Motherboard help

[Blondie357]

First off I am new here so I apologize if I posted this in the wrong spot..

I am a casual pc tech (I know some stuff but not a genius lol). I am working on a person's computer that I suspect needs a new motherboard. Rather then get into specifics about what's wrong with it (as I have spent over a week trying to figure it out)... I am just going to quote her a new motherboard price. The computer is an HP Pavilion p6214y and here are the specs from the HP page:

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  Motherboard description
  
  
  • Manufacturer's motherboard name: Pegatron M2N78-LA
  • HP/Compaq name: Violet-GL8E
  
  Form Factor
  
  
  • Micro-ATX: 24.4 cm (9.6 inches) x 24.4 cm (9.6 inches)
  
  Chipset
  
  
  • NVIDIA GeForce 9100
  
  Front-side bus speed
  
  
  • 5200MT/s (5.2 GT/s)
  
  Processor upgrade information
  
  
  Socket type: AM2
  TDP:
  Motherboard supports the following processor upgrades:
  • AMD Athlon X2 (Bt)
  • AMD Athlon 64 X2 up to 6000+ (W)
  • AMD Phenom Triple-Core up to 8xxx (AM2+) (Toliman)
  • AMD Phenom Quad-Core 9xxx series (AM2+) up to 9850 (Agena)
  
  Memory upgrade information
  
  
  • Dual channel memory architecture
  • Four DDR2 SO-DIMM (240-pin) sockets
  • Supported DIMM types:
    • PC2-6400 (800 MHz)
    • PC2-5300 (667 MHz)
      
  • Non-ECC memory only, unbuffered
  • Supports 4GB DDR2 DIMMs
  • Supports up to 16 GB on 64-bit PCs
  • Supports up to 4 GB* on 32-bit PCs
    • 32 bit PCs cannot address a full 4.0 GB of memory.
      
      
      My question is simply what other motherboard(s) could I buy instead of the same one? Hoping for the cheapest route here...
      
      Thanks,
      Carrie
  
  
  
  
  

[killjoyjim]

WELCOME TO PURE OC.

[Drdeath]

You don't have many choices as the platform is quite old and she needs onboard graphics.

[Drdeath]

here, this will work:

Newegg.com - ASRock A785GM-LE AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

You will have to pick up a cheap set of DDR3 for this.

[killjoyjim]

Listen to Doc. He knows what he is talking about. He is the mobo guru.

[General]

buy a low end motherboard and CPU like i did for my brother sense hes gonna use it for work all he needed is a motherboard and CPU to be compatible with his ddr2 so i got a ASUS AM2+ and Athlon2 X2 fits all in the Emachine mATX

[General]

Nice 1

here, this will work:

Newegg.com - ASRock A785GM-LE AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

[Blondie357]

She already has 8 gigs of RAM.. are you saying I would have to buy new RAM? And the graphics arent a problem.. I have several video cards laying around.

that link just takes me to the main newegg page

apparently so.. she has 4 sticks of 2GB RAM.. is there another motherboard out there that would accommodate that many?

[Drdeath]

The board is DD3. If you put a graphics card in, you will need a PSU. The OEM PSU will not be good enough. Trying to find a DDR2 board will be next to impossible.

[Blondie357]

ugh. Ok thanks again so far. I guess my goal is to get as cheap a replacement motherboard as possible without having to buy other stuff to go with it. Is there one that will support my current processor and RAM? If I have to upgrade the power supply what am I looking at price wise?

She said she thought she paid about 8 or 900 bucks at best buy for this (which is out of warranty now of course) so I hate to tell her shes screwed and I hate to tell her to fork over a ton more money just to fix it.

[Solara2xb]

I may have a Asus MicroATX board laying around that is AMD, I know its DDR2, but don't remember how many Dimms there are. I will have to dig it up. It was used in my file server a while back, but I upgraded that and the board has been sitting, but it was in perfect working condition when I pulled it. I can even test it to make sure it still working, If I can find it Ill sell it for $50 shipped, I think it was the M4 - 700 series Mobo (can't remember exact model). It also has onboard video.

Otherwise, like DrD. said, its hard to find boards now a day that are DDR unless you buy used on eBay or something. However Ram is so cheap now a days, even if you buy a newer board and ram it won't cost more then $100 in hardware.