My Server died yesterday. Haven't found out whether it's the motherboard or the PSU but my instinct tells me it's the motherboard. Everything appears to power up but there's no activity. No POST beeps. Just lot's of whirring hard drives, fans, water pump, etc.

Spec:

Gigabyle GA-P35-DS3R (iirc)
low spec dual-core cpu (I intended to upgrade it some time but never got around to it)
Xilence 600W PSU
2x2gb OCZ ram
cheap-as-chips graphics card


Assuming I need a new mobo, I am very out of touch with hardware developments over the last couple of years. I'm thinking that DDR3, USB3 and SATA3 are a must but other than that I have no idea of CPU, chipset, etc.

I may even upgrade my main PC instead and relegate its components to the server.


Any advice appreciated.

Whats happenend to the forums?

After splitting up with overclock.co.uk, we lost purpose. Now the forum is only living off Mupet's Good Will (or whatever his server is called).

TT, tbh I'm a bit out of touch myself but if you were to upgrade your main PC I think you need to choose between Intel i5 or Intel i7. I don't know what the performance difference actually is, but they are different sockets, last I checked i7 was still way too expensive. Anandtech, etc are your best sources for info, but you are right, DDR3 RAM now. Not sure what USB3 gets you (or if anything uses it, yet), but sata3 should be standard.

Yeah - I think it's gonna be i5 if I do go for it. i7 is out of my budget.

Bought a cheap PSU from Aria so that I can at least attempt to diagnose the problem first. Hopefully it'll arrive tomorrow...

the last time I had a look at all this stuff the i7 was really really overpriced. But I'm with rack, fairly out of touch in terms of hardware.

On a side note I was thinking about passing the forums on to someone who has the time to try and breath some more life into them as i've hardly been on here for months. Anyone know of anyone?

Mupet, don't really know anyone. I do know some people who would be able to keep it, but as they aren't involved ATM it's a bit of a stretch...