Micro ATX - mATX - life expectancies

[wdb1966]

I have two Intel DG45ID boards and a SG45H7 XPC (all G45 chipsets) with quad cores, etc...vintage 775 setups still running daily.
I plan to be replacing these soon, so I’m hoping my new builds will do as well.

 

[Noid]

Over 3 days of w10 pro upgrade failures under my belt ... but,
This box is now w10.

4 attempts to get the migration tool to work ended with
... paraphrase ... " we can not make this tool work on your system "

( If you run the tool as administrator then close it with the X - it will rollback and leave a error message. ( and leave a huge backup of the OS on your partition) Let me say that there is ALOT of fixes listed for errors encountered. But, if the windows update is still working, and this tool is failing ( stuck at 0% )
You will need to do as I did next.

Unable to get an ISO left me searching for a resolution.
Googled info that says to change the web page emulation to iPAD, and refresh the migration tool page allows a download option for an ISO ( 5gb ).
The ISO is too large for standard DVD ( 4.7gb ) and no blue ray on this box.
So, unpacked the ISO and ran the SETUP as administrator.

( WARNING - the ISO is time limited to 24 hours )

Series of MS error messages I logged for you enjoyment during ISO deployment.

0x8000FFFF-0x90019 --- not enough disk space.
Deleted all the games ... ( use my new box now )

0x80070070-0x2000C --- still not enough disk space.
Deleted all the video/photo/office editing programs --- ( nothing but bones left now )

0x80070011-0x2000D --- profiles on separate drive -- no go
So, this was the killer. Long ago ... I moved my user profiles off the system disk.
Upgrades never failed, until now. ( and warnings about this problem were not seen by me at this time - maybe they posted this later ) Needless to say, I spent ALOT of time on this. ( failing and restoring over and over ) Eventually, I gave up, I could only get the administrator account. ( I had to delete the others - also reclaiming space ) There are only a few topics out there to resolve this problem. - how to - moving user profiles -

Thanks MS - I love u.

BTW, I still think I saved time doing this ... rather than re-installing W7 and rebooting 200 times with updates. ( with failures ) And, then trying to upgrade to w10.

In all .. I can say ... GHOST imaging was my savior.
( although ,,, It does not work on my x570 box -- and I gave up with tek support and throwing DVDs into the trash )

 

[Charlie98]

Odd. All my builds have been mATX, I've never had a board failure in 9 years. I just took my oldest mATX Z68 board out of service, but I'm fixing to swap it into my HTPC for the equally reliable B75 board that's been in service 7 years. My game rig is running an mATX board, OC'ed and all... and has never hiccuped once, and I bought it used.

 

[Noid]

Odd. All my builds have been mATX, I've never had a board failure in 9 years. I just took my oldest mATX Z68 board out of service, but I'm fixing to swap it into my HTPC for the equally reliable B75 board that's been in service 7 years. My game rig is running an mATX board, OC'ed and all... and has never hiccuped once, and I bought it used.

The APC UPS fixed that.
This ASUS is still a champ. ( and the other board were also )
Pity, I didn't get smart earlier.
ComEd is my supplier, and I still have 8 - 10 transformer explosions a year.
I just recently replace the battery backup thru amazon. ( cheap )

 

[Charlie98]

and I still have 8 - 10 transformer explosions a year.

Jeepers!

 

[Noid]

Not dead yet ... lots of life events since I last powered up this box ... ( about 3 years now )
two years ago I installed a 750w Antec and 2 SSD's but never re-tested it.

Two days ago, I cleared the CMOS and booted her up. Then spent over 6 hours upgrading W10 1909 to 22H2. I installed a RTX 2060 after that ( I know,,, it's overkill ) but I'm no longer using onboard video.

My sweet overclock is gone. But, it appears I'm solid at 200fsb and 2000 HT at default voltages. ( just finished memtest v4 with 2 passes ~ 8hrs , and now running p95 )

I guess the combination of these changes has dropped my OC.
This UPS is also getting old also, but it still saves the life of my network and home theater.
( best money spent = UPS )

Now, I need to convert from CSM to UEFI ( MBR to GPT ) --- something I'm not looking forward to .... ( I can't remember if I gave up this process the last time I tried - and just did a new install )

happy mATX 'n

 

[Torn Mind]

You got roasted by Asrock, that's what.

Heck, almost EVERY computer I have is micro ATX and they work fine, even some lame hand-me-down ECS pentium 4.

 

[Hulk]

I have had good experiences with Asus mATX boards.

 

[Shmee]

I have a Gigabyte mATX B350 board that has been good. Got it with a Ryzen 1700 at launch, and it has improved over time with BIOS updates and upgrades. Now has a 5900X in it.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Great thread...ahh, the memories!
And it's nice to see updates from the OP over the years - including the realization that the troubles were all electrical-related!

By now, it should be clear to anyone who comes across this thread that the life expectancy of most boards ought to comfortably surpass their effective usefulness.

I have a P4 machine, built back in 2004 and still running XP, on an Asus P4P800 board. Normally, it's been stored safely, but I just had to turn it on again last week, to install and hack a piece of software that refused to work with Windows 10. It takes about 5 minutes from the moment I press the power button until Windows becomes fully usable, and it looks like one of the HDDs had its MBR corrupted (yay!). But it's still working.

But the absolute oldest computer in my house that still gets occasional usage is a Toshiba 420CDT that is now a ZX Spectrum emulator
I think it's the same model Mitnick used to lug around when he was a fugitive...

 

[Vinny N]

Funny to see this thread, I've been obsessed lately with an MicroATX case, the SGPC K59, only 8L but can fit some dedicated GPUs and of course accommodate mATX boards with 4 memory slots. Currently houses a B550/5700G build that will become a Z790/12700K build.

The oldest mATX board I still fire up occasionally is an Intel DG43GT with a Xeon X3360. The motherboard survived my misguided attempts to replace bulging capacitors (trying to address low voltage readings in the bios/sensors), though it was always stable anyways. The readings never changed even with the new capacitors. I even severed a trace going to a DIMM channel on the back but fixed it with a bodge wire.

I bought a second K59 thinking I would do the Z790 build there but it can always house the DG43GT for posterity

 

[Noid]

SGPC K59

Amazon has a version with a leather strap with buckle handle. ( looks like a belt )

 

[Noid]

my old overclock banner from CPU-Z on that old mATX

 

[Vinny N]

Amazon has a version with a leather strap with buckle handle. ( looks like a belt )

That's the one, there's also a plastic orange handle included, both are optional to use (so is the clear plastic side that can be used instead of the metal one). I got my first unit from aliexpress earlier this year with a riser cable, and the second from Amazon (doesn't include the riser). I'm not sure if they're really discontinuing the model but that incentivized me to pick the second one up just in case.