what alarm) comes on. It comes on at irregular intervals and the gets more and more frequent until it becomes more on than off.
I have checked with and sort the aid of all the "supposed " experts that I could afford at the time and the response is "you need more RAM". I never had a problem with myFS2004 until after the install of the screensaver. I keep getting "you need more RAM". That is where you guys came into the picture because I explained the whole deal to Gigabyte Support and their answer was "we cannot guarantee you will not cause damage if you try to increase to 4 gigRAM".  Although it would be a heartache to try and rearrange all the simulator software I wonder if I should clear it from the Hard Drive and reinstall. Wouldn't explain the screensaver though.(It did the same buzzing).
All my CD/DVD creation, capture, sound creation, movie, music and photographic software have no dramas at all. Everone keeps saying increase the RAM, it will go faster and you will stop the problem. Ahrrrrr!,damnnn @#&dunk.!!
Dear gentlemen that is the full story. Your thoughts Please! Sorry for the book but I need help.
God Bless,
Spirit...aka Rusty.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi again Rusty and thanks for the background info. It is always nice to know the whole story as sometimes parts of it are relevant. The sound you say it is making sounds like an alarm. Usually these are configured in the BIOS. It might be any thing form a fan going to slowly to an overheating CPU.Have a look in hte BIOS and see what alarms are set.

What I would suggest is to backup all your data that can't be replaced and then format your hard drive and do a clean install of Windows.That way at least you will have the benefit of the fastest possible OS setup and be sure that there is no lingering screensaver files.

[Spirit]

Dear DM,
Well I have come back after a long and arduous study of computers,motherboards,BIOS and operating systems.
Firstly, thank you again for your time and suggestions Dark Mantis. You set me on a learning path I did not think I would ever indulge. At 70 all I was interested in was "I just want the @#$% thing to work". However ,having said that, this has been an extremely educating journey.
Secondly, my computer and all peripherals are running better than I had ever hoped for. Yes you can increase the RAM memory on the GA-945PL-S3 ( rev 1.0 ) motherboard. Cutting a long story short,my journey has taken me into areas of IT, programming and other horrid and confusing places I do not wish to re-encounter. Suffice to say that the operating system determines the amount of RAM that can be used. Windows XP 32bit limits my board to approx 3.2gig of memory. If I were to change to Windows 7 64bit I could increase it considerably. I cannot afford to buy Win7 but my system has 3.2gig of Ram now and it is functioning perfectly.Even doing a flash BIOS wasn't able to improve it any further. Listen to me I am talking computerbabble. Wow!
Thirdly, Your suggestion to look at alarms set in BIOS led to finding one of the pins holding the CPU cooler fan and heatsink had come adrift so after a period of time CPU getting hot ,fan speed up cool CPU down a little but not enough and so on and so on.
I am now at the point of being a happy chappy with my computer once more until next time!!!
Once again DM I am grateful for your courtesy and help. To you also Absic. God Bless you both.
Regards Rusty.....aka Spirit.

[Dark Mantis]

Hi Rusty and great to hear from you again with a happier story. I am glad that you have learnt all this along the way but don't be  a stranger here on the forum now you have a working machine. You can probably help someone else with your new found knowledge. None of us ever stop learning, even today I found out something new and that is good.
The RAM question was answered from the Gigabyte manual for your board so it must be an error in the manual. If you remember I did say it sounded a low amount of maximum memory. Anyway it's good that you have managed to upgrade your machine and learn in the process.
All the best for the future Rusty
DM