Hello, I have a old PIONEX PC with a Biostar M5ALA v2.0 ATX motherboard which has been no end of problems from day it was new. It also has a quantum bigfoot 6GB hard drive and have 3 bigfoots die over the last couple years. I ordered a seagate 17.2 harddrive but it is to big for this board to "see". We have a new PC just to let you guys know who want to say junk it, LOL, I am kinda new to fixing/updating PCs and this thing has been great for learning with, plus we got it brand new for way to much money  So my question is I need some suggestions on mother boards to replace the biostar board with, I don't really need some new top of the line board, just something I might find at Ebay or computer shop that will fit and handle a 20 to 30 GB hard drive and a common CPU, It has a socket 7 AMD K6-2 / 500 now, To me it looks like socket 7 is not used much in newer boards, I don't know if this CPU is much good for newer games or not or possibly going to windows 2000 or even XP. I am just looking for sugestions as to what kind or model board to look for that will fit without to much problem. I just want something that will work and be stable which this M5ALA is not, its so touchy I hate to download anything because I don't know what it will do. Thanks, Tom72GSX.....I agree rebuilding a p/c is a great way to learn.... you should make a list of what you can use from you old machine.......
what kind of Ram does it have ( maybe you can reuse it)
As for the processor......if your into games .......I would consider getting a stronger processor.. I suppose the bottom line is how much do you want to spend .....and then go to eBay and have a ball. I just rebuilt a older P3
800    Slot 1  ........got a Asus board on eBay......put in a 40 gig HD , 768 Ram ( some I had ) and it runs great....in fact it outperforms a much newer AMD 1.7 .
Just TRY and select a M/B that will allow you to upgrade to a faster processor if you wish.

dl65  I found a Gatway MIDWAY P4 3.6 microATX 4000820 socket 478 intel i865 ATA 33/66/100/133/150 for BUY it now for $55.00 + shipping, I also think it had built in sound and video. would a bourd like this be a good one to update PC with and get rid of the dam M5ALA, I already have a seagate 17.2 ATA 66 hard drive I got for this one but board won't "see" it. 72GSX [Tom]Tom ....will that board take your existing processor ?


dl65  Hi, Nope, I have a socket 7 CPU now, The fastest CPU I have is a AMD K6-2/500. I would like to update to a better CPU also but I don't know if socket 478 is a good one to get or if that setup is getting outdated to. TomTom.....there are all kinds of motherboards and processors on eBay.......I would look at what parts you can reuse from your old machine ........
the CASE ........atx form I'd guess
the power supply
cd-rom or burner
floppy drive
your ram depending on what kind you have
any pci cards you have in your existing box
Hard drive
IDE cables

decide how fast a processor you'd like and then check eBay and I 'll bet you will find whatever your looking for..

Good luck

dl65  Everything there is ok, but I'd go with a different brand than MSI as for I dont trust their brand after many issues myself with their products as well as seen others with many issues with that brand. For video cards I like Gigabyte, ASUS, XFX, and others with trusted reliability and performance.This is a 10 year old entry that you responded to 

When I started reading the initial post with BigFoot drives I was like I use to have those and is someone finally putting a system to rest with them which is like 17 years old, and so i looked at the date of the original post. June 2004 which is around the time that I too retired an Acer Pentium 200Mhz with a 4.3GB BigFoot drive that fit a 5.25" space vs 3.5" and was running Windows 98SE, but originally Windows 95.

Please be more careful to reply to posts that are less that 2 or 3 WEEKS old vs 10 years old