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The following advice is based on many years of experience. It is provided as a free service to our customers and visitors. However, Sentry Digital is not responsible for any damage as a result of following any of this advice. You are welcome to distribute these tips free to your friends and associates as long as it's not for commercial purposes.

Motherboard Installation Guide  Motherboard Troubleshooting Tips

Make sure your motherboard is physically and electrically compatible with your processor. The two main factors to consider are: the processor form factor and bus speed support. Desktop processors come in the following form factors: Socket 7 - for Pentium, Cyrix, and AMD K5/K6 series; Socket 370 - for Pentium III (Coppermine, Tualatin), Celeron/II; Socket A/462 - for AMD Thunderbird, Athlon, Duron, XP, MP; Socket 423 - for older Pentium 4 CPUs under 2.0GHz; Socket 478 - for the current generation of Pentium 4 processors and Celeron Processors; Slot 1 - For older Pentium II, Pentium III (under 1 GHz), and some Celeron processors; and Slot A - For original classic Athlon processors and some older Thunderbird processors (under 1GHz).

If you are building a new system we highly recommend going with a CPU and motherboard that is of current technology such as, the AMD Athlon XP or the Intel Pentium 4 (Socket 478), in order to maintain an upgrade path. Once you know what form factor you are going to use you must make sure that the motherboard you are going to use supports the bus speed of your processor or higher. For instance, if you were buying an Intel Pentium 4 processor with a 533MHz bus it doesn't make sense to buy a motherboard that only supports a max bus speed of 400MHz. If you were to try to do so then the processor would either not work at all in the motherboard or at the very least it would not work at the right speed. Likewise, you wouldn't want to purchase an Athlon XP processor with a 333MHz bus and run it on a motherboard that only supports a 266MHz bus. For the best upgrade path go with a motherboard that supports the fastest bus speed of the processor form factor you want to use. (533MHz for Socket 478, 333MHz/400MHz for Socket A, and 133MHz for Socket 370).


The reliability of a motherboard as measured by return rates is roughly correlated with the price you pay. As a rule of thumb: the higher the price the better the reliability. We suspect that manufacturers who have higher profit margins do more extensive testing and quality control before shipping. Therefore, we suggest that you buy a motherboard of the highest price your budget can afford. It is not easy to replace a motherboard, even for professional technicians. Besides, if the motherboard is bad, your whole system is likely to be in jeopardy.


On the other hand, motherboards do not have any moving, consumable parts. If they go bad, most often they do so within a month. If you can take your chances and are willing to learn how to replace a motherboard, the less expensive motherboards are just fine for budget minded buyers. To help eliminate the chance of failure we highly recommend using our testing service.


Buy current but proven technology. Purchasing yesterday's technology can mean greater difficulty or limitation in future upgrades. For example, it doesn't make sense to buy a Socket 423 motherboard anymore since Intel stopped making Socket 423 processors when they reached the 2.0GHz speed. Socket 423 processors are now starting to become rare and their performance is lacking compared to newer Socket 478 versions. Similarly, it doesn't make sense to buy a motherboard that doesn't support ATA100 or ATA133. Most hard drives are ATA100 or ATA133 now and they can run significantly faster then older ATA66 or ATA33 drives.


WARNING: Changing a motherboard from one type to another with different BIOS/chipset usually requires reinstallation of your operating system, particularly under Windows 9x. This happens because Windows 9x is designed to be "smart" enough to recognize some hardware; however, once it is set you can't change it easily. This can be an upgrade nightmare if you are not prepared for it. Be prepared to do a full operating system install/re-install when you change a motherboard!


Make sure your motherboard form factor (AT, ATX, micro ATX, flexATX, or Mini-ITX) matches that of your case. It is possible for an AT motherboard to fit inside an ATX case so long as the case power supply has an AT connector. It is very difficult if not impossible to fit an ATX motherboard in an AT case. A microATX or flexATX motherboard will fit in a regular ATX case. But a regular ATX motherboard will NOT fit in a microATX/flexATX case. By all means, buy a new case with your new motherboard if any doubt exists. They come with a brand-new power supply and warranty.


ATX is currently the industry standard form factor for motherboards and cases. MicroATX and FlexATX are the small and smaller "brothers" of ATX, allowing ever-smaller systems. MiniITX is a new smaller format primarily used and marketed by VIA. It is very small compared to other formats, but finding appropriate cases and power supplies may be difficult at this time.


Regarding chipsets: The chipset is what makes your motherboard work. Different chipsets support different things, and have different integrated features. Chipset companies are usually very competitive, especially third party ones such as nVIDIA, VIA and SiS. In general the newer a chipset is for a given series of processors, the better the performance will be. However, the first few motherboards with a brand new chipset are more likely to have problems then motherboards produced later on. Often these sorts of problems are cleared up through patches, bios updates, and other fixes but it can be disappointing to get the latest, hottest new motherboard on the market and then find out it doesn't like part x due to a bios problem after you install the board. The saying goes: "If you stay on the bleeding edge, then you are likely to bleed." The best thing to do is to research the motherboard you are interested in at the manufacturer's website and at popular review websites. It usually isn't a good sign if the motherboard manufacturer does not have at least one bios update available. Also, motherboard manufacturers learn from the mistakes of their rivals and from their own previous mistakes. The third or fourth motherboard that hits the market using a new chipset is less likely to have problems than the first one to hit the market.


To integrate or not to integrate? Integration is a current industry trend. It saves cost and space to integrate as many components onto the motherboard as possible such as video, audio, modem, and network card. Integrated motherboards tend to have limitations on future upgradeability and expandability. It is not recommended for power users. It may however serve first-time and budget-minded buyers and as a second machine as well. The reliability of integrated motherboards has improved significantly in recent years, although the chances for something to go wrong on an integrated motherboard is still higher than a non-integrated one. Integrated motherboards using nVIDIA chipsets currently offer the best performance in this segment.


Convenience factor: If you are familiar with or have a large installation base with one brand/model of motherboard, staying with the same brand may help you minimize the number of manuals to keep. If nothing else, you want to keep your motherboard manual for as long as possible in the event of a problem with the manufacturer. Motherboard manufactures now usually offer downloadable versions of their manuals online in order to assist their customers and to provide a way to correct errata. However, some manufacturers have been known to change the features on a motherboard without changing motherboard model. This creates problems later on if you have to download a manual as the motherboard you have may be different than the revised one that manual is meant for.


If volume matters to you, guess who is by far the number one motherboard manufacturer in sales? Intel. Their motherboards are not often seen in retail channels, partially because of their high prices. Their volume comes mainly from OEM channels! Asus and AOpen/Acer are in second and third places.

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