MoBo Replaced under Intel exchange Program.

[Mychael]

When I purchased my Gigabyte socket 1155 I was aware of the issue with the Intel capacitor.
Replacements are in now so I took out the board and returned it to my supplier and got a brand new board (no box).
It's now a GA-H67A-UD3H-B3 the B3 part being the new model designator.
Otherwise the same specs/form factor.
Re-fitting was easy as all mounts were the same, first boot-up took a while and things like clock and BIOS needed re-setting.
Win 7 loaded fine first go but told me it only had 3 days remaining to activate but it activated fine with no problems.
XP Pro had a some driver issues but did not ask for reactivation even though it's an OEM version.

Best bit is I have a new full time warrenty from date of exchange not original purchase date so I've got back about 3 months of warrenty.

Still dual booting 7/XP about 60/40 and will continue to do so. Basically whatever I boot into on the day I remain in but 7 gives me the faster boot but otherwise for what I do much of a muchness, I'll retain XP until it can no longer run on the hardware of the time.

Both O/s's running very stable now.

 

[yodap]

Yes, that's a very nice system my friend! Best of luck with it.

 

[catilley1092]

I remember when you were having this issue, Mychael. Hopefully, this MOBO will serve you better.

BTW, I'm back to dual booting, only I'm using XP Pro SP2 64 bit (no SP3 in that version). It took me a day & a half to set it up (the XP side), drivers are a PITA to obtain with that version. I couldn't even find the correct drivers (INF) to insert into the OS disc with nLite, so I found a BIOS setting (IDE) that allowed me to install w/o the drivers. I've been looking for a way to accomplish this for months, only a couple of days ago I found this out. But not all computers has this option.

However, I'm now going to have to start over with 7, from what I've read, a install created with the ACHI setting won't run in IDE mode. However, it's no big deal, as I don't have eSATA, RAID or a SSD, so there's really no performance hit by running in this mode.

One thing that I have noticed, is that in IDE mode, it boots faster, so far. I'll be able to better say once I have 7 reinstalled on here (my desktop).

Hopefully your new board will last a lot longer than the last. That i5 is nice too, it's a good balanced CPU, mine has plenty of power to do what I need, yet it's not a energy hog.

Cat

 

[Mychael]

Hi Cat, yeah I personally think dual booting is the way to go as no single O/S can be all things to all users. If I was twice as motivated and 4 times smarter I'd have a go at setting up an XP/7/Linux/Apple multiboot monster. I've no doubt it could be done but you'd need to be very good and independent as no one would want to help with any issues.
I'm still running 32bit systems. One day 64 bit but I've not got the need right now and I'm still not sure how much it's really taken off or how much is out there for it.

 

[catilley1092]

For the most part, 32 bit apps run on 64 bit computers. Some exceptions are AV's, where you have the choice of 32 or 64 bit with some, but not all. ESET gives that choice.

I've tried 64 bit browsers, like the one that Mozilla has, but still there's the lack of a proper Flash of it. But one good thing, when I used the 64 bit browser, no ads.

As far as the 64 bit OS goes, XP Pro 64 bit is in a class of it's own. It has to be activated, but there's no validation checker like the 32 bit version. Only Windows Media Player requires validation. There's also no MSE, Windows Defender, or Windows Live Options available. And drivers are hard to find.

Still, this does show a point. 64 bit Windows has been with us for quite some time, since Windows Server 2003 x64 at least. Yet to some, 64 bit is some new, weird, strange, unknown object that just fell out of the sky yesterday, when in fact it's been with us since April, 2005.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Professional_x64_Edition

This article goes on to state that XP Pro 64 bit is a Win Server 2003 edition, being that they're both built on the same base.

The next version of Windows will probably be primarily 64 bit, with a possible 128 bit option in the future. This has been in the works for almost a couple of years now.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/ne...g-128-bit-versions-of-windows-8-windows-9.ars

We'll soon see, as there will probably be a beta of Windows 8 soon, within the next few months. The OEM's are already working with the build.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft...icture-is-worth-a-thousand-build-numbers/8747

Hopefully, we'll get our hands on the beta soon.

Cat