Have asus m4a78 plus want help to upgrade?

[Earthkanu]

Hi all,

I am buying some RAM for someone as a present for someone and would be grateful to know whether the following would be compatible:

Corsair 2GB (2x1GB) DDR 400MHz/PC3200 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL3

I know that the MOBO supports up to 333mhz, but I think that as ddr is backwards compatible, I think that 400mhz would work but just at the slower speed - though definitely not sure on this one.

Many thanks

[Earthkanu]

The situation:

My dad's finally ready to retire the 2.8Ghz Northwood I built him a few years back. I decided to give him my socket 939 Athlon 64X2 (4600) system & build myself a Core i7 920 rig. The i7 build went fine, but in the course of removing the graphics card from the old 939 board (Asus A8N-E), that damn plastic retention clip wouldn't let go & ended up coming off with the graphics card. I plugged the card back in & now there's no video signal. The card works fine in the i7 board (which has a much better retention clip design).

Conclusion: I busted the PCI-E x16 slot on the A8N-E that has already been promised to dad.

Two possible solutions:

1) Bring my Abit AV8-3rd Eye out of retirement & use that with dad's current AGP card (GeForce 4Ti 4200-8x)

2) Buy a used A8N-E on Ebay, take the 7600GT out of the Core i7 machine, give that to dad as originally planned, & get myself a newer graphics card.

*******************************************
Question: What's the bigger gamble?
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A) trusting an Abit AV8-3rd Eye (Via K8T800 Pro chipset) motherboard to be stable enough for dad
-or-
B) buying used hardware off ebay?

[Earthkanu]

Hey everyone @ TR :roll:

I have a Asus M4A78 Plus I haven't figured out or, I'm lost on what to build am2 or am3?
the parts I have now are cooler master HAF 932 case , ocz 700w mod psu , 4 gb ocz sli ram, xfx gforce 8400gs 256mb , amd x2 5600+.

i have question about crossfire, psu requirements memory timings & more. Can any one give me tips?