Will Northwood cpu run on MB designed for Prescot?

[varuna]

I think my motherboard is bad and I need to get up and running asap. I currently have an MSI SIS 655 chipset MB with a 2.4Ghz socket 478 Northwood. Can I just buy any socket 478 board?

If the board says Ultra DMA, will that work with my IDE HD and DVD drives?

Will I need to get some thermal paste or can I just leave what's on there? (Do I even have to take the fan and heatsink off first, or can I move the whole unit onto the new board?)

I've replaced hard drives, power supplies, ram, and whole motherboards that already had the cpu installed, but I have never moved a cpu.

Any suggestions on a motherboard $80-$120?

Thanks much,
Joseph

[saphalline]

Welcome to the PC Guide Forums!! :D

Woah, lots of questions! Ok...

Yep, you can buy just about any mPGA 478 mobo for your Northwood. The more recent chipsets are backwards compatible with all previous core revisions, so no problems there. I would suggest you replace that SiS chipset with a good one! :p How about Intel's i865PE? We'll get to that later...

Yep, Ultra DMA = UDMA = any IDE connection. This is backwards compatible, too. Computers can be complicated but some things are downright simplistic! You just have to figure out what you need to think about and what you don't! ;)

Moving a CPU requires you to dismantle the whole darn thing! Sorry, but those are the facts. You will need new thermal grease for doing that, and you'll also need to remove the old stuff on there. For a quickie tutorial on how to do that, look at post #15 here (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=38674). There are also other more complete tutorials here on the forums for CPU installations & reinstallations. Just do a search.

My mobo suggestion for you: MSI 865PE Neo3-F (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813130481) for $77, including shipping. Intel's line of chipsets is two generations beyond this, so these older mobo's are really cheap! :cool: