Well, my old Athlon more or less forced my hand with regular freezes that
seemed to be Audio or USB related. After 2.5 years my onboard LAN (ECS
Mobo), case fan and power supply have all failed. A reformat failed to solve
any of the problems.
The local guy here suggested salvaging the existing system and parts first.
I just installed an MSI KM2M combo which allows me to use my existing 512
SDRAM or switch to DDR later. (He suggested I wouldn't see any real speed
advantage). Chip is Athlon XP-A currently running at 1533 MHz. The onboard
sound includes a 6.1 option which I may use later when I build my new
machine. I currently use my older AMD 500 machine in the living room to
store MP3s for my Rube Goldberg entertainment center.
Installation was fairly simple except for the usual poor English in the Mobo
manual- a quick call to the dealer solved the problem.
Repairing the XP pro  install was the worst part. After a successful
re-install/repair, it asked for a password, and my password wasn't
recognized, nor was the password for the other user. Oddly, I could get into
recovery console with a blank password. At this point I reformatted.
All is well now. The onboard LAN and sound work well. I booted using the
onboard video, then installed and updated my GeForce 4 64MB video card,
which was recognized and used without having to disable the onboard video.
I can't say I see any real performance boost thus far, but the freezes have
stopped.
Thanks to all who replied.
****************************************************************************


I'm looking for recommendations for motherboard, chip and vendors. I
suspect
> I want SATA, a fast Graphics card, and Decent Sound, as well as Ethernet,
> front USB, firewire and reliability.

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