Motherboard Quandary

[SonicExplorer]

Hi Guys,

I have a bit of a dilemma and was hoping to get some advice from the forum. I need to rebuild a few XP DAW machines, which means the replacement motherboards are likely to be 5-10 years old to begin with. I'd like the machines to last another 10 years if possible, so I want to make a wise choice on boards.

Is there sound evidence WRT the polymer vs. electrolytic cap argument such that I should be targeting only boards that have primarily polymer caps and claim high MTBF rates? For example, one group of Intel series boards I am looking at (DG41) offers a nearly identical board from each class. One claims 107,000 hours MBTF the other 270,000 MTBF. Does that actually assure anything in the real world or are electrolytic just as prone to potentially survive over a 15-20 year period?

Anything else I should be watching for, or to avoid, WRT board selection as it pertains to life span?

Thanks for any help in making a more informed decision.

Sonic

(PS. I understand XP is old but it works for what I need and I have a ton of complex software with a much time and money already invested. So buying new systems with a current OS and new software is not a viable solution)

[Agent24]

Re: Motherboard Quandary

Polymer will last longer, supposedly, so they would be the logical choice.

Make sure you use decent power supplies too, otherwise there's no point getting the best motherboard.

Get boards made by decent companies in general too, avoid the awful ones like ECS. If your boards are made by Intel then you should be fine...

[stj]

Re: Motherboard Quandary

make sure you can get xp drivers for the chipset before you buy.
what is the critical software?

[momaka]

Re: Motherboard Quandary

The rest of the build quality on the board matters a lot more than the caps. The caps can be replaced easily. A BGA chipset, on the other hand, is not so easy to replace.

For example, avoid motherboards with nVidia nForce 5 or newer chipsets. Even nForce 4 is borderline playing with fire. The most reliable chipsets are Intel ones. For XP, I would go with i965 or DG31/33/41/45.

Want to make the board last even longer? Then make sure the chipset runs cool. Add a fan to blow cool air on it, if necessary.

Finally, make sure you are NOT using a stock Intel heatsink with push-pins, because they warp the board like crazy and break the socket BGA over time. Use an aftermarket cooler with a backplate and tighten the screws on the heatsink only enough to hold it in place. Anything more may warp the board again, because even some aftermarket coolers are not so well designed.