Motherboards Alternative to a ASUS P5QL-CM?

Our HTPC was the victim of a power cut yesterday and is now dead. I've replaced the PSU from the one in my working desktop machine, which leads me to believe the motherboard must be shot. I've fully unplugged everything from the Mobo but the behavior is still not right.

Essentially when I power the PC on, the CPU fan spins for five seconds, goes off for three, then comes back on - but never does the machine begin to POST. This was why I thought it the motherboard but clearly not.

Anyway, as a result I need to get a replacement motherboard. I currently have a ASUS P5QL-CM with 4GB DDR2 RAM with a PCI sound card and tv tuner. I also have a PCI express Satellite tuner and a couple of HDD's plugged in via SATA. The case is a HTPC case which takes a normal ATX size motherboard or smaller.

Can anyone recommend a suitable and cost effective alternative?

Thanks

 

As it's a socket 775 board, your going to have more choice looking at used boards rather than the extremely few new boards that are still being made.

I've had a good scour on ebay and found this Asus P5B Deluxe which was quite a high end board in its day but it doesn't have an onboard GPU. You should still have enough slots free after installing a discreet GPU though.

Problem with most of the motherboards on ebay is that they're OEM boards from Packard Bell, Acer e.t.c PCs so they're likely to have locked down BIOSes and non standard headers for the front panel switches and USBs e.t.c. Some are easy to spot as they'll have weird layouts and whatnot but some sellers don't mention where they've come from.

 

Thanks for that, most useful. Whats the difference between G41 and G43 then?

 

G43 has a newer southbridge in the shape of a ICH10 vs the ICH7 on the G41. You can compare the differences here.

 

Thanks for that. Most useful. Would something like this just swap in directly in its place or is it not compatible?

Thanks again

 

Worth a try. At worst, you'll have to re-install Windows but if I'm honest, I'd always recommend re-installing Windows after a motherboard change but if it boots ok, then its up to you really.

 

Yeah, I'd reinstall windows (I've had that problem in the past, even switching model-for-model). I was thinking more around the hardware compatibility.

Thanks again for all the help!

 

Now that you mention compatibility, the P5G41T-M LX uses DDR3 RAM so you'd have to buy some new RAM. Sorry, I should have looked closer at the spec.

 

I have a useless P5Q Pro which I could sell, but it doesn't have an onboard GPU, and shipping would be very costly.

So, err, this reply was probably a bit useless too.