Should I buy a new Mobo or Start Over

Hello All,

My PC started to restart over and over and to to shut down randomly. It has done this before and I thought I had found the problem which was the Sound Blaster Card. I took it into the local PC shop and they confirmed it is a bad motherboard and they said there is history of this board going bad and having the restart and shut down behavior.

Its an ASRock Mobo and here is a link to it on NewEgg:

Used - Very Good: ASRock Z97 Extreme6 LGA 1150 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

Here are the components that I have in the Mobo today:
Mobo - URL above
RAM - G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB 240-Pin SDRAM DDR3 1866 Memory - Newegg.com
Primary Hard Disk - Samsung SSD, I think it is 250Gb
Video Card - SAPPHIRE Radeon R7 260X Video Card 100366-2L - Newegg.com
2nd Hard Drive - Its a WD, 1 TB SATA drive. I install apps on it and I save music and pictures on it. I try to keep everything off the main drive except for the OS.

I originally bought the computer as I was into gaming at the time but not any more. If I buy a new Mobo, I don't care if I use the Video Card or not. It would be nice to use it if possible. Alternatively, the onboard video is probably fine. I was running Windows 10 and I plan to continue running Windows 10.

Questions
Does anyone have a recommendation for a solid board that is stable? I do not t need anything cutting edge.
Don't I have to match up the RAM with the specifications on the Mobo? The Ram is DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) so I need a board that supports this RAM or buy new, right?
What would you do? Replace the Mobo or buy a new PC? If I replace the Mobo, I want to buy a new Mobo.

Thanks, Bill

I had a GA - Z87 MB that began to shut down by it's own.
It also smelled like something has burned but I didn't discovered where it was.
As I had a good CPU and memory I bought on ebay a used Asus Z97 MB.
The Asus Z97 MB+CPU+memory is working great.

I suggest you look at ebay to find a good used Asus Z97 MB

@bpatters69,

You left out 1 major detail. What CPU do you have?

I see it is an i7-4790k

If you are going to want to upgrade to Windows 11, you will need a new mobo, CPU, and matching RAM.

I'm not sure that I would spend over $200 on a used MB that ships from Hong Kong.

I suppose that your options may be limited if you want an exact replacement for your Asrock MB.

I see that the Z97 chipset dates from 2014. Upgrading to a more recent system (as would be needed for Windows 11) could get expensive: new board, CPU, DDR4 Ram.

@NavyLCDR

Thanks. Per Google Search, the requirements for CPU for Windows 11 are:

• Processor: 64-bit architecture at 1 GHz or faster; Intel: eight-generation or newer (details); AMD Ryzen 3 or better (details); Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c or higher (details)
• RAM: 4 GB or higher.
• Storage: 64 GB or larger storage device.
• System firmware: UEFI, Secure Boot capable.

Looks like my i7-4790k is 4th Generation if Google is right. Am I right?

bpatters69 said:

@NavyLCDR

(snip)


Looks like my i7-4790k is 4th Generation if Google is right. Am I right?

I'm not NavyLCDR, but that's correct.

No 8th generation or later CPU will work in an LGA 1150 motherboard (like yours).

I thought that there also would be no TPM 2.0 available for the board, but I was wrong about that. (Requires a hardware module, and a BIOS update.)

You will still end with a vintage computer. Jump !!! It's 11th gen out there

But I know... A third mortage is not welcome at the moment

bobkn said:

..Upgrading to a more recent system (as would be needed for Windows 11) could get expensive: new board, CPU, DDR4 Ram.

Not necessarily. It can be done for approx £150. 8th gen cpu, mobo and 2x8gb ddr4.

SIW2 said:

Not necessarily. It can be done for approx £150. 8th gen cpu, mobo and 2x8gb ddr4.

I admit to an enthusiast bias.

Why stop at Gen 8?

Intel Celeron G5920 - Celeron Dual-Core 3.5 GHz LGA 1200 58W Intel UHD Graphics 610 Desktop Processor - BX80701G5920 - Newegg.com

ASUS PRIME H510M-E LGA 1200 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

G.SKILL NS Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Intel Z170 Platform / Intel X99 Platform Memory Kit Model F4-2133C15D-16GNS - Newegg.com

The total is about $240US, plus tax.

Not sure I'd want a Celeron, or a microATX motherboard, but it's all fairly up-to-date. The motherboard is listed as "under testing" for Windows 11.